ascended you shall ascend to him personally hereafter oh that you would ascend to him Spiritually in acts of Faith Love and desires daily Sursum Corda up with your hearts was the form used by the Ancient Church at the Sacrament How good were it if we could say with the Apostle Phil. 3.21 Our Conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for a Saviour An heart ascendant is the best evidence of your interest in Christs ascension Inference 2. Did Christ go to Heaven as a fore-runner What haste should we make to follow him He ran to Heaven he ran thither before us Did he run to glory and shall we linger Did he flee as an Eagle towards Heaven and we creep like snails Come Christians lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset you and run with patience the Race set before you looking unto Iesus Heb. 12.1 2. The Captain of our Salvation is entred within the gates of the new Ierusalem and calls to us out of Heaven to hasten to him proposing the greatest incouragements to them that are following after him saying he that overcomes shall sit with me in my Throne as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne Rev. 3.21 How tedious should it seem to us to live so long at a distance from our Lord Jesus our Life Inference 3. Did Christ ascend so triumphantly leading Captivity Captive How little reason then have believers to fear their conquered enemies Sin Satan and every enemy was in that day led away in triumph dragged at Christs Chariot wheels Brought after him as it were in Chains 'T is a lovely sight to see the necks of those Tyrants under the foot of our Ioshuah He made at that day an open shew of them Col. 2.15 Their strength is broken for ever In this he shewed himself more than a conqueror for he conquered and triumphed too Satan was then trod under his feet And he hath promised to tread him under our feet also and that shortly Rom. 16.20 Some power our enemies yet retain the Serpent may bruise our heel but Christ hath crusht his head Inference 4. Did Christ ascend so munificently shedding forth so many mercies upon his people Mercies of inestimable value reserved on purpose to adorn that day O then see that you abuse not those most pretious ascension gifts of Christ but value and improve them as the choicest mercies Now the Ascension gifts as I told you are either the Ordinances and Officers of the Church for he then gave them Pastors and Teachers or the Spirit that furnisht the Church with all its gift Beware you abuse not either of these First Abuse not the Ordinances and Officers of Christ. This is a sin that no Nation is plunged deeper into the guilt of it thâ—n this Nation And no Age more than this Surely God hath written to us the great things of his Law and we have accounted them small things We have been loose wanton sceptical professors for the most part that have had nice and coy stomachs that could not relish plain wholesom truths except so and so modified to our humors For this the Lord hath a Controversie with the Nation and by a sore Judgement he hath begun to rebuke this sin already And I doubt before he make an end plain truths will down with us and we shall bless God for them Secondly But in the next place see that you abuse not the Spirit whom Christ hath sent from Heaven at his ascension to supply his bodily absence among us and is the great pledge of his care for and tender love to his people Now take heed that you dont vex him by your disobedience Nor greive him by your unkindnesses Nor quench him by your sinful neglects of duty or abuse of light O deal kindly with the Spirit and obey his voice Comply with his designs and yield up your selves to his guidance and conduct Methinks to be intreated by the Love of the Spirit Rom. 15.30 Should be as great an Argument as to be intreated for Christs sake Now to perswade all the Saints to be tender of grieving the Spirit by sin let me urge a few Considerations proper to the point under hand And Consid. 1. First He was the first and principal mercy that Christ received for you at his first entrance into Heaven It was the first thing he asked of God when he came to Heaven So he speaks Ioh. 14.16 17. I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you No sooner had he set foot upon the place but the first thing the great thing that was upon his heart to ask the Father for us was that the Spirit might be forthwith dispatcht and sent down to his people So that the spirit is the first-born of mercies And deserves the first place in our hearts and esteems Consid. 2. Secondly The Spirit comes not in his own name to us though if so he deserves a dear welcome for his own sake and for the benefits we receive by him which are inestimable but he comes to us in the name and in the loves both of the Father and Son As one authorized and delegated by them Bringing his Credentials under both their hands and seals Ioh. 15.26 But when the Comforter is come whom I will send to you from the Father Mark I will send him from the Father and in Ioh. 14.26 The Father is said to send him in Christs name So that he is the messenger that comes from both these great and holy persons And if you have any Love for the God that made you any kindness for Christ that died for you shew it by your obedience to the Spirit that comes from them both and in both their names to us and who will be both offended and grieved if you grieve him O therefore give him an enterâ—ainment worthy of one that comes to you in the name of the Lord. In the Fathers name and in the Sons name Consid. 3. Thirdly But that is not the only consideration that should cause you to beware of grieving the Spirit because he is sent in the name of such great and dear persons to you but he deserves better entertainment than any of the Saints give him for his own sake and upon his own account and that upon a double score viz. Of his Nature and Office First On the account of his Nature for he is God Co-equal with the Father and Son in Nature and digniâ—y 2 Sam. 23.23 The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue the God of Israel said the Rock of Israel spake to me So that you see he is God The rock of Israel God omnipotent for he created all things Gen. 1.2 God omnipresent filling all things Psal. 139.7 God omniscient who knows your hearts Rom. 9.1 Beware of him therefore and grieve him not for in so doing you grieve God Secondly Upon
sins of the Elect he bare the sins of many and by the manner of his bearing it viz. meekly and forgivingly he made intercession for the transgressors this was his work 2. The Reward or fruit which is promised him for this work therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong wherein is a plain allusion to Conquerours in War for whom are reserved the richest garments and most honourable captives to follow the Conquerour as an addition to his magnificence and triumph these were wont to come after them in chains Isa. 45.14 see Iudg. 5.3 3. The Respect or Relation betwixt that work and this Triumph some will have this work to have no other relation to that glory then a meer antecedent to a consequent others give it the respect and relation of a meritorious cause to a reward 't is well observed by Dr. Featly that the Hebrew particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render therefore noting order it is not worth so much contention about it whether it be the order of causality or meer antecedency neither do I foresee any absurdity in calling Christs exaltation the reward and fruit of his humiliation however 't is plain whether one or other 't is that the Father here agrees and promises to give him if he will undertake the redemption of the elect by pouring out his soul unto death of all which this is the plain result DOCT. That the business of mans salvation was transacted upon Covenant-terms betwixt the Father and the Son from all Eternity I would not here be mistaken as though I were now to treat of the Covenant of Grace made in Christ betwixt God and us it is not the Covenant of Grace but of Redemption I am now to speak to which differs from the Covenant of grace both in regard of the foederates in this 't is God the Father and Jesus Christ that mutually Covenant in that it 's God and man they differ also in the preceptive part in this it is required of Christ that he should shed his blood in that it is required of us that we believe they also differ in their promises in this God promises to Christ a name above every name ample Dominion from Sea to Sea in that to us grace and glory so that these are two distinct Covenants The substance of this Covenant of Redemption is Dialogue-wise exprest to us in Esa. 49. where as Divines have well observed Christ begins at the first and second verse and shews his Commission telling his Father how he had both called and prepared him for the work of Redemption the Lord hath called me from the womb he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword and made me a polished shaft c. q. d. by reason of that super-abundant measure of the spirit of wisdom and power wherewith I am anointed and filled my Doctrine shall as a sword pierce the hearts of sinners yea like an arrow drawn to the head strike point blank into souls standing at a great distance from God and Godliness Having told God how ready and fit he was for his service will know of him what reward he shall have for his work for he resolves his blood shall not be sold at low and cheap rates hereupon vers 3. the Father offers him the elect of Israel for his reward biding Low at first as they that make bargains use to do and only offers him that small remnant still intending to bid higher but Christ will not be satisfied with these he values his blood higher than so therefore in vers 4. he is brought in complaining I have laboured in vain and spent my strength for nought q. d. this is but a small reward for so great sufferings as I must undergo my blood is much more worth than this comes to and will be sufficient to redeem all the elect dispersed among the Isles of the Gentiles as well as the lost sheep of the house of Israel hereupon the Father comes up higher and tells him he intends to reward him better than so and therefore vers 6. tells him it 's a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the Tribes of Jacob and to rest over the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou maist be my Salvation to the ends of the earth Thus is the Treaty carryed on betwixt them transacting it after the manner of men Now to open this great point we will here consider 1. The persons transacting one with another 2. The business transacted 3. The quality and manner of the transaction which is foederal 4. The articles to which they agree 5. How each person performs his engagement to the other And lastly the antiquity or eternity of this Covenant transaction First The persons transacting and dealing with each other in this Covenant and indeed they are great person◠God the Father and God the Son the former as a Creditor the latter as a surety the Father stands upon satisfaction the Son engages to give it if it be demanded why the Father and the Spirit might not as well have treated about our redemption as the Father and Son It is answered Christ is the natural Son of God and therefore fittest to make us the adopted Sons of God Christ also is the middle person in the Trinity and therefore fittest to be the Mediator or middle person betwixt us and God the Spirit hath another office assigned him even to apply as Christ's Vicegerent the redemption designed by the Father and purchased by the Son for us The business transacted betwixt them And that was the redemption and recovery of all Gods elect our eternal happiness lay now before them our dearest and everlasting concerns were now in their hands the elect though not yet in being are here considered as existent yea and as fallen miserable forlorn creatures how these may again be restored to happiness salvâ justitia dei without prejudice to the honour justice and truth of God this this is the business that lay before them For the manner or quality of the transaction it was foederal or of the nature of a Covenant it was by mutual engagements and stipulations each person undertaking to perform his part in order to our recovery We find each person undertaking for himself by solemn promise The Father promiseth that he will hold his hand and keep him Isa. 42.6 The Son promiseth he will obey his Fathers call to suffering and not be rebellious Isa. 50.5 and having promised each holds the other to his engagement The Father stands upon the satisfaction promised him and when the payment was making he will not abate him one farthing Rom. 8.32 God spared not his own Son i. e. he abated nothing of the full price he was to have at his hands for us And as the Father stood strictly upon the terms of the Covenant so did Christ also
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
Father As if Christ did not present our pleas and arguments as well as simple desires to God As if the choisest part of our prayers must be kept back because Christ presents our prayers to God No no Christs pleading is one thing ours another His and ours are not opposed but subordinated His pleading doth not destroy but makes ours successful God calls us to plead with him Isai. 1.18 come now let us reason together God as one observes reasoneth with us by his word and providences outwardly and by the motions of his Spirit inwardly but we reason with him by framing through the help of his Spirit certain holy arguments grounded upon allowed principles drawn from his nature name word or works And it is condemned as a very sinful defect in Professors that they did not plead the Churches cause with God Jer. 30.13 There is none to plead thy cause that thou maist be bound up What was Iacobs wrestling with the Angel but his holy pleading and importunity with God And how well it pleased God let the event speak As a Prince he prevailed and had power with God On which instance a Worthy thus glosseth Let God frown smite or wound Iacob is at a point a blessing he came for and a blessing he will have I will not let thee go saith he unless thou bless me His limbs his life might go but there is no going for Christ without a pawn without a blessing This is the man now what is his speed the Lord admires him and honours him to all generations What is thy name saith he q. d. I never met with such a man titles of honour are not worthy of thee Thou shalt be called not Iacob a shepherd with men but Iacob a Prince with God Nazianzen said of his sister Gorgonia that she was modestly impudent with God There was no putting her off with a denial The Lord on this account hath honoured his Saints with the title of his Recorders men fit to plead with him as that word mazkir signifies Isai. 62.6 Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence give him no rest it notes the office of him that recorded all the memorable matters of the King and used to suggest seasonable Items and Memorandums of things to be done By these holy pleadings the King is held in his Galleries as it is Cant. 7.5 I know we are not heard either for our much speaking or our excellent speaking 't is Christs pleading in Heaven that makes our pleading on earth available but yet surely when the spirit of the Lord shall suggest proper arguments in prayer and help the humble suppliant to press them home believingly and affectionately when he helps us to weep and plead to groan and plead God is greatly delighted in such prayers Thou saidst I will surely do the good Said Iacob Gen. 32.12 It 's thine own free promise I did not go on mine own head but thou bidst me go and encouragest me with this promise O this is taking with God When by the spirit of Adoption we can come to God crying Abba Father Father hear forgive pity and help me am I not thy Child thy Son or Daughter to whom may a Child be bold to go with whom may a Child have hope to speed if not with his Father Father hear me The Fathers of our flesh are full of bowels and pity their children and know how to give good things to them when they ask them when they ask bread or cloaths will they deny them And is not the Father of Spirits more full of bowels more full of pity Father hear me This is that kind of prayer which is melody in the ears of God Corollary 3. What an excellent pattern is here for all that have the charge and government of others committed to them whether Magistrates Ministers or Parents to teach them how to acquit themselves towards their relations when they come to die Look upon dying Jesus see how his care and love to his people flamed out when the time of his departure was at hand Surely as we are bound to remember our Relations every day and to lay up a stock of prayers for them in the time of our health so it becomes us to imitate Christ in our earnestness with God for them when we die Though we die our prayers die not with us They out-live us and those we leave behind us in the world may reap the benefit of them when we are turned to dust For my own part I must profess before the world that I have a high value for this mercy And do from the bottom of my heart bless the Lord who gave me a Religious and tender Father who often poured out his soul to God for me He was one that was inwardly acquainted with God and being full of bowels to his children often carried them before the Lord prayed and pleaded with God for them wept and made supplication for them This stock of prayers and blessings left by him before the Lord I cannot but esteem above the fairest inheritance on earth O it is no small mercy to have thousands of fervent prayers lying before the Lord filed up in Heaven for us And oh that we would all be faithful to this duty Surely our love especially to the souls of our Relations should not grow cold when our breath doth O that we would remember this duty in our lives and if God give opportunity and ability fully discharge it when we die considering as Christ did we shall be no more but they are in this world In the midst of a defiled tempting troublesom world It 's the last office of Love that ever we shall do for them After a little while we shall be no longer sensible how it is with them for as the Church speaks Isai. 63.16 Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel acknowledgeth us not what Temptations and troubles may befal them we do not know O imitate Christ your pattern Corollary 4. To Conclude Hence ye may see what an high esteem and pretious value Christ hath of Believers this was the treasure which he could not be quiet he could not die till he had secured it in a safe hand I come unto thee holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me Surely Believers are dear to Jesus Christ. And good reason for he hath paid dear for them Let his dying language this last farewel speak for him how he prized them The Lords portion is his people Jacob is the Lott of his inheritance Deut. 32.9 They are a peculiar treasure to him above all the people of the earth Exod. 19.5 What is much upon our hearts when we die is dear to us indeed O how pretious how dear should Jesus Christ be to us were we first and last upon his heart did he mind us did he pray for us did he so wrestle with God about us when the sorrows
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
not so then would the holy and divinely inspired Apostles be found false witnesses 1 Cor. 15.15 For they all with one mouth constantly and to the death affirmed it If Christ be not risen then are believers yet in their sins 1 Cor. 15.17 For our Justification is truly ascribed to the Resurrection of Christ Rom. 4.25 While Christ was dying and continued in the state of the dead the price of our Redemption was all that while but in paying the payment was compleated when he revived and rose again Therefore for Christ to have continued alwaies in the state of the dead had been never to have compleatly satisfiâ—d hence the whole force and weight of our Justification depends upon his Resurrection Nay had not Christ risen the dead had perished 1 Cor. 15.17 Even the dead who dyed in the Faith of Christ and of whose salvation there now remains no ground to doubt Moreover Had he not revived and risen from the dead how could all the Types that prefigured it have been satisfied Surely they must have stood as insignificant things in the Scriptures and so must all the predictions of his Resurrection by which it was so plainly foretold See Matth. 12.40 Luk. 24.46 Psal. 16.10 1 Cor. 15.4 To conclude had he not risen from the dead how could he have been install'd in that glory whereof he is now possessed in heaven and which was promised him before the world was upon the account of his death and sufferings For to this end Christ both dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14.9 And that in this state of dominion and glorious advancement he might powerfully apply the vertues and benefits of his blood to us which else had been as a pretious Cordial spilt upon the ground So then there remains no doubt at all of the certainty of Christs Resurrection it was so and upon all accounts it must needs be so for you see how great a weight the Scriptures hang upon this nail And blessed be God it 's a nail fastned in a sure place I need spend no more words to confirm it but rather choose to explain and open the nature and manner of his Resurrection which I shall do by shewing you four or five properties of it And the first is this First Christ rose from the dead with awful Majesty So you find it in Matth. 28.2 3 4. And behold there was a great Earthquake for the Angel ef the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sate upon it his countenance was like lightning and his rayment white as Snow and for fear of him the Keepers did shake and became as dead men Humane infirmity was not able to bear such heavenly Majesty as attended the business of that morning Nature â—ank under it This Earthquake was as one calls it Triumphale Signum A sign of Triumph or token of Victory given by Christ not only to the Keepers and the neighbouring City but to the whole world that he had overcome Death in its own dominions and like a conqueror lifted up his head above all his enemies So when the Lord fought from heaven for his people and gave them a glorious though but Temporal deliverance see how the Propheâ—ess drives on the triumph in that Rhetorical Song Iudg. 5.4 5. Alluding to the most awful appearance of God at the giving of the Law Lord when thou wentest out of Seir when thou marchedst out of the field of Edome the Earth trembled and the heavens droped the clouds also droped water The mountains melted before the Lord even that Sinai from before the lord God of Israel Our Lord Jesus went out of the Grave in like manner and marched out of that bloody field with a pomp and Majesty becoming so great a conqueror Secondly And to increase the splendor of that day and drive on the Triumph his Resurrection was attended with the Resurrection of many of the Saints who had slept in their Graves till then and then were awakned and raised to attend the Lord at his rising So you read Matth. 27 52 53. And the Graves were opened and many bodies of the Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after his Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many This wonder was designed both to adorn the Resurrection of Christ and to give a specimen or handsel of our Resurrection which also is to be in the vertue of his This indeed was the Resurrection of Saints and none but Saints the Resurrection of many Saints yet it was but a special Resurrection intended only to shew what God will one day do for all his Saints And for present to give Testimony of Christs Resurrection from the dead They were seen and known of many in the City who doubtless never thought to have seen them any more in this world To enquire curiously as some do who they were what discourse they had with those to whom they appeared and what became of them afterwards is a vain thing God hath cast a vail of silence and secresie upon these things that we might content our selves with the written Word and he that will not believe Moses and the Prophets neither will he believe though one arise from the dead as these Saints did Thirdly As Christ rose from the dead with those Saâ—ellites or attendants who accompanied him at his Resurrection so it was by the power of his own God-head that he quickned and raised himself and by the vertue of his Resurrection were they raised also who accompanied him It was not the Angel who rolled back the stone that revived him in the Sepulchre but he râ—sumed his own life so he tells us Ioh. 10.18 I lay down my life that I might take it again Hence in 1 Pet. 3.18 He is said to be put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit i. e. by the power of his God-head oâ— divine nature which is opposed there to flesh or his humane nature By the eternal Spirit he offered himself up to God when he dyed Heb. 9.14 i. e. by his own God-head not the third person in the Trinity for then it could not have been ascribed to him as his own act that he offer'd up himself And by the same spirit he was quickned again And therefore the Apostle well observes Rom. 1.4 That he was declared to be the Son of God with power by his Resurrection from the dead Now if he had been raised by the power of the Father or Spirit only and not by his own how could he be declared by his Resurrection to be the Son of God What more had appeared in him than in others For others are raised by the power of God if that were all So that in this respect also it was a marvellous Resurrection Never any did or shall rise as Christ rose by a self-quickning principle For though many dead Saints
with other Martyrs that were bound with Cords to Execution and he for his dignity was not bound he cryed give me my Chain too let me be a Knight of the same order Disgrace it self is honourable when 't is endured for the Lord of glory And surely there is as one phraseth it a little Paradise a young Heaven in sufferings for Christ. If there were nothing else in it but that they are endured on his account it would richly reward all we can endure for him but if we consider how exceeding kind Christ is to them that count it their glory to be abased for him that though he be alwaies kind to his people yet if we may so speak he overcometh himself in kindness when they suffer for him it should make men in Love with his reproaches Inference 5. If Christ sate not down to rest in Heaven till he had finished his work on earth then 't is in vain for us to think of rest till we have finished our work as Christ also did his How willing are we to find rest here To dream of that which Christ never found in this world nor any ever found before us O think not of resting till you have done working and done sinning Your life and your labours must end together Write saith the Spirit blessed are the dead that die in the Lord for they rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 Here you must have the Sweat and there the Sweet 'T is too much to have two Heavens Here you must be content to dwell in the Tents of Keder hereafter you shall be within the curtains of Solomon Heaven is the place of which it may be truly said That there the weary be at rest O think not of sitting down on this side Heaven There are four things will keep the Saints from sitting down on earth to rest viz. Grace Corruptions Devils and wicked men First Grace will not suffer you to rest here Its tendencies are beyond this world It will be looking and longing for the blessed hope A gratious person takes himself for a Pilgrim seeking a better Country and is alwaies suspicious of danger in every place and state It 's still beating up the sluggish heart with such language as that Mica 2.10 Arise depart this is not thy rest for it is polluted It s farther tendencies and continual Jealousies will keep you from sitting long still in this world Secondly Your Corruptions will keep you from rest here They will continually exercise your Spirits and keep you upon your watch Saints have their hands filled with work by their own hearts every day Sometimes to prevent sin and sometimes to lament it And allwaies to watch and fear to mortifie and kill it Sin will not long suffer you to be quiet Rom. 7.21 22 23 24. And if a bad heart will not break your rest here then Thirdly There is a busie Devil will do it He will find you work enough with his Temptations and suggestions and except you can sleep quietly in his arms as the wicked do there 's no rest to be expected Your adversary the Devil goeth about as a roaring Lyon seeking whom he may devour whom resist 1 Pet. 5.8 Fourthly Nor will his Servants and instruments let you be quiet on this side Heaven Their very name speaks their turbulent disposition My Soul saith the holy man is among Lyons and I lye even among them that are set on fire even the Sons of men whose teeth are Spears and Arrows Psal. 57.4 Well then be content to enter into your rest as Christ did into his He sweat then sate and so must you The FORTY SECOND SERMON ACT. X. XLII And he commanded us to Preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead CHrist enthroned in the highest glory in Heaven is there to abide for the effectual and successful government both of the World and of the Church untill the number given him by the Father before the World was and purchased by the blood of the Cross be gathered in and then cometh the Judgement of the great day which will perfectly separate the pretious from the vile put the redeemed in full possession of the purchase of his blood in Heaven and then shall he deliver up the Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all This last act of Christ namely his Judging the world is a special part of his Exaltation and honour bestowed upon him because he is the Son of man Joh. 5.27 In that day shall his glory as King and absolute Lord shine forth as the Sun when it shineth in its strength O what an honour will it be to the man Christ Jesus who stood arraigned and condemned at Pilates bar to sit upon the great white Throne surrounded with thousands and ten thousands of Angels Men and Devils waiting upon him to receive their final Sentence from his mouth In this will the glory of Christs Soveraignty and power be eminently and illustriously displayed before Angels and men And this is that great truth which He commanded to be Preached and testified to the people namely that it is he which is ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead Wherein we have four things to be distinctly considered viz. The Subject Object Fountain and Truth of this supream judiciary authority First The Subject of it Christ. It is he that iâ— ordained to be Iudge Judgement is the act of the whole undivided Trinity The Father and Spirit Judge as well as Christ in respect of authority and consent but it 's the act of Christ in respect of visible management and execution and so it 's his per proprietatem by propriety the Father having conferred it upon him as the Son of man but not his per appropriationem so as to exclude either the Father or Spirit from their authority for they Judge by him Secondly The Object of Christs Judiciary authority The quick and dead i. e. all that at his coming do live or ever had lived This is the Object personal All the men and women that ever sprang from Adam all the Apostate Spirits that fell from Heaven and are reserved in chains to the Judgement of this great day And in this personal object is included the real object viz. all the actions both secret and open that ever they did 2 Cor. 5.5 Rom. 2.16 Thirdly The Fountain of this delegated authority which is God the Father for he hath ordained Christ to be the Judge He is appointed sc. as the Son of man to this honourable office and work The word notes a firm establishment of Christ in that office by his Father He is now by right of redemption Lord and King He enacts Laws for government then he comes to Judge of mens obedience and disobedience to his Laws Fourthly And lastly here is the infallible Truth or unquestionable certainty of all this He
wanting the Credidit vixit ut Christianus as an eminent Divine speaks O let the Keepers of the Vineyards look to and keep their own Vineyard we have an Heaven to win or lose as well as others Thirdly Let us take heed that we with-hold not our knowledge of Christ in unrighteousness from the people O that our lips may disperse knowledge and feed many let us take heed of the Napkin remembring the day of account is at hand Remember I beseech you the Relations wherein you stand and the obligations resulting thence Remember the great Shepherd gave himself for and gave you to the flock your time your gifts are not yours but Gods Remember the pinching wants of souls who are perishing for want of Christ and if their tongues do not yet their necessities do bespeak us as they did Ioseph Gen. 47.15 wherefore should we dye in thy presence give us food that we may live and not dye even the Sea-monsters draw forth their breasts to their young ones and shall we be cruel cruel to souls did not Christ think it too much to sweat blood yea to dye for them and shall we think it much to watch study preach pray and do what we can for their salvation O let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ. Secondly To the people that sit under the Doctrine of Christ daily and have the light of his knowledge shining round about them First Take heed ye do not reject and despise this light this may be done two ways first When you despise the means of knowledge by slight and low esteems of it Surely if you thus reject knowledge God will reject you for it Hosea 4.6 it is a despising of the richest gift that ever Christ gave to the Church and however it be a contempt and slight that begins low and seems only to vent it self upon the weak parts inartificial discourses and untaking tones and gestures of the speakers yet believe it it 's a daring sin that flyes higher than you are aware Luk. 10.16 he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Secondly You despise the knowledge of Christ when you despise the directions and loving constraints of that knowledge when you refuse to be guided by your knowledge your light and your lusts contest and struggle within you Oh 't is sad when your lusts master your light you sin not as the Heathens sin who know not God but when you sin you must slight and put by the notices of your own Consciences and offer violence to your own convictions And what sad work will this make in your souls how soon will it lay your consciences waste Secondly Take heed that you rest not satisfied with that knowledge of Christ you have attained but grow on towards perfection it 's the pride and ignorance of many professors when they have got a few raw and indigested notions to swell with self-conceits of their excellent-attainments and it 's the sin even of the best of Saints when they see veritas in profundo how deep the knowledge of Christ lyes and what pains they must take to dig for it to throw by the Shovel of Duty and cry dig we cannot To your work Christians to your work let not your candle go out sequester your selves to this study look what intercourses and correspondencies are betwixt the two worlds what communion soever God and souls maintain it is in this way count all therefore but dross in comparison of that excellency which is in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The SECOND SERMON PROV VIII XXX Then was I by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him THese words are a part of that excellent commendation of wisdom by which in this Book Solomon intends two things first grace or holiness Prov. 4.7 wisdom is the principal thing secondly Iesus Christ the fountain of that grace and look as the former is renowned for its excellency Iob 28.14 15. so the latter in this context wherein the spirit of God describes the most blessed state of Jesus Christ the wisdom of the Father from those eternal delights he had with his Father before his assumption of our nature then was I by him c. that long aevum was wholly swallowed up and spent in unspeakable delights and pleasures which delights were two-fold 1. The Father and Son delighted one in another from which delights the Spirit is not here excluded without communicating that their joy to any other for no creature did then exist save in the mind of God ver 30. 2. They delighted in the salvation of men in the prospect of that work though not yet extant ver 31. my present business lyes in the former viz. the mutual delights of the Father and Son one with and in another the account whereof we have in the Text wherein consider The glorious condition of the non-incarnated Son of God described by the person with whom his fellowship was then was I by him or with him so with him as never was any in his very bosom Ioh. 1.18 the only begotten Son was in the bosom of the Father an expression of the greatest dearness and intimacy in the World as if he should say wrapt up in the very soul of his Father embosomed in God This fellowship is illustrated by a Metaphor wherein the Lord will stoop to our capacities as one brought up with him the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes rendred a cunning workman or curious Artist as in Cant. 7.1 which is the same word and indeed Christ shewed himself such an Artist in the Creation of the World for all things were made by him and without him there was nothing made that was made Joh. 1.3 but Montanus and others render it nutricius and so Christ is here compared to a delightful child sporting before its Father the Hebrew root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our translation renders rejoycing before him signifies to laugh play or rejoyce so that look as Parents delight to see their Children sporting before them so did the Father delight in beholding this Darling of his bosom This delight is farther amplified by the perpetuity and uninterruptedness thereof I was day by day his delights rejoycing always before him these delights of the Father and the Son one in another knew not a moments interruption or diminution thus did these great and glorious persons mutually let forth their fullest pleasure and delight each into the heart of other they lay as it were imbosomed one in another entertaining themselves with delights and pleasures ineffable and unconceivable hence we observe DOCT. That the condition and State of Iesus Christ before his incarnation was a state of highest and most unspeakable delight and pleasure in the enjoyment of his Father Iohn tells us he was in the bosom of his Father to lye in the bosom is the posture
Thâ—se Priests were made without an Oath but this with an Oath by him that said unto him the Lord Sware and will not repent thou art a Priest for ever Because his Sacrifice is vertually continued in his living for ever to make intercession As it is vers 24. Yea he call'd him to his Regal office he was set upon the highest throne of Authority by his Fathers commission as it is Matth. 28.18 All power in heaven and earth is given to me To all this was Christ Sealed and Authorized by his Father What doth the Fathers Sealing of Christ to this work and office imply There are divers things implyed in it As First The validity and efficacy of all his mediatory acts For by vertue of this his Sealing what ever he did was fully ratified And in this very thing lies much of a believers comfort and security For as much as all acts done without commission and authority how great or able so ever the person that doth them is yet are in themselves null and void But what is done by commission and authority is Authentick and most allowable among men Had Christ come from heaven and entred upon his Mediatory work without a due call our Faith had been stumbled at the very threshold but this greatly satisfies Secondly It imports the great obligation lying upon Jesus Christ to be faithful in the work he was Sealed to For the Father in this commission devolves a great trust upon him and relies upon him for his most faithful discharge thereof And indeed upon this very accompt Christ reckons himself specially obliged to pursue the Fathers design and end Ioh. 9.4 I must work the works of him that sent me And Joh. 5.30 I seek not my own will but the will of the Father which sent me Sâ—ill his â—ye is upon that Work and Will of his Father And he reckons himself under a necâ—ssity of punctual and precise obedience to it And as a faithful servant will have his own will swallowed up in the Fathers will Thirdly It imports Christs compleat qualification or instumental fitnâ—ss to serve the Fathers design and end in our recovery Had not God known him to be every way fit and qualified for the Work he would never have Sealed him a commission for it Mâ—n may but God will not Seal an unfit or incapable person for his work And indeed what ever is desirable in a servant was eminently found in Christ. For faithfulness none like him Moses indeed was faithful to a Pin but still as a Servant but Christ as a Son Heb. 3.2 He is the faithful and true witnâ—ss Rev. 1.5 For Zeal none like him The Zeal of Gods house did eat him up Ioh. 2.16 17. He was so intent upon his Fathers work that he forgat to eat bread counting his work his meat and drink Ioh. 4.32 Yea and love to his Father carryed him on through all his work and made him delight in the hardest piece of his service For he served him as a Son Heb 3.5 6. All that ever he did was done in love For wisdom none like him The Father knew him to be most wise and said of him before he was imploy'd Behold my Servant shall deal prudently Isa 52.13 To conclude for self-denial never any like him he sought not his own glory but the glory of him that sent him Ioh. 8.50 Had he not been thus faithful Zealous full of love prudent and self-denying he had never been imployed in this great affair Fourthly It implys Christs sole authority in the Church to appoint and enjoyn what he pleaseth And this is his peculiar prerogative For the Commission God Sealed him in the Text is a single not a joynt Commission he hath Sealed him and none beside him Indeed there were some that pretended a call and commission from God but all that were before him were Thieves and Robbers that came not in at the door as he did Ioh. 10.8 And he himself foretels that after him some should arise and labour to deceive the world with a feigned Commission and a counterfeit Seal Matth. 24.24 There shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect. But God never commissionated any besides him neither is there any other name under heaven Acts 4.12 Thus you see how the validity of his Acts his obligation to be faithful His compleat qualifications and sole Authority in the Church are imported in his Sealing Next Let us enquire how God the Father Sealed Jesus Christ to this work and we shall find that He was Sealed by four acts of the Father First By Solemn designation to this work He singled him out and set him apart to it and therefore the Prophet Isaiah cap. 42. vers 1. Calls him Gods Elect. And the Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 2.4 Chosen of God This word which we render Elect doth not only signifie one that in himself is eximious worthy and excellent but also one that is set apart and designed as Christ was for the work of mediation And so much is carryed in Ioh. 10.36 Where the Father is said to sanctifie him i e. to separate and devote him to this Service Secondly He was Sealed not only by Solemn designation but also by Supereminent and unparalell'd Sanctification He was annointed as well as appointed to it The Lord filled him with the spirit and that without measure to qualify him for this Service So Isa. 61.1 2 3. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath annointed me to Preach c. Yea the spirit of the Lord was not only upon him but he was full of the Spirit Luk. 4.1 And so full as never was any beside him For God annointed him with the oyl of gladness above his fellows Psal. 45.7 Believers are his fellows or copartners of this Spirit They have an annointing also but not as Christ had In him it dwelt in its fullness in them according to measure It was poured out on Christ our head abundantly and ran down to the hem of his garment God gave not the Spirit to him by measure Ioh. 3.34 God filled Christs humane nature to the utmost capacity with all fulness of the Spirit of knowledge wisdom love c. Beyond all Creatures for the plenary and more effectual administration of his mediatorship He was full extensively with all kinds of grace And full intensively with all degrees of grace It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col 1.19 As light in the Sun or water in a Fountain that he might not only fill all things as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.22 But that he might be prompt expedite and every way fit to discharge his own work which was the next and mediate end of it So that the holy oyl that was poured out upon the heads of Kings and Priests whereby they were consecrated to their offices
Gods choice and yours He chooses not men because they are holy but that they may be so You are to chuse them for so your delightful Companions that God hath chosen and made holy Let all your delights be in the Saints even them that excel in vertue Psal. 16.3 Fourthly God abhors and hates all unholiness do ye so also that you may be like your Father which is in Heaven And when the Spirit of holiness runs down thus upon you a sweeter evidence the World cannot give that Christ was sanctified for you Holy ones may confidently lay the hand of their Faith on the head of this great Sacrifice and say Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us The EIGHTH SERMON I TIM II.V. And one Mediator betwixt God and Men the man Christ Iesus GReat and long preparations bespeak the solemnity and greatness of the work for which they are designed A man that had but seen the heaps of Gold Silver and Brass which David amassed in his time for the building of the Temple might easily conclude before one Stone of it was laid that it would be a magnificent Structure But lo here is a design of God as far transcending that as the substance doth the shadow For indeed that glorious Temple was but the Type and Figure of Jesus Christ Ioh. 2.19.21 and a weak adumbration of that living spiritual Temple which he was to build cementing the lively Stones thereof together with his own blood 1 Pet. 2.5 6. that the great God might dwell and walk in it 2 Cor. 6.16 the preparations for that Temple were but of few years but the consultations and preparations for this were from Eternity Prov. 8.31 and as there were preparations for this work which Christ dispatcht in a few years before the world began so it will be matter of eternal admiration and praise when this world shall be dissolved What this astonishing glorious work is this Text will inform you as to the general nature of it It is the work of mediation betwixt God and Man managed by the sole hand of the man Christ Jesus In this Scripture for I shall not spend time to examine the words in their contexture you have a description of Iesus the Mediator and he is here described three ways viz. by his work or office a Mediator by the singularity of his mediation one Mediator And by the nature and quality of his Person imploy'd in this singular way of Mediation the man and lastly his name 's Iesus Christ. First he is described by the work or office he is imploy'd about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediator a middle Person So the word imports a fit indifferent and equal Person that comes between two Persons that be at variance to take up the difference and make Peace Such a middle equal indifferent Person is Christ. A days-man to lay his hand upon both to arbitrate and award justly and give God his due and that without ruine to poor man Secondly he is described by the singularity of his mediation One Mediator and but one though there be many Mediators of reconciliation among men and many Intercessors in a petitionary way betwixt God and Men yet but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one only Mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and Men and 't is as needless and impious to make more Mediators than one as to make more Gods than one There is one God and one Mediator betwixt God and Men. Thirdly he is described by the nature and quality of his Person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the man Christ Iesus This description of him by one nature and that the humane nature also wherein as you shall see anon the Lord especially consulted our encouragement and Comfort I say his being so described to us hath through the corruption of men been improved to the great dishonour of Jesus Christ both by the Arrians and Papists The former took occasion from hence to affirm that he was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a meer man The latter allow him to be the true God but on this weak ground affirm that he performed not the work of mediation as God but only a man Thus what the Spirit ordered for our comfort is wickedly retorted to Christs dishonour For I doubt not but he is described by his humane nature in this place not only because in this nature he paid that ransom which he speaks of in the words immediately following but especially for the drawing of Sinners to him seeing he is the man Christ Jesus One that cloathed himself in their own Flesh and to encourage the Faith of Believers that he tenderly resents all their wants and miseries and that they may safely trust him with all their concerns as one that will carefully mind them as his own and will be for them a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God Fourthly he is described by his names By his Appellative name Christ and his proper name Iesus The name Iesus notes his work about which he came and Christ the Offices to which he was anoynted and in the execution of which he is our Iesus In the name Iesus the whole Gospel is hid It is the light the food the medicine of the Soul as one speaks The note from hence is DOCT. That Iesus Christ is the true and only Mediator betwixt God and Men. Ye are come to Iesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Heb. 12.24 And for this cause he is the Mediator of the new Testament c. Heb. 9.14 I might shew you a whole vein of Scriptures running this way but to keep a profitable and clear method I shall shew you First what is the sence of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediator Secondly what it implys as it is applied to Christ. Thirdly how it appears that he is the true and only Mediator betwixt God and Men. Fourthly in what capacity he performed his Mediatory work First What is the sence and import of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediator and the true sence and importance of it is a middle person or one that interposes betwixt two Parties at variance to make peace betwixt them So that Satan is medium disjungens a medium of discord so Christ is medium conjungens a medium of Concord and Peace And he is such a middler both in respect of his person and office in respect of his person he is a middler that is one that hath the same nature both with God and us true God and true man and in respect of his office or work which is to interpose or transact the business of reconciliation between us and God The former some call his substantial the latter his evergitical or operative meditation though I rather conceive that which is call'd his substantial mediation is but the aptitude of his person to execute the mediatorial function And that it doth not constitute two kinds of mediation his being a middle Person
errour to debase it His most enviously observant hearers could find nothing to charge him He is the faithful and true witness Rev. 1.5 And he hath commanded his Ministers to conserve the simplicity and purity of the Gospel and not to blend and sophisticate it 2 Cor. 4.2 Seventhly and lastly He revealed the will of God perfectly and fully keeping back nothing needful to Salvation So he tells the Disciples Iob. 15.15 All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you He was faithful as a Son over his own house Heb. 3.6 Thus you have a brief account of what is implyed in this part of Christs Prophetical office and how he performed it Inference 1. If Jesus Christ who is now passed into the heavens be the great Prophet and Teacher of the Church hence we Justly infer the continual necessity of a standing Ministry in the Church For by his Ministers he now teacheth us and to that intent hath fixed them in the Church by a firm constitution there to remain to the end of the world Matth. 28. ult He teacheth men no more personally but Ministerially His Ministers supply the want of his personal presence 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray you in Christs stead These offices he gave the Church at his Ascention i. e. when he ceased to teach them any longer with his own lips And so set them in the Church that their succession shall never totally fail For so that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath set 1 Cor. 12.28 Plainly implyes They are set by a sure establishment a firm and unalterable constitution even as the times and seasons which the Father hath put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his own power It 's the same word And it 's well they are so firmly set and fixed there for how many adversaries in all ages have endeavoured to shake the very office it self Pretending that it 's needless to be taught by men and wresting such Scriptures as these to countenance their errour Ioel. 2.28 29. I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and Daughters shall Prophesie c. And Ier. 31.34 They shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them As to that of Ioel it is answered that if an Old Testament Prophesie may be understood according to a New Testament interpretation then that Prophesie doth no way oppose but confirm the Gospel Ministry How the Apostle understood the Prophet in that his Prophesie may be seen in Acts 2.16 When the Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost upon the Apostles And surely he must be a confident person indeed that thinks not an Apostle to be as good an Expositer of the Prophet as himself And for that in Ier. 31. we say First that if it conclude against ministerial teachings it must equally conclude against Christian Conferences Secondly We say that cannot be the sence of one Scripture which contradicts the same sence of other Scriptures But so would this Eph. 4.11 12. 1 Cor. 12.28 And thirdly We say the sence of that Text is not negative but comparative Not that they shall have no need to be taught any truth but no such need to be taught the first truths That there is a God And who is this true God They shall no more teach every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me To conclude God hath given Ministers to the Church for conversion and edification work till we all come into the unity of the Faith to a perfect man Ephes. 4. 11 12. So that when all the Elect are converted and all those Converts become perfect men when there is no errour in Judgement or practice and no seducer to cause it then and not till then will a Gospel-Ministry be useless But as it 's well observed there is not a man that opposes a Gospel Ministry but the very being of that man is a sufficient argument for the continuance of it Inference 2. If Christ be the great Prophet of the Church and such a Prophet then it follows That the weakest Christians need not be discouraged at the dulness and incapacity they find in themselves For Christ is not only a patient and condescending Teacher but he can also as he often hath done reveal that to babes which is hid from the wise and learned Matth. 11.25 The testimonies of the Lord are sure making wise the simple Psal. 19.7 Yea and such as you are the Lord delights to chuse that his grace may be the more conspicuous in your weakness 1 Cor. 1.26 27. You will have nothing of your own to glory in You will not say as a proud wretch once said Ego Deus meus I and my God did this Jesus Christ affects not social glory He will not divide the praise with any Well then be not discouraged Others may know more in other things than you but you are not incapable of knowing so much as shall save your souls if Christ will be your Teacher In other knowledge they excell you but if ye knew Jesus Christ and the truths as it is in him one drop of your knowledge is worth a whole Sea of their gifts One truth suckt by Faith and Prayer from the breast of Christ is better than ten thousand dry notions beaten out by wracking the understanding It 's better in kind the one being but natural the other Supernatural from the saving Illuminations and inward teachings of the Spirit And so is one of those better things that accompany Salvation It 's better in respect of effects Other knowledge leaves the heart as dry barren and unaffected as if it had it's seat in another mans head but that little you have been taught of Christ sheds down its gracious influences upon your affections and slides sweetly to your melting hearts So that as one prefer'd the most despicable work of a plain ruâ—tick Christian before all the Triumphs of Alexander and Caesar much more ought ye to prefer one saving manifestation of the Spirit to all the powerless Illuminations of natural men Inference 3. If Christ be the great Prophet and Teacher of the Church it follows that Prayer is a proper means for the increase of knowledge Prayer is the Goden Key which unlocks that treasure When Daniel was to expound that secret which was contained in the Kings Dream about which the Chaldean Magicians had rackt their brains to no purpose what course doth Daniel take Why he went to his house saith the Text Dan. 2.17 18. And made the thing known to Hananiah Mishael and Azariah his companions that they would desire mercies of the God of Heaven concerning this secret And then was the secret revealed to Daniel Luther was wont to say three things make a Divine Meditation Temptation and Prayer Holy Mr. Bradford was wont to
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
friendship For this end Christ offered up himself to God I say not for this end only but more especially hence it 's called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a propitiation and so the Seaventy render that place Num. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the propitiating Ram. But here I would not be mistaken as though the reconciliation were made only between us and God the Father by the blood of the Cross for we are reconciled by it to the whole Trinity Every sin being against the divine Majesty it must needs follow that the three persons having the same divine Essence must be all offended by the commission and so all reconciled by the expiation and remission of the same But reconciliation is said to be with the Father because though the works of the Trinity ad extra be undivided and what one doth all do and what is done to one is done to all yet by this form and manner of expression as a learned man well observes the Scriptures point out the proper offices of each person The Father receives us into favour the Son mediates and gives the ransom which procures it the Spirit applies and seals this to the persons and hearts of believers However being reconciled to the Father we are also reconciled to the Son and Spirit as they are one God in three persons And if it be objected that then Christ offered up a Sacrifice or laid down a price to reconcile us to himself I shall more fairly and directly meet with and satisfie that objection when I come to speak of Christs satisfaction which is one of the principal fruits of this his excellent Oblation For present this may inform you about the nature and pretious worth of Christs Oblation The uses whereof follow in these five practical Inferences Inference 1. Hence it follows that actual Believers are fully freed from the gilt of their sins and shall never more come under condemnation The Obligation of sin is perfectly abolished by the vertue of this Sacrifice When Christ became our Sacrifice he both bare and bare away our sins First It was laid upon him then expiated by him So much is imported in that word Heb. 9.28 Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many To bear the word is a full and emphatical word signifying not only to bear but to bear away So Joh. 1.29 behold the Lamb of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that taketh away the sins of the world Not only declaratively or by way of manifestation to the Conscience but really making a purgation of sin as it is in Heb. 1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word for word a purgation being made and not only declared Now how great a mercy is this that by him all that believe should be justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Act. 13.39 What shall we call this grace Surely we should do somewhat more than admire it and faint under the sense of such a mercy Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Psal. 32.1 or Oh the blessedness or felicities of him that is pardoned who can express the mercies comforts happiness of such a state as this Reader let me beg thee if thou be one of this pardoned number to look over thy cancelled bonds and see what vast sums are remitted to thee Remember what thou wast in thy natural estate possibly thou wast in that black bill 1 Cor. 6.3 what and yet pardoned fully and finally pardoned and that freely as to any hand that thou hadst in the procurement of it what canst thou do less than fall down at the feet of free grace and kiss those feet that moved so freely towards so vile a sinner It is not long since that thy iniquities were upon thee and thou pinest away in them Their guilt could by no creature power be separated from thy soul. Now they are removed from thee as far as the East from the West Psal. 103.11 So that when the East and West which are the two opposite points of Heaven meet then thy soul and its guilt may meet again together O the unspeakable efficacy of Christs Sacrifice which extends to all sins 1 Joh. 1.7 the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sins sins past and present without exception And some Divines of good note affirm all sins to come also for saith Mr. Paul Baines original sin in which all future sins are as fruits in the root is pardoned and if these were not pardoned they would void and irritate former pardons And lastly it would derogate from the most plenary satisfaction of Christ. But the most say and I think truly that all the past sins of Believers are pardoned without revocation All their present sins without exception but not their sins to come by way of anticipation and yet for them there is a pardon of course which is applied on their repentance and application of Christs blood so that none of them shall make void former pardons O let these things slide sweetly to thy melting heart Inference 2. From this Oblation Christ made of himself to God for our sins we infer the inflexible severity of divine Iustice which could be no other way diverted from us and appeased but by the blood of Christ. If Christ had not presented himself to God for us Justice would not have spared us And if he do appear before God as our surety it will not spare him Rom. 8.32 He spared not his Son but delivered him up to death for us all If forbearance might have been expected from any surely it might from God who is very pitiful and full of tender mercy Jam. 5.11 yet God in this case spared not If one might have expected sparing mercy and abatement from any surely Christ might most of all expect it from his own Father yet you hear God spared not his own Son Sparing-mercy is the lowest degree of mercy yet it was denied to Christ. He abated him not a minute of the time appointed for his suffering nor one degree of wrath he was to bear Nay though in the Garden Christ fell upon the ground and sweet clodders of blood and in that unparallel'd Agony scrued up his spirit to the highest intention in that pitiful cry Father if it be possible let this cup pass and though he brake out upon the Cross in that heart rending complaint my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Yet no abatement Justice will not bend in the least but having to do with him on this account resolves to fetch its pennyworths out of his blood If this be so what is the case of thy soul Reader if thou be a man or woman that hast no interest in this Sacrifice For if these things be done in Christ a green tree what will be done to thee the dry tree Luk. 23.31 That is if God so deal with me that am not only innocent but like a green and fruitful
an high a very high and glorious state to be the head both of the world and of the Church the head of the world by way of dominion the head of the Church by way of union and special influence ruling the world for the good of his people in it He gave him to be the head over all things to the Church In this Scripture let these four things be seriously heeded First The dignity and authority committed to Christ. He hath put all things under his feet which implies full ample and absolute dominion in him and subjection in them over whom he raigns This power is delegated to him by the Father For besides the essential native ingenite power and dominion over all which he hath as God and is common to every person in the Godhead Psal. 22.28 there is a mediatory dispensed authority which is proper to him as Mediator which he receives as the reward or fruit of his suffering Phil. 2.8 Secondly The subject recipient of this authority which is Christ and Christ primarily and only He is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first receptacle of all authority and power Whatever authority any creature is cloathed with is but Ministerial and derivative whether it be Political or Ecclesiastical Christ is the only Lord Jude 4. the fountain of all power Thirdly The Object of this authority The whole creation All things are put under his feet He rules from Sea to Sea even to the utmost bounds of Gods creation Thou hast given him power over all flesh Joh. 17.2 all creatures rational and irrational animate and inanimate Angels Devils Men Winds Seas all obey him Lastly And Especially take notice of the finis cui end for which he governs and rules the universal Empire It is to the Church i. e. for the advantage comfort and Salvation of that chosen remnant he died for He purchased the Church and that he might have the highest security that his blood should not be lost God the Father hath put all things into his hand to order and dispose all as he pleaseth For the furtherance of that his design and end As he bought the persons of some so the services of all the rest and that they might effectually serve the end they are designed to Christ will order them all in a blessed subordination and subserviency thereunto Hence the Point is DOCT. That all the Affairs of the Kingdom of providence are ordered and determined by Iesus Christ for the special advantage and everlasting good of his redeemed people Joh. 17.2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him Hence it comes to pass that all things work together for good to them that love God to them that are the called according to purpose Rom. 8.28 That Jesus Christ hath a providential influence upon all the affairs of this world is evident both from Scripture assertions and rational observations made upon the actings of things here below The first Chap. of Ezek. contains an admirable Scheme or draught of providence There you see how all the wheels that is the motions and revolutions here on earth are guided by the spirit that is in them And vers 26. it 's all run up into the supream cause There you find one like the son of man which is Jesus Christ sitting upon the throne and giving forth orders from thence for the government of all And if it were not so how is it that there are such strong combinations and predispositions of persons and things to such ends and issues without any communications of counsels or holding of intelligence with one another as in Israels deliverance out of Aegypt and innumerable more instances have appeared Certainly if ten men from several places should all meet at one place and about one business without any fore-appointment among themselves it would argue their motions were secretly over-ruled by some invisible Agent How is it that such marvailous effects are produced in the world by causes that carry no proportion to them Amos 5.9 and 1 Cor. 1.27 And as often the most apt and likely means are rendred wholly ineffectual Psal. 33.16 In a word if Christ have no such providential influx how are his people in all ages preserved in the midst of so many millions of potent and malitious enemies amongst whom they live as sheep in the midst of wolves Luk. 10.3 How is it that the bush burns and yet is not consumed Exod. 3.2 But my business in this discourse is not to prove that there is a providence which none but Atheists deny I shall choose rather to shew by what Acts Jesus Christ administers this Kingdom And in what manner And what use may be made thereof As to the first he rules and orders the Kingdom of Providence by supporting permitting restraining limiting protecting punishing and rewarding those over whom he raigns providentially First He supports the world and all creatures in it by his power My Father works hitherto and I work Joh. 5.17 And in him that is in Christ all things consist Col. 1.17 It 's a considerable part of Christs glory to have a whole world of creatures oweing their beings and hourly conservations to him The parts of the world are not coupled and fastned together as the parts of an house whose beams are pinn'd and nail'd to each other but rather as several rings of Iron which hang together by the vertue of a loadstone This goodly fabrick was raised to the foundation when sin entred and had tumbled into everlasting confusion had not Christ stept in to shore up the reeling world For the sakes of his redeemed that inhabit it he doth and will prop it by his omnipotent power And when he hath gathered all his Elect out of it into the Kingdom above then will he set fire to the four quarters of it and it shall lye in white ashes Mean while he is given for a Covenant to the people to establish the earth Isai. 49.8 Secondly He permits and suffers the worst of creatures in his dominion to be and act as they do The deceived and the deceiver are his Job 12.16 Even those that fight against Christ and his people receive both power and permission from him Say not that it 's unbecoming the most holy to permit such evils which he could prevent if he pleased For as he permits no more than he will overrule to his praise so that very permission of his is holy and just Christs working is not confounded with the creatures Pure Sun-beams are not tainted by the noisom vapours of the dunghil on which they shine His holiness hath no fellowship with their iniquities nor are their transgressions at all excused by his permissions of them He is a rock his work is perfect but they have corrupted themselves Deut. 32.4 5. This holy permission is but the withholding of those restraints from their Lusts and denying those common assistances which
NINETEENTH SERMON PHIL. II. VIII And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the cross THis Scripture hath been once already under consideration and indeed can be never enough considered It holds forth the humbled state of the Lord Jesus during the time of his abode on earth The sum of it was delivered you before in this point DOCT. That the state of Christ from his Conception to his Resurrection was a state of deep abasement and humiliation The Humiliation of Christ was proposed to us under the three general heads or branches of his Humiliation in his Incarnation his Humiliation in his life and his Humiliation in his death How he was humbled by Incarnation hath been opened above in the eighteenth Sermon How he was humbled in his life is the design of this Sermon yet expect not that I should give you here an exact History of the life of Christ. The Scriptures speak but little of the private part of his life and it is not my design to dilate upon all the memorable passages that the Evangelists those faithful Narrators of the life of Christ have preserved for us but only to observe and improve those more observable particulars in his life wherein especially he was humbled and such are these that follow First The Lord Jesus was humbled in his very Infancy by his Circumcision according to the Law For being of the stock of Israel he was to undergo the Ceremonies and submit to the Ordinances belonging to that people and thereby to put an end to them for so it became him to fulfil all Righteouness Luk. 2.21 And when eight daies were accomplished for the Circumcising of the Child his name was called Iesus Hereby the Son of God was greatly humbled especially in these two respects First In that hereby he obliged himself to keep the whole Law though he were the Law-maker Gal. 5.3 For I testifie again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law The Apostles meaning is he is a debtor in regard of duty because he that thinks himself bound to keep one part of the Ceremonial Law doth thereby bind himself to keep it all for where all the parts are inseparably united as they are in the Law of God we pull all upon us by engaging or medling with any one And he that is a debtor in duty to keep the whole Law quickly becomes a debtor in regard of penalty not being able to keep any part of it Christ therefore coming as our surety to pay both those debts the debt of duty and the debt of penalty to the Law he by his circumcision obliges himself to pay the whole debt of duty by fulfilling all Righteousness and though his obedience to it was so exact and perfect that he contracted no debt of penalty for any transgression of his own yet he obliges himself to pay that debt of penalty we had contracted by suffering all the pains due to transgressors This was that intollerable yoak that none were able to bear but Christ. Acts 15.10 And it was no small abasure of Christ to bind himself to the Law as a Subject made under it For he was the Law-giver above all Law and herein that Soveraignty of a God one of the choice flowers in the Crown of Heaven was obscured and vailed by his subjection Secondly Hereby he was represented to the world not only as a Subject but also as a Sinner For though he was pure and holy yet this ordinance passing upon him seemed to imply as if corruption had indeed been in him which must be cut off by mortification For this was the mysterie principally intended by circumcision It served to mind and admonish Abraham and his seed of the natural guiltiness uncleanness and corruption of their hearts and natures So Jer. 4.4 Circumcise your selves unto the Lord and take away the foreskins of your hearts ye men of Judah i. e. the sinfulness and corruption of them Hence the rebellious and unmortified are called stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart as it is Acts 7.51 and as it served to convince of natural uncleanness so it signified and sealed the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh as the Apostle phraseth it Col. 2.11 Now this being the end of God in the institution of this ordinance for Abraham and his ordinary seed Christ in his infancy by submitting to it did not only vail his Soveraignty by subjection but was also represented as a sinner to the world though most holy and pure in himself Secondly Christ was humbled by persecution and that in the very morning of his life He was banisht almost as soon as born Matth. 2.13 Flee into Aegypt saith the Angel to Ioseph and be thou there until I bring thee word for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him Ungrateful Herod was this entertainment for a Saviour what raise the Country against him as if a destroyer rather than a Saviour had landed upon the coast what deny him the protection of those Laws under which he was born and that before he had broken the least punctilio of them the child of a beggar may claim the benefit and protection of Law as his birthright and must the Son of God be denied it But herein he fulfilled the Scriptures whilst venting his own lusts For so it was foretold Ier. 31.15 And this early persecution was not obscurely hinted in the title of the 22 Psalm that psalm which looks rather like an History of the new than a prophecy of the old Testament For as it contains a most exact description of Christs sufferings so it 's fitted with a most suitable Title To the chief Musitian Aiâ—eleth Shabar which signifies the Hind of the morning or that Deer which the Hunter rouzes betime in the morning and singles out to hunt down that day And so they did by him as the 16. verse will tell you for saith he Dogs have compassed me the Assemble of the wicked have enclosed me Upon which Musculus sweetly and ingeniously descants O what sweet Venison saith he is the flesh of Christ abundantly sweeter to the believing soul than that which the Nobles of this world esteem most delicate And lest it should want the highest and richest favour to a delicate palate Christ our Hart was not only killed but hunted to the purpose before he was killed even as great men use by hunting and chasing before they cut the throat of the deer to render its flesh more sweet tender and delicate Thus was Christ hunted betimes out of the Country he was born in And no doubt but where such dogs scent and wind the Spirit of Christ in any they would pursue them also to destruction did not a gratious providence rate them off But to return how great an Humiliation is this to the Son of God not only to become an Infant but in his
Infancy to be hurried up and down and driven out of his own land as a vagabond Thirdly Our Lord Jesus Christ was yet more humbled in his life by that poverty and outward meanness which all along attended his condition He lived poor and low all his daies so speaks the Apostle 2 Cor. 8.9 Though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor so poor that he was never owner of a house to dwell in but lived all his daies in other mens houses or lay in the open air His outward condition was more neglected and destâ—â—ute than that of the birds of the air or beasts of the earth so he told that Scribe who professed such readiness and resolution to follow him but was soon cooâ—â—d when Christ told him Matth. 8.20 The Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head It was a common saving among the Jews when the Messiah comes he will not find a place to sit down in Sometimes he feeds upon barly bread and a broyled fish and sometimes he was hungry and had nothing to eat Mark 11.12 As for monies he was much a stranger to it when the Tribute mony was demanded of him he and Peter were not so well furnished to make half a crown betwixt them to pay it but must work a miracle for it Matth. 17. ult He came not to be ministred unto but to minister Matth. 20.28 Not to amass earthly treasures but to bestow Heavenly ones His great and Heavenly soul neglected and despised those things that too many of his own too much admire and prosecute He spent not a careful thought about those things that eat up thousands and ten thousands of our thoughts Indeed he came to be humbled and to teach men by his example the vanity of this world and pour contempt upon the ensnaring glory of it and therefore went before us in a chosen and voluntary poverty Yet he lived not a mendicant life neither but was sometimes fed by ordinary and sometimes miraculous and extraordinary waies He had wherewith to support that pretious body of his till the time was come to offer it up to God but would not indulge and pamper that flesh which he purposely assumed to be humbled in Fourthly Our Dear Jesus was yet further humbled in his life by the horrid temptations wherewith Satan assaulted him than which nothing could be more grievous to his holy hearâ— The Evangelist gives us an account of this in Luke 4. from the first to the 14. verse In which context you find how the bold and envious spirit meets the Captain of our Salvation in the field comes up with him in the wilderness when he was solitary and had not a Second with him verse 1. There he keeps him fasting forty daies and forty nights to prepare him to close with his Temptation All this while Satan was pointing and edging that Temptation with which at last he resolves to try the breast of Christ by an home-thrust Verse 2. By this time he supposes Christ was an hungry as indeed he was and now he thought it was time to make his assault which he doth in a very suitable Temptation at first and with variety of Temptations trying several Weapons upon him afterward But when he had made a thrust at him with that first Weapon in which he especially trusted command that these stones be made bread verse 3. and saw how Christ had put it by verse 4. Then he changes postures and assaults him wiâ—h Temptations to blasphemy even to fall down and worship the Devil But when he saw he could fasten nothing on him that he was as pure Fountain water in a Chrystal vial how much soever agitated and shaken no dregs or filthy sedement would rise but he remained pure still I say seeing this he makes a politick retreat quits the field for a season verse 13. yet leaves it cum animo revertendi with a resolution to return to him again And thus was our blessed Lord Jesus humbled by the Temptations of Satan and what can you imagine more burdensom to him that was brought up from eternity with God delighting in the holy Father to be now shut into a wilderness with a Devil there to be baited so many daies and have his ears filled though not defiled with horrid blasphemy Oh how was the case altered with Christ from what to what was he now come A chast woman would account it no common misery to be dog'd up and down and sollicited by some vile Russian though there were no danger of defilement A man would account it no small unhappiness to be shut up five or six weeks together with the Devil though appearing in an humane shape and to hear no language but that of Hell spoken all that time and the more holy the man is the more would he be afflicted to hear such blasphemies malignantly spet upon the holy and reverent name of God much more to be solicited by the Devil to joyn with him in it this I say would be accounted no small misery for a man to undergo How great an Humiliation then must it be to the great God to be humbled to this to see a slave of his house setting upon himself the Lord. His Jailor coming to take him prisoner if he can A base apostate Spirit daring to attempt such things as these upon him Surely this was a deep abasement to the Son of God Fifthly Our blessed Lord Jesus was yet more humbled in his life than all this and that that by his own sympathy with others under all the burdens that made them groan For he much more than Paul could say who is afflicted and I burn not He lived all his time as it were in an Hospital among the sick and wounded And so tender was his heart that every groan for sin or under the effects of sin pierced him so that it was truly said himself bare our sicknesses and took our infirmities Matth. 8.16 17. It was spoken upon the occasion of some poor creatures that were possessed by the Devil and brought to him to be dispossessed It 's said of him Joh. 11.33 That when he saw Mary weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her he groaned in the Spirit and was troubled And verse 35. Iesus wept yes his heart flowed with pity for them that had not one drop of pity for themselves Witness his tears spent upon Ierusalem Luke 19.41 42. He foresaw the misery that was coming though they neither foresaw nor feared it O how it pierced him to think of the calamities hanging over that great City Yea he mourned for them that could not mourn for their own sins Therefore it 's said Mark 3.5 He was grieved for the hardness of the peoples hearts So that the commendation of a good Physitian that he doth as it were die with every patient was most applicable to our tender-hearted
foresaw a great trial then at hand yea and all the after trials of his people as well as that He knew how much they would be sifted and put to it in that hour and power of darkness that was coming He knew their faith would be shaken and greatly staggered by the approaching difficulties when they should see their Shepherd smitten and themselves scattered The Son of man delivered into the hands of Sinners and the Lord of Life hang dead upon the tree yea sealed up in the grave He foresaw what straights his poor people would fall into betwixt a busie Devil and a bad heart therefore he prays and pleads with such importunity and ardency for them that they might not miscarry Secondly He was now entring upon his intercession-work in Heaven and he was desirous in this prayer to give us a Specimen or sample of that part of his work before he left us that by this we might understand what he would do for us when he should be out of our sight For this being his last on earth it shews us what affections and dispositions he carried hence with him and satisfies us that he who was so earnest with God on our behalf such a mighty pleader here will not forget us or neglect our concerns in the other world Yet Reader I would have the alwaies to remember that the intercession of Christ in Heaven is carried at a much higher rate than this It 's performed in a way more suitable to that state of honour to which he is now exalted Here he used prostrations of Body cries and tears in his prayers There it 's carried in a more majestick and with more state becoming an exalted Jesus But yet in this he hath left us a special assistance to discover much of the frame temper and working of his heart now in Heaven towards us Thirdly and Lastly He would leave this as a standing monument of his Father-like care and love to his people to the end of the world And for this it is conceived Christ delivered this prayer so publickly not withdrawing from the Disciples to be private with God as he did in the Garden but he delivers it in their presence these things I speak in the world this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the â—ircumstance of place in the world doth plainly speak it to be a publick prayer And not only was it publickly delivered but it was also by a singular providence recorded at large by Iohn though omitted by the other Evangelists that so it might stand to all generations for a testimony of Christs tender care and Love to his people Fourthly If you ask how this gives evidence of Christs tender care and Love to his people which is the last enquiry I answer in few words For the thing is plain and obvious It appears in these two particulars First His Love and care manifest in the choice of mercies for them He doth not pray for health honour long life riches c. but for their preservation from sin spiritual joy in God sanctification and eternal glory No mercies but the very best in Gods treasure will content him He was resolved to get all the best mercies for his people the rest he is content should be dispensed promiscuously by providence But these he will settle as an heritage upon his children O see the Love of Christ Look over all your spiritual inheritance in Christ compare it with the richest fairest sweetest inheritance on earth and see what poor things these are to yours O the care of a dear Father O the love of a Saviour Secondly Besides what an evidence of his tenderness to you and great care for you was this that he should so intently and so affectionately mind and plead your concerns with God at such a time as this was even when a world of sorrow was heming him in on every side A cup of wrath mixed and ready to be delivered into his hand At that very time when the clouds of wrath grew black a storm coming and such as he never felt before when one would have thought all his care thoughts and diligence should have been imployed on his own account to mind his own sufferings no he doth as it were forget his own sorrows to mind our peace and comfort O Love unspeakable Corollary 1. If this be so that Christ so eminently discovered his care and love for his people in this parting hour Then hence we conclude the perseverance of the Saints is unquestionable Do you hear how he pleads how he begs how he fills his mouth with arguments how he chooseth his words and sets them in order how he winds up his Spirit to the very highest pin of zeal and fervency and can you doubt of success can such a Father deny the importunity and strong reasonings and pleadings of such a Son O it can never be He cannot deny him Christ hath the art and skill of prevailing with God He hath as in this appears the tongue of the Learned If the heart or hand of God were hard to be opened yet this would open them but when the Father himself loveth us and is inclined to do us good who can doubt of Christs success that which is in motion is the more easily moved The cause Christ manageth in Heaven for us is Just and Righteous The manner in which he pleads is powerful and therefore the success of his suit is unquestionable The Apostle professeth 2 Cor. 1.3 we can do nothing against the truth He means it in regard of the bent of his heart he could not move against truth and Righteousness And if a holy man cannot much less will a holy God If Christ undertake to plead the cause of his people with the Father and use his oratory with him there is no doubt but he carries it Every word in this prayer is a chosen shaft drawn to the head by a strong and skilful hand you need not question but it goes home to the white and hits the mark aimed at Doth he pray Father keep through thine own name those thou hast given me Sure they shall be kept if all the power in Heaven can keep them O think on this when dangers surround your souls or bodies When fears and doubts are multiplied within When thou art ready to say in thy hast all men are liers I shall one day perish by the hand of sin or Satan Think on that incouragement Christ gave to Peter Luke 22.31 I have prayed for thee Corollary 2. Again hence we learn that Argumentative prayers are excellent prayers The strength of every thing is in its joints There lies much of the strength of prayer also How strongly jointed how nervous and argumentative was this prayer of Christ Some there are indeed that think we need not argue and plead in prayer with God but only present the matter of our prayers to him and let Christ alone whose office it is to plead with the
cause Eccles. 7.9 Anger resteth in the bosom of fools Seneca would allow no place for passion in a wise mans breast Wise men use to ponder consider and weigh things deliberately in their Judgements before they suffer their affections and passions to be stirred and engaged Hence comes the constancy and serenity of their Spirits As wise Solomon hath observed Prov. 17.27 A man of understanding is of an excellent or as the Hebrew is a cool Spirit Now wisdom filled the soul of Christ. He is wisdom in the abstract Pov. 8. In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom Col. 2.3 Hence it was that he was no otherwise moved with the revilings and abuses of his enemies than a wise Physitian is with the impertinencies of his distempered and crazy patient Thirdly And as his patience flowed from that his perfect wisdom and knowledge so also from his foreknowledge He had a perfect prospect of all those things from eternity which befell him afterwards They came not upon him by way of surprizal And therefore he wondered not at them when they came as if some strange thing had happened He foresaw all these things long before Mark 8.31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the Elders and chief Priests and Scribes and be killed Yea he had compacted and agreed with his Father to endure all this for our sakes before he assum'd our flesh Hence Isay 50.6 I gave my back to the siniters and my cheeks to them that pulled off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting Now look as Christ in Iob. 16.4 obviates all future offences his Disciples might take at sufferings for his sake by telling them before hand what they must expect These things saith he I told you that when the time shall come ye may remember that I told you of them So he foreknowing what himself must suffer and had agreed so to do he bare those sufferings with singular Patience Iesus therefore knowing all things that should come upon him went forth and said unto them whom seek ye Joh. 18.4 Fourthly As his patience sprang from his foreknowledge of his sufferings so from his Faith which he exercised under all that he suffered in this world His Faith looked through all those black and dismal clouds to the joy proposed Heb. 12.2 He knew that though Pilate condemned God would Justifie him Isa. 50.4 5 6 7 8. And he set one over against the other He ballanced the glory into which he was to enter with the sufferings through which he was to enter into it He acted Faith upon God for divine support and assistance under sufferings as well as for glory the fruit and reward of them Psal. 16.7 8 9 10 11. I have set or as the Apostle varies it I foresaw the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth There 's Faith acted by Christ for strength to carry him through And then it follows My flesh also shall rest in hope for thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption Thou wilt shew me the path of Life In thy presence is fullness of Ioy at thy right hand there are pleasures for ever more There 's his Faith acting upon the glory into which he was to enter after he had suffered these things This fill'd him with peace Fifthly As his Faith eyeing the glory into which he was passing made him endure all things so the Heavenliness of his Spirit also fill'd him with a Heavenly tranquility and calmness of Spirit under all his abuses and injuries It 's a certain truth that the more heavenly any mans spirit is the more sedate composed and peaceful As the higher Heavens saith Seneca are more ordinate and tranquil There are neither clouds nor winds storms nor tempests they are the inferior Heavens that lighten and thunder The nearer the earth the more tempestuous and unquiet Even so the sublime and heavenly mind is placed in a calm and quiet station Certainly that heart which is sweetned frequently with heavenly delightful communion with God is not very apt to be imbittered with wrath or soured with revenge against men The peace of God doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appease and end all strifes and differences as an Umpire So much that word Col. 3.15 Imports The heavenly spirit marvelously affects a sedate and quiet breast Now never was there such a heavenly soul on earth since man inhabited it as Christ was He had most sweet and wonderful communion with God He had meat to eat which others yea and those his greatest intimates knew not of The Son of Man was in heaven upon earth Ioh. 3.13 Even in respect of that blessed heavenly communion he had with God as well as in respect of his immense Deity And that his heart was in heaven when he so patiently endured and digested the pain and shame of the Cross is evident from Heb. 12.2 For the Ioy set before him he endured the Cross despised the shame See where his eye and heart was when he went as a Lamb to the slaughter Sixthly And lastly as his meekness and patience sprang from the heavenliness and sublimity of his spirit so from the compleat and absolute obedience of it to his Fathers will and pleasure He could most quietly submit to all the will of God and never regret at any part of the work assign'd him by his Father For you must know that Christs death in him was an act of obedience he all along eyeing his Fathers command and counsel in what he suffered Phil. 2.7 8. Ioh. 18.11 Psal. 40.6 7 8. Now look as the eyeing and considering of the hand of God in an affliction presently becalms and quiets a gracious soul as you see in David 2 Sam. 16.11 Let him alone it may be God hath bid him curse David so much more it quieted Jesus Christ who was privy to the design and end of his Father with whose will he all along complyed looking on Jews and Gentiles but as the Instruments ignorantly fulfilling Gods pleasure and serving that great design of his Father This was his patience and these the grounds of it Vse I might variously improve this point but the direct and main Use of it is to press us to a Christ-like patience in all our sufferings and troubles And seeing in nothing we are more generally defective and that defects of Christians herein are so prejudicial to Religion and uncomfortable to themselves I resolve to wave all other Uses and spend the remaining time wholly upon this branch Even a perswasive to Christians unto all patience in tribulations To imitate their Lamb-like Saviour Unto this Christians you are expresly call'd 1 Pet. 2.21.22 Because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps Who did no sin
he turn not he will whet his sword he hath bent his bow and made it ready he hath also prepared for him the instruments of death he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors Psal. 7.12 This laies the blood of every man that perishes in his enmity to Christ at his own door And vindicates the righteousness of God in the severest strokes of wrath upon them This also will be a cutting thought to their hearts eternally I might once have had pardon and I refused it The Gospel-Trumpet sounded a parly Fair and gratious terms were offered but I rejected them Inference 3. Is there mercy with God and forgiveness even for his worst enemies upon their submission how unlike to God then are all implacable spirits Some there are that cannot bring their hearts to forgive an enemy to whom revenge is sweeter than life 1 Sam. 24.16 If a man find his enemy will he let him go This is Hell-fire a fire that never goeth out how little do such poor creatures consider if God should deal by them as they do by others what words could express the misery of their condition It 's a sad sin and a sad sign a character of a wretched state whereever it appears Those that have found mercy should be ready to shew mercy and they that expect mercy themselves should not deny it others This brings us upon the third and last observation viz. DOCT. 3. That to forgive enemies and beg forgiveness for them is the true character and property of the Christian spirit Thus did Christ Father forgive them And thus did Stephen in imitation of Christ. Act. 7.59 60. And they stoned Stephen calling upon God and saying Lord Iesus receive my spirit and he kneeled down and cryed with a loud voice Lord lay not this sin to their charge This suits with the rule of Christ Matth. 5.44 45. But I say unto you love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which dâ—spightfully use you and persecute you That ye may be the children of God your Father which is in Heaven Here I shall first open the nature of this duty and shew you what a forgiving spirit is and then the excellency of it how well it becomes all that call themselves Christians First Let us enquire what this Christian forgiveness is And that the nature of it may the better appear I shall shew you both what it is not and what it is First It consists not in a stoical insensibility of wrongs and injuries God hath not made men as insensible stupid blocks that have no sence or feeling of what is done to them Nor hath he made a Law inconsistent with their very natures that are to be governed by it But allows us a tender sense of natural evils though he will not allow us to revenge them by moral evils Nay the more deep and tender our resentments of wrongs and injuries are the more excellent is our forgiveness of them so that a forgiving spirit doth not exclude sense of injuries but the sense of injuries graces the forgiveness of them Secondly Christian forgiveness is not a politick concealment of our wrath and revenge because it will be a reproach to discover it or because we want opportunity to vent it This is carnal policy not Christian meekness So far from being the mark of a gratiâ—us spirit that it 's apparently the sign of a vile nature It is not Christianity to repose but depose injuries Thirdly Nor is it that moral vertue for which we are beholding to an easier and better nature and the help of moral rules and documents There are certain vertues attainable without the change of nature which they call Homilitical vertues because they greatly adorn and beautifie nature such as temperance patience justice c. these are of singular use to conserve peace and order in the world And without them as one aptly speaks the world would soon break up and its civil scocieties disband But yet though these are the ornaments of nature they do not argue the change of nature All graces in the exercise of them involve a respect to God And for the being of them they are not by natural acquisition but supernatural infusion Fourthly and Lastly Christian forgiveness is not an â—injurious giving up of our rights and properties to the Lusts of every one that hath a mind to invade them No these we may lawfully defend and preserve and are bound so to do though if we cannot defend them legally we must not avenge our wrongs unchristianly This is not Christian forgiveness But then positively It is a Christian lenity or gentleness of mind not retaining but freely passing by the injuries done to us in obedience to the command of God It is a lenity or gentleness of mind The grace of God demulces the angry stomach calms the tumultuous passions new-moulds our sowr spirits and makes them benign gentle and easie to be intreated Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentleness c. This gratious lenity inclines the Christian to pass by injuries so to pass them by as neither to retain them revengefully in the mind or requite them when we have opportunity with the hand Yea and that freely not by constraint because we cannot avenge our selves but willingly We abhor to do it when we can So that as a carnal heart thinks revenge its glory the gratious heart is content that forgiveness should be his glory I will be even with him saith nature I will be above him saith grace It is his glory to pass over transgression Prov. 19.11 And this it doth in obedience to the command of God their own nature inclines them another way The spirit that is in us lusteth to envy but he giveth more grace James 4.5 It lusteth to revenge but the fear of God represses those motions Such considerations as these God hath forbidden me Yea and God hath forgiven me as well as forbidden me prevail upon him when nature urges to revenge the wrong Be kind one to another tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Eph. 4.32 This is forgiveness in a Christian sense Secondly And that this is excellent and singularly becoming the profession of Christ is evident In as much as This speaks your Religion excellent that can mould your hearts into that heavenly frame to which they are so averse yea contrarily disposed by nature It is the glory of Pagan morality that it can abscondere vitia hide and cover mens lusts and passions But the glory of Christianity lies in this that it can abscindâ—re vitia not hide but destroy and really mortifie the Lusts of nature Would Christians but live up to the excellent principles of their Religion Christianity shall be no more out-vied by heathenish morality The greatest Christian shall be no more challenged to imitate Socrates if he can We
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
of your life as in the morning of the day If a man have any business to be done let him take the morning for it For in the after part of the day a hurry of business comes on so that you either forget it or want opportunity for it Thirdly Now because your life is immediately uncertain You are not certain that ever you shall attain the years of your Fathers There are graves in the Church yard just of your length And skulls of all sorts and sizes in Golgotha as the Jews proverb is Fourthly Now because God will not spare you because you are but young sinners little sinners if you die Christless If you are not as you think old enough to mind Christ surely if you die Christless you are old enough to be damned There 's the small spray as well as great logs in the fire of Hell Fifthly Now because your life will be the more eminently useful and serviceable to God when you know him betime and begin with him early Austin repented and so have many thousands since him that he began so late and knew God no sooner Sixthly Now because your life will be the sweeter to you when the morning of it is dedicated to the Lord. The first fruits sanctifie the whole harvest This will have a sweet influence into all your days Whatever changes straights or troubles you may afterwards meet with The THIRTY TIHRD SERMON MATTH XXVII XLVI And about the ninth hour Iesus cried with a loud voice saying Eli Eli lamasabachtani that is to say my God my God why hast thou forsaken me THis verse contains the fourth memorable saying of Christ upon the Cross. Words able to rend the hardest heart in the world It is the voice of the Son of God in an agony His sufferings were great very great before but never in that extremity as now When this heaven-rending and heart-melting out-cry brake from him upon the Cross Eli Eli lamasabachtani In which words are considerable the time matter and manner of this his sad complaint First The time when it was uttered about the ninth hour i. e. about three of the clock after noon For as the Jews divided the night into four quarters or watches so they divided the day in like manner into four quarters or greater hours Which had their names from that hour of the day that closed the quarter So that beginning their account of their lesser hours from six in the morning which with them was the first their ninth hour answered to our third after noon And this is heedfully marked by the Evangelists on purpose to shew us how long Christ hanged in distress upon the Cross both in soul and body which at least was three full hours Towards the end whereof his soul was so filled distressed and overwhelmed that this doleful cry brake from his soul in bitter anguish My God my God c. Secondly The matter of the complaint It is not of the cruel tortures he felt in his body nor of the scoffs and reproaches of his name he mentions not a word of these they were all swallowed up in the sufferings within as the River is swallowed up in the Sea or the lesser flame in the greater He seems to neglect all these and only complains of what was more burdensom than ten thousand Crosses Even his Fathers deserting him my God my God why hast thou forsaken me It is a more inward trouble that burdens him darkness upon his spirit the hidings of Gods face from him an affliction he was totally a stranger to till now Here he lays his hand in this complaint This was the pained place to which he points in this dolorous out-cry Thirdly The manner in which he utters his sad complaint and that was with a remarkable vehemency he cried with a loud voice not like a dying man in whom nature was spent but as one full of vigor life and sence He gathered all his spirits together stirred up the whole power of nature when he made this grievous out-cry There is in it also an emphatical reduplication which shews with what vehemency it was uttered Not singly my God but he doubles it my God my God as distressed persons use to do So Elisha when Eliâ—ah was separated from him by the Chariots and Horses of fire cries out my Father my Father Nay moreover to encrease the force and vehemency of this complaint here is an affectionate interrogation Why hast thou forsaken me Questions especially such as this are full of spirits It is as if he were surprised by the strangeness of this affliction and rouzing up himself with an unusual vehemency turns himself to his Father and cries why so my Father O what dost thou mean by this What hide that face from me that never was hid before What and hide it from me now in the depth of my other torments and troubles O what new what strange things are these Lastly here is an observable variation of the language in which this astonishing complaint was uttered For he speaks both Hebrew and Syriack in one breath Eli Eli lama are all Hebrew Sabachtani is a Syriack word used here for emphasis sake Hance we observe DOCT. That God in design to heighten the sufferings of Christ to the uttermost forsook him in the time of his greatest distress to the unspeakable affliction and anguish of his soul. This proposition shall be considered in three parts The desertion it self The design or end of it The effect and influence it had on Christ. First The desertion it self Divine desertion generally considered is Gods withdrawing himself from any not as to his Essence that fills Heaven and Earth and constantly remains the same But it 's the withdrawment of his favour grace and love When these are gone God is said to be gone And this is done two ways either absolutely and wholly or respectively and only as to manifestation In the first sense Devils are forsaken of God They once were in his favour and love but they have utterly and finally lost it God is so withdrawn from them as that he will never take them into favour any more In the other sense he sometimes forsakes his dearest Children i. e. he removes all sweet manifestations of his favour and love for a time and carries it to them as a stranger though his love be still the same And this kind of desertion which is respective temporary and only in regard of manifestation is justly distinguished from the various ends and designs of it into probational cautional castigatory and poenal Probational desertions are only for the proof and trial of grace Cautional desertions are designed to prevent sin Castigatory desertions are Gods rods to chastize his people for sin Poenal desertions are such as are inflicted as the just reward of sin for the reparation of that wrong sinners have done by their sins Of this sort was Christs desertion A part of the curse and a special
part And his bearing it was no small part of the reparation or satisfaction he made for our sins More particularly to open the nature of this desertion of Christ by his Father there being much of intricacy and difficulty in it I shall proceed in the explication of it Negatively and Positively First Negatively when Christ cries out of Gods forsaking him he doth not mean that he had dissolved the personal union of the two natures Not as if the marriage knot which united our nature to the person of Christ was loosed or a divorce made betwixt them No for when he was forsaken of God he was still true and real Godman in one person Secondly When Christ bewails the Fathers forsaking him he doth not mean that he pulled away the prop of divine support from him by which he had till then endured the tortures and sufferings that oppressed him No though the Father deserted yet he still supported him And so much is intimated in these words of Christ Eli Eli which signifies my strong one my strong one God was with him by way of support when withdrawn as to manifestations of love and favour In respect of Gods supporting presence which was with Christ at this time it 's said Isai. 42.1 Behold my Servant whom I uphold and Joh. 16.32 I am not alone but the Father is with me So that this cannot be the meaning of it Thirdly Much less is it his meaning that God had left him as to inherent grace and sanctification Recalling that spirit of holiness which had anointed him above his fellows No no when he was forsaken he remained as holy as ever He had indeed less comfort but not less holiness than before Such a desertion had irritated and made void the very end of his death And his sacrifice could never have yielded such a fragrant odor to God as it did Eph. 5.2 Fourthly The love of God was not so withdrawn from Christ as that the Father had now no love for him nor delight in him That 's impossible he can no more cease to love Christ than to love himself His love was not turned into wrath Though his wrath only was now manifested to him as our surety and his love hid from him as his beloved Son Fifthly Nor was Christ forsaken by his Father finally upon what account soever it was that he was forsaken No it was but for a few hours that the dark cloud dwelt over his soul. It soon past away And the bright and glorious face of God shone forth again as bright as ever Psal. 22.1.24 compared Sixthly And lastly It was not a mutual desertion or a desertion on both parts the Father forsook him but he forsook not his Father When God withdrew he followed him crying my God my God Yet to speak positively of it though it did not dissolve the personal union nor cutting off divine supports nor remove his inherent grace nor turn his Fathers love into hatred nor continue for ever nor yet was it on both parts Christs forsaking God as well as God forsaking Christ yet I say it was First A very sad desertion the like unto which in all respects never was experienced by any nor can be to the end of the world All his other troubles were but small things to this they bare upon his body these upon his soul. They came from the hands of vile men this from the hand of a dear Father He suffered both in body and soul but the sufferings of his soul were the very soul of his sufferings Under all his other sufferings he opened not his mouth but this toucht the quick that he could not but cry out my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Secondly As it was a sad so it was a poenal desertion inflicted on him for satisfaction for those sins of ours which deserved that God should forsake us for ever as the damned are forsaken by him So that this cry as one observes was like the perpetual shriek of them that are cast away for ever This was that Hell and the torments of it which Christ our surety suffered for us For look as there lies a twofold misery upon the damned in Hell viz. pain of sence and pain of loss So upon Christ answerably there was not only an impression of wrath but also a Substraction or withdrawment of all sensible favour and love Hence it 's said by himself Ioh. 12.27 And now my soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is troubled The word signifies troubled as they that are in Hell are troubled Though God did not leave his soul in Hell as others are he having enough to pay the debt which they have not yet in the torments thereof at this time he was Yea in sufferings at this time in his soul equivalent to all that which our souls should have suffered there to all Eternity Thirdly It was a desertion that was real and not fictitious He doth not personate a deserted soul and speak as if God had withdrawn the comfortable sence and influence of his love from him but the thing was so indeed The God-head restrained and kept back for this time all its joys comforts and sence of love from the man-hood yielding it nothing but support This bitter doleful out-cry of Christ gives evidence enough of the reality of it He did not feign but feel the burdensomness of it Fourthly This desertion fell out in the time of Christs greatest need of comfort that ever he had in all the time of his life on earth His Father forsook him at that time when all earthly comforts had forsaken him and all outward evils had broken in together upon him When men yea the best of men stood afar off and none but barbarous enemies were about him When pains and shame and all miseries even weighed him down then even then to compleat and fill up his sufferings God stands afar off too Fifthly And lastly It was such a desertion as left him only to the supports of his Faith He had nothing else now but his Fathers covenant and promise to hang upon And indeed as a Juditious Author perninently observes the Faith of Christ did several ways act and manifest it self in these very words of complaint in the Text. For though all comfortable sights of God and sence of love were obstructed yet you see his soul cleaves fiducially to God for all that My God c. Though sense and feeling spake as well as Faith Yet Faith speaks first my God before sence speaks a word of his forsaking His Faith prevented the complaint of sence and though sence comes in afterward with a word of complaint yet here are two words of Faith to one of Sence It is my God my God and but one word of forsaking As his Faith spake first so it spake twice when sence and feeling spake but once Yea and as Faith spake first and twice as much as sence so it spake more confidently than Sence did He lays a
but you must work to obey the commands of Christ into whose right ye are come by Redemption You must work to testifie your thankfulness to Christ for the work he finished for you You must work to glorifie God by your obedience Let your light so shine before men For these and divers other such ends and reasons your life must be a working life God preserve all his people from the gross and vile opinions of Antinomian Libertines who cry up grace and decry obedience Who under specious pretences of exalting a naked Christ upon the throne do indeed strip him naked of a great part of his glory and vilely dethrone him My pen shall not english what mine eyes have read Tell it not in Gath. But for thee Reader be thou a follower of Christ imitate thy pattern Yea let me perswade thee as ever thou hopest to clear up thine interest in him imitate him in such particulars as these that follow First Christ began early to work for God He took the mornning of his life the very top of the morning to work for God How is it said he to his Parents when he was but a child of about twelve years that ye sought me Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business Reader if the morning of thy life be not gone oh devote it to the work of God as Christ did If it be ply thy work the closer in the afternoon of thy life If a man have any great and necessary business to do it 's good doing in the morning afterwards a hurry of business and diversion comes on Secondly As Christ began betime so he followed his work close He was early up and he wrought hard so hard that he forgat to eat bread Joh. 31 32. So zealous was he in his Fathers work that his friends thought he had been besides himself Mark 3.21 So zealous that the zeal of Gods house eat him up He flew like a Seraphim in a flame of zeal about the work of God O be not ye like Snales What Augustus said of the young Roman well becomes the true Christian whatsoever he doth he doth it to purpose Thirdly Christ often thâ—ught upon the shortness of his time and wrought hard because he knew his working time would be but little So you find it Joh. 9.4 I most work the works of him that sent me whilst it is day the night cometh when no man can work O in this be like Christ. Rouze your hearts to diligence with this consideration If a man have much to write and be almost come to the end of his paper he will write close and pack much matter in a little room Fourthly He did much work for God and made little noise He wrought hard but did not spoil his work when he had wrought it by vain ostentation When he had exprest his Charity in acts of mercy and bounty to men he would humbly seal up the glory of it with this charge see ye tell no man of it Matth. 8.4 he affected not popular air All the Angels in Heaven could not do what Christ did and yet he called himself a worm for all that Psal. 22.6 O imitate your pattern Work hard for God and let not pride blow upon it when you have done It 's hard for a man to do much and not value himself for it too much Fifthly Christ carried on his work for God resolvedly No discouragements would beat him off though never any work met with more from first to last How did Scribes and Pharisees Jews Gentiles yea Devils set upon him by persecutions and reproaches violent oppositions and subtil temptations but yet on he goes with his Fathers work for all that He is deaf to all discouragements So it was foretold of him Isai. 42.4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged O that more of this spirit of Christ were in his people O that in the strength of love to Christ and zeal for the glory of God you would pour out your hearts in service and like a River sweep down all discouragements before you Sixthly He continued working whilst he continued living His life and labour ended together He fainted not in his work Nay the greatest work he did in this world was his last work O be like Christ in this be not weary of well doing Give not over the work of God while you can move hand or tongue to promote it And see that your last works be more than your first O let the motions of your soul after God be as all natural motions are swiftest when nearest the center Say not it is enough whilst there is any capacity of doing more for God In these things Christians be like your Saviour Inference 6. Did Christ finish his work Look to it Christians that ye also finish your work which God hath given you to do That you may with comfort say when death approaches as Christ said Joh. 17.4 I have glorified thee on earth I have finished the work thou gavest me to do and now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self Christ had a work committed to him and he finished it you have a work also committed to you O see that you be able to say it 's finished when your time is so O work out your own Salvation with fear and trembling and that I may perswade you to it I beseech you lay these considerations close to heart First If your work be not done before you die it can never be done when you are dead There 's no work nor knowledge nor device in the grave whither thou goest Eccles. 9.5 10. They that go down to the pit cannot celebrate the name of God Isai. 38.18 Death binds up the hand from working any more strikes dumb the tongue that it can speak no more for then the composition is dissolved The body which is the souls tool to work by is broken and thrown aside The soul it self presented immediately before the Lord to give an account of all its works O therefore seeing the night cometh when no man can work as Christ speaks Ioh. 9.4 make haste and finish your work Secondly If you finish not your work as the season of working so the season of mercy will be over at death Do not think you that have neglected Christ all your lives you that could never be perswaded to a laborious holy life that ever your cries and entreaties shall prevail with God for mercy when your season is past No no it 's too late Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him Job 27.9 The season of mercy is then over as the tree falls so it lies Then he that is holy shall be holy still and he that is filthy shall be filthy still Alas poor souls you come too late The Master of the house is risen up and the doors are shut Luk. 19.42 the season is over Happy had it been if ye had known the day of your
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
1 Pet. 4.19 Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as to a faithful Creator It 's very true this single relation in it self gives little ground of encouragement unless the creature had conserved that integrity in which it was originally created And they that have no more to plead with God for acceptance but their relation to him as creatures to a Creator will doubtless find that word made good to their little comfort Isa. 27.11 It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour But now grace brings that relation into repute Holiness ingratiates us again and revives the remembrance of this relation So that believers only can plead this Secondly As the gratious soul is his creature so it is his redeemed creature One that he hath bought and that with a great price Even with the pretious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 This greatly encourages the departing soul to commit it self into the hands of God so you find Psal. 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit thou hast redeemed it O Lord God of truth Surely this is mighty encouragement to put it self upon God in a dying hour Lord I am not only thy creature but thy redeemed creature One that thou hast bought with a great price O I have cost thee dear For my sake Christ came from thy bosom and is it imaginable that after thou hast in such a costly way even by the expence of the pretious blood of Christ redeemed me thou shouldst at last exclude me Shall the ends both of Creation and Redemption of this soul be lost together Will God form such an excellent creature as my soul is in which are so many wonders of the wisdom and power of its Creator Will he be content when sin had marr'd the frame and defaced the glory of it to recover it to himself again by the death of his own dear Son and after all this cast it away as if there were nothing in all this Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit I know thou wilt have a respect to the work of thy hands Especially to a redeemed creature upon which thou hast been out so great sums of Love which thou hast bought at so dear a rate Thirdly Nay that 's not all the gratious soul may confidently and securely commit it self into the hands of God when it parts with its body at death not only because it is his creature his redeemed creature but because it is his renewed creature also And this lays a firm ground â—or the believers confidence of acceptecâ—a not that it is the proper cause or reason of its acceptance but as it is the souls best evidence that it is accepted with God and shall not be refused by him when it comes to him at death For in such a soul there is a double workmanship of God both glorious pieces though the last exceeds in glory A natural workmanship in the excellent frame of that noble creature the soul. And a gratious workmanship upon that again A new creation upon the old Glory upon Glory We are his workmanship created in Christ Iesus Eph. 2.10 The Holy Ghost came down from heaven on purpose to create this new workmanship To frame this new creature And indeed it is the Top and glory of all Gods works of wonder in this world And must needs give the believer encouragement to commit it self to God whether at such a time it shall reflect either upon the end of the work or upon the end of the workman both which meet in the salvation of the soul so wrought upon the end of the work in our glory By this we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1.12 It is also the design and end of him that wrought it 2 Cor. 55. Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God Had he not designed thy soul for glory the spirit should never have come upon such a sanctifying design as this Surely it shall not sail of a reception into glory when it 's cast out this Tabernacle Such a work was not wrought in vain neither can it ever perish When once sanctification comes upon a soul it so roots it self in the soul that where the soul goes it goes Gifts indeed they die All natural excellency and beauty that goes away at death Iob 4. ult But grace ascends with the soul. It is a sanctified when a separate soul. And can God shut the door of Glory upon such a soul that by grace is made meet for the inheritance O it cannot be Fourthly As the gracious soul is a renewed soul so it is also a Sealed Soul God hath sealed it in this world for that glory into which it is now to enter at death All gracious souls are sealed objectively i. e. they have those works of grace wrought on their souls which do as but now is said ascertain and evidence their Title to glory And many are sealed formally That is the spirit helps them clearly to discern their interest in Christ and all the promises This both secures heaven to the soul in it self and becomes also an earnest or pledge of the glory in the unspeakable joys and comforts that it breeds in the soul. So you find 2 Cor. 1.22 Who hath sealed us and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts Gods sealing us gives high security His objective seal makes it sure in it self his formal seal makes it so to us But if over and above all this he will please as a fruit of that his sealing to give us those heavenly unexpressible joys and comforts which are the fruit of his formal sealing work to be an earnest a foretast and hansel of that glory how can the soul that hath found all this doubt in the least of a rejection by its God when at death it comes to him surely if God have sealed he will not refuse you If he have given you his earnest he will not shut you out Gods earnest is not given in Jest. Fifthly Moreover every gratious soul may confidently cast it self into the arms of its God when it goes hence with Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit For as much as every gratious soul is a soul in Covenant with God and God stands obliged by his Covenant and Promise to such not to cast them out when they come unto him As soon as ever thy soul became his by regeneration that Promise became its own Heb. 13.5 I will never leave you nor forsake you And will he leave the soul now at a pinch when it never had more need of a God to stand by it than it hath then every gratious soul is entitled to that Promise Ioh. 14.3 I will come again and receive you to my self And will he fail
pleasures and enjoyments of the wicked which feed them for the day of slaughter How little stomach can a man have to those dainties that understands the end and meaning of them Give not sleep therefore to thine eyes Reader till thou have got good evidence that thou art of that number whom Iesus hath delivered from wrath to come Till thou canst say he is a Jesus to thee This may be made out to thy satisfaction three waies First If Iesus have delivered thee from sin the cause of wrath thou maist conclude he hath delivered thee from wrath the effect and fruit of sin Upon this account the sweet name of Iesus was imposed upon him Matth. 1.21 Thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people from their sins Whilst a man lies under the dominion and guilt of sin he lies exposed to wrath to come and when he is delivered from the guilt and power of sin he is certainly delivered from the danger of this coming wrath Where sin is not imputed wrath is not threatened Secondly If thy soul do set an inestimable value on Iesus Christ and be endeared to him upon the account of that inexpressible grace manifested in this deliverance it 's a good sign thy soul hath a share in it Mark what an Epithite the Saints give Christ upon this account Col. 1.12 13. Giving thanks to the Father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his Dear Son Christ is therefore Dear and dear beyond all compare to his saved ones I remember it 's storied of the poor enthralled Grecians that when Titus Flamminius had restored their ancient liberties and proclamation was to be made in the Market place by an Herald They so prest to hear it that the Herald was in great danger of being stifled and prest to death among the people but when the Proclamation was ended there were heard such shouts and joyful acclamations that the very birds of the air fell down astonished with the noise while they continued to cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour a Saviour and all the following night they continued dancing and singing about his Pavilion If such a deliverance so indeared them to Titus How should the great deliverance from wrath to come endear all the Redeemed to love their dear Iesus This is the native effect of mercy on the soul that hath felt it Thirdly To conclude a disposition and readiness of mind to do or endure any thing for Christs sake upon the account of this deliverance from the wrath to come is a good evidence you are so delivered Col. 1.10 11. That we may walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing being fruitful in every good work There 's readiness to do for Christ. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long suffering with Ioyfulness There 's a chearful readiness to endure any thing for Christ. And how both these flow from the sence of this great deliverance from wrath the 12. vers will inform you which was but now cited Oh then be serious and assiduous in the resolution of this grand case Till this be resolved nothing can be pleasant to thy Soul End 2. As the Typical blood was shed and sprinkled to deliver from danger so it was shed to make attonement Levit. 4.20 He shall expiate We translate attone the sin The word imports both And the true meaning is that by the blood of the Bullock all whose efficacy stood in its relation to the blood of Christ signified and shadowed by it the people for whom it was shed should be reconciled to God by the expiation and remission of their sins And what was shadowed in this Typical blood was really designed and accomplisht by Jesus Christ in the shedding of his blood Reconciliation of the Elect to God is therefore another of those beautiful births which Christ travailed for So you find it expresly Rom. 5.10 If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son This if is not a word of doubting but argumentation The Apostle supposes it as a known truth or principle yielded by all Christians that the death of Christ was to reconcile the Elect to God And again he affirms it with like clearness Col. 1.20 And having made peace by the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things And that this was a main and principal end designed both by the Father and Son in the humiliation of Christ is plain from 2 Cor. 5.18 19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself God filled the humanity with grace and authority The Spirit of God was in him to qualifie him The authority of God was in him by Commission to make all he did valid The grace and love of God to mankind was in him and one of the principal effects in which it was manifested was this design upon which he came viz. to reconcile the world to God Upon which ground Christ is called the propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2.2 Now Reconciliation or attonement is nothing else but the making up of the ancient friendship betwixt God and men which sin had dissolved and so to reduce these enemies into a state of concord and sweet agreement And the means by which this blessed design was effectually compassed was by the death of Christ which made compleat satisfactâ—on to God for the wrong we had done him There was a breach made by sin betwixt God and Angels but that breach is never to be repaired or made up Since as Christ took not on him their nature so he never intended to be a mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and them That will be an Eternal breach But that which Christ designed as the end of his deaâ—h was to reconcile God and man Not the whole species but a certain number whose names were given to Christ. Here I must briefly open First how Christs death Reconciles Secondly why this Reconciliation is brought about by his death rather than any other way Thirdly what are the Articles according to which it 's made And Fourthly what manner of Reconciliation this is First How Christ Reconciles God and men by his death And it must needs be by the satisfaction his Death made to the Justice of God for our sins And so reparation being made the enmity ceases Hence it 's said Isa. 53.5 The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes are we healed That is as our English Annotators well sense it He was chastized to procure our peace by removal of our sins that set God and us assunder the guilt thereof being discharged with the price of his blood Now this Reconciliation is made and continued betwixt God and us three waies namely by the oblation of Christ which was the price that procured it and so we were virtually or meritoriously reconciled By the application of Christ and his benefits to
of a Saviour He loved us and washed us from our sin in his own blood He did not shed the blood of beasts as the Priests of old did but his own blood Heb. 9.12 And that no common but pretious blood 1 Pet. 1.19 The blood of God one drop of which out values the blood that runs in the veins of all Adams posterity And not some of that blood but all to the last drop He bled every vein dry for us and what remain'd lodg'd about the heart of dead Jesus was let out by that bloody Spear which pierced the Pericardium so that he bestow'd the whole treasure of his blood upon us And thus liberal was he of his blood to us when we were enemies This then is that heavenly Pelican that feeds his young with his own blood O what manner of love is this But I must hasten End 4. As Christ dyed to sanctifie his people So he dyed also to confirm the New Testament to all those sanctified ones So it was in the Type Exod. 24.8 And so it is in the truth This is the New Testament in my blood Matth. 26.28 i. e. ratified and confirmed by my blood For where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the Testator Heb. 9.16 So that now all the blessings and benefits bequeathed to believers in the last Will and Testament of Christ are abundantly confirmed and secured to them by his death Yea he died on purpose to make that Testament in force to them Men make their Wills and Testaments and Christ makes his What they bequeath and give in their Wills is a free and voluntary act they cannot be compell'd to do it And what is bequeathed to us in this Testament of Christ is altogether a free and voluntary donation Other Testators use to bequeath their Estates to their Wives and Children and near relations so doth this Testator all is settled upon his Spouse the Church Upon believers his children A stanger intermedles not with these mercies They give all their goods and estates that can that way be conveyed to their friends that survive them Christ giveth to his Church in this New Testament three sorts of Goods First All Temporal good things 1 Tim. 6.1 Matth. 6.33 i. e. the comfort and blessing of all though not the possession of much As having nothing and yet possessing all things 2 Cor. 6.10 Secondly All Spiritual good things are bequeath'd to them in this Testament as Remission of sin and acceptation with God which are contained in their Justification Rom. 3.24 25 26. Sanctification of their natures both initial and progressive 1 Cor. 1.30 Adoption into the family of God Gal. 3.26 The Ministry of Angels Heb. 1.14 Interest in all the Promises 2 Pet. 1.4 Thus all spiritual good things are in Christs Testament conveyed to them And as all Temporal and Spiritual so Thirdly All Eternal good things Heaven Glory and eternal life Rom. 8.10.11 No such bequests as these were ever found in the Testaments of Princes That which Kings and Nobles settle by will upon their Heirs are but trifles to what Christ hath conferred in the New Testament upon his people And all this is confirmed and ratified by the death of Christ so that the promise is sure and the Estate indefeasible to all the Heirs of Promise How the death of Christ confirmed the New Testament is worth our Enquiry The Socinians as they allow no other end of Christs death but the confirmation of the New Testament so they affirm he did it only by way of Testimony or witness bearing in his death But this is a vile derogation from the efficacy of Christs blood to bring it down into an equality with the blood of Martyrs As if there were no more in it than was in their blood But know Reader Christ died not only or principally to confirm the Testment by his blood as a witness to the truth of those things but hiâ— death ratified it as the death of a Testator which makes the New Testament irrevocable And so Christ is called in this Text. Look as when a man hath made his Will and is dead that Will is presently in force and can never be recall'd Besides the will of the dead is sacred with men They dare not cross it It 's certain the last will and Testament of Christ is most sacred and God will never annul or make it void Moreover it is not with Christ as with other Testators who die and must trust the performance of their wills with their Executors but as he died to put it in force so he lives again to be the Executor of his own Testament And all power to fulfill his Will is now in his own hands Rev. 1.18 Inference 1. Did Christ die to confirm the New Testament in which such Legacies are bequeathed to believers How are all believers concerned then to prove the Will of dead Jesus My meaning is to clear their Title to the mercies contained in this blessed Testament And this may be done two waies By clearing to your selves your Covenant Relations to Christ. And by discovering those special Covenant impressions upon your hearts to which the Promises therein contained do belong First Examine your Relations to Christ. Are you his Spouses have you forsaken all for him Psal. 45.10 Are you ready to take your lot with him as it falls in prosperity or adversity Ier. 2.2 And are you Loyal to Christ Thou shalt be for me and not for another Hos. 3.3 Do you yield obedience to him as your Head and Husband Eph. 6.24 Then you may be confident you are interested in the benefits and blessings of Christs last Will and Testament for can you imagine Christ will make a Testament and forget his Spouse It cannot be If he so loved the Church as to give himself for her much more what he hath is settled on her Again are you his spiritual seed his children by regeneration Are you born of the Spirit Ioh. 3. Do you resemble Christ in holiness 1 Pet. 1.14 15. Do you find a reverential fear of Christ carrying you to obey him in all things Mal. 1.6 Are you led by the Spirit of Christ as many as are so led they are the Sons of God Rom. 8.14 To conclude have you the Spirit of Adoption inabling you to cry Abba Father Gal. 4.6 That is helping you in a gratious manner with reverence mixt with filial confidence to open your hearts spiritually to your Father on all occasions If so you are children and if children doubt not but you have a rich Legacie in Christs last Will and Testament He would not seal up his Testament and forget his dear children Secondly You may discern your interest in the New Testament or Covenant for they are substantially the same thing by the new Covenant impressions that are made on your hearts which are so many clear evidences of your right to the benefits it contains Such are Spiritual
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
the Church as breathed on earth till Christ gave him into its bosom by conversion and then no meer man ever did the Lord and his people greater service than he Men of all sorts Greater and smaller lights have been given to the Church Officers of all sorts were given it by Christ. Extraordinary and temporary as Prophets Apostles Evangelists ordinary and standing as Pastors and Teachers which remain to this day Eph. 4.8 9. And those stars are fixed in the Church heaven by a most firm establishment 1 Cor. 12.28 Thousands now in heaven and thousands on earth also are blessing Christ at this day for these his ascension gifts Fourthly Our Lord Jesus Christ ascended most comfortably for whilst he was blessing his people he was parted from them Luk. 24.50 51. Therein making good to them what is said of him Ioh. 13.1 Having loved his own he loved them to the end There was a great deal of love manifested by Christ in this very last act of his in this world The last sight they had of him in this world was a most sweet and encouraging one They heard nothing from his lips but love they saw nothing in his face but love till he mounted his triumphant Chariot and was taken out of their sight Surely these blessings at parting were sweet and rich ones For the matter of them they were the mercies which his blood had so lately purchased for them And for their extent they were not only intended for them who had the happiness to be upon the place with him from whence he ascended but they reach us as well as them and will reach the last Saint that shall be upon the earth till he come again For they were but representatives of the future Churches Matth. 28.20 And in blessing them he blessed us also And by this we may be satisfied that Christ carried an heart full of love to his people away with him to heaven since his love so abounded in the last act that ever he did in this world And left such a demonstration of his tenderness with them at parting Fifthly He ascended as well as rose again by his own power He was not meerly passive in that his ascension but it was his own act He went to heaven Therefore it 's said Act. 1.10 He went up viz. by his own dâ—vine power And this plainly evinceth hâ—m to be God for no meer Creature ever mounted it self from earth far above all heavens as Christ did Sixthly And lastly why did Christ ascend I answer his ascension was necessary upon many and great accounts For First If Christ had not ascended he could not have Interceded as now he doth in heaven for us And do but take away Christs intercession and you starve the hope of the Saints For what have we to succour our selves with under the daily surprises of sin but this that if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father mark that with the Father A friend upon the place One that abides there on purpose to transact all our affairs and as a surety for the peace betwixt God and us Secondly If Christ had not ascendâ—d you could not have entred into heaven when you die For he went to prepare a place for you Joh. 14.2 He was as I said before the first that entred into heaven directly and in his owâ— name and had he not done so we could not have entred when we die in his name The fore-runner made way for all that are coming on in their several generations after him Nor could your bodies have ascended after their Resurrection but in the vertue of Christs ascension For he ascended as was said before in the capacity of our head and representative To his Father and our Father For us and himself too Thirdly If Christ had not ascended he could not have been inaugurated and installed in the glory he now enjoys in heaven This world is not the place where perfect felicity and glory dwells And then how had the promise of the Father been made good to him Or our glory which consists in being with and conformed to him where had it been Ought not Christ to suffer and to enter into his glory Luk. 24.25 Fourthly If Christ had not ascended how could we have been satisfied that his payment on the Cross made full satisâ—action to God and that now God hath no more Bills to bring in against us How is it that the spirit convinceth the world of righteousness Ioh. 16.9 10. But from Christs going to the Father and returning hither no more which gives evidence of Gods full content and satisfaction both with his person and work Fifthly How should we have enjoyed the great blessings of the Spirit and Ordinances if Christ had not ascended And surely we could not have been without either If Christ had not gone away the Comforter had not come Joh. 16.7 He begins where Christ finished For he takes of his and shews it to us Joh. 16.14 And therefore it 's said â—oh 7.39 The Holy Ghost was not given because Iesus was not yet glorified He was then given as a sanctifying spirit but not given in that measure as afterward he was to furnish and qualifie men with gifts for service And indeed by Christs ascension both his sanctifying and his ministring gifts were shed forth more commonly and more abundantly upon men These fell from him when he ascended as Eliâ—ahs mantle did from him so that whatsoever good of conversion edification support or comfort you receive from spiritual Ordinances he hath shed forth that which you now see and feel It 's the fruit of Christs ascension Sixthly And lastly if Christ had not ascended how had all the Types and Prophesies that figured and fore-told it been fulfilled And the Scriptures cannot be broken Joh. 10.35 So that upon all these accounts it was expedient that he should go away It was for his glory and for our advantage Though we lost the comfort of his bodily presence by it yet if we loved him we would rejoyce because he went to the Father Joh 14.28 We ought to have rejoyced in his advancement though it had been to our loss but when it is so much for our benefit as well as his Glory it 's matter of joy on both sides that he is ascended to his Father and our Father to his God and to our God From the several blessings flowing to us out of Christs ascension it was that he charged his people not to be troubled at his leaving of them Ioh. 14. And hence learn Inference 1. Did Christ ascend into Heaven Is our Iesus our treasure indeed there Where then should the hearts of believers be but in Heaven where their Lord their Life is Surely Saints it is not good that your Love and your Lord should be in two several Countries said one that is now with him Up up after your Lover that he and you may be together Christians you ascended with him virtually when he
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
Didst ever give a cup of cold water in the name of a Disciple and not receive a Disciples reward Matth. 10.42 Hast thou not found inward peace and comfort flowing into thy soul upon every piece of sincere obedience Oh what a good Master do Saints serve You that are remiss and unconstant in your obedience you that are heartless and cold in duties hear how your God expostulates with you Ier 2.31 Have I been a Wilderness to Israel or a Land of darkness q. d. have I been a hard Master to you Have you any reason to complain of me To whom soever I have been straight handed surely I have not been so to you Are the fruits of sin like the fruits of obedience Do you know where to find a better Master Why then are you so shuffling and unconstant so sluggish and remiss in my work Surely God is not behind hand with any of you May you not say with David Psal. 119.56 This I had because I kept thy precepts There is fruits in holiness even present fruit It is a high favour to be imployed for God Reward enough that he will accept any thing thou dost But to return every Duty thou presentest to him with such comforts such quicknings such inward and outward blessings into thy bosom so that thou maist open the the treasury of thine own experiences view the varieties of encouragements and Love-tokens at several times received in Duties and say this I had and that I had by waiting on God and serving him Oh what an ingagement is this upon thee to be ever abounding in the work of the Lord Though thou must not work for Wages yet God will not let thy work go unrewarded For He is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of Love Thirdly Your Father hath further obliged you to this holiness and purity of life by signifying to you as he hath frequently done the great delight and pleasure he hath therein He hath told you that such as are upright in the way are his delight Pro. 11.20 That he would not have you forget to do good and to communicate for with such sacrifices he is well pleased Heb. 13.16 You know you cannot walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing except ye be fruitful in every good word and work Col. 1.10 And oh what a bond is this upon you to live holy lives Can you please your selves in displeasing your Father If you have the hearts of Children in you sure you cannot O you cannot grieve his spirit by loose and careless walking but you must grieve your own spirits too How many times hath God pleased you gratified and contented you and will not you please and content him This mercy you have asked of him and he gave it that mercy and you were not denyed in many things the Lord hath wonderfully condescended to please you and now there is but one thing that he desires of you and that most reasonable yea beneficial for you as well as pleasing to him 1 Phil. 27. Only let your conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Iesus Christ. This is the one thing the great and main thing he expects from you in this world and will not you do it Can you expect he should gratifie your desires when you make no more of grieving and displeasing him Well if you know what will please God and yet resolve not to do it but will rather please your flesh and gratifie the Devil than him pray pull off your vizards fall into your own rank among hypocrites and appear as indeed you are Fourthly The Father hath further obliged you to strictness and purity of conversation by his gratious promises made to such as so walk He hath promised to do great things for you if you will but do this one thing for him If you will order your conversation aright Psal. 50. ult He will be your Sun and Shield if you will walk before him and be upright Gen. 15.1 He will give grace and glory and no good thing will he withhold from him that walketh uprightly Psal. 84.11 And he promises no more to you than he hath made good to others that have thus walked and stands ready to perform to you also If you look to enjoy the good of the promise you are obliged by all your expectations and hopes to order your lives purely and uprightly This hope will set you on work to purge your lives as well as your hearts from all pollutions 2 Cor. 7.1 Having these Promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God Fifthly Yea He hath yet more obliged you to strict and holy lives by his confidence in you that you will thus walk and please him He expresseth himself in Scripture as one that dare trust you with his glory knowing that you will be tender of it and dare do no otherwise If but a man repose confidence in you and trust you with his concerns it greatly obliges you to be faithful What an engagement was that upon Abraham to walk uprightly when God said of him Gen. 18.19 I know him that he will command his Children and his household after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord q. d. as for this wicked generation whom I will speedily consume in my wrath I know they regard not my Laws they will trample my commands under foot they care not how they provoke me but I expect other things from Abraham and I am confident he will not fail me I know him he is a man of another spirit and what I promise my self from him he will make good And to the like purpose is that in Isa. 63.78 I will mention the loving kindness of the Lord and the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us and the great goodness towards the house of Israel which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses For he said surely they are my people Children that will not lie or fail me so he was their Saviour Here you have an ample account of the endearing mercies of God to that people ver 7. and the Lords confident expectations of suitable returns from them ver 8. I said i. e. speaking after the manner of men in like cases I made full account that after all these endearments and favours bestowed upon them they would not offer to be disloyal and false to me I have made them sure enough to my self by so many bonds of Love Like to which is that expression Zeph. 3.7 I said surely thou wilt fear me thou wilt receive instruction Oh how great are the expectations of God from such as you I know Abraham there 's no doubt of him And again they are Children that will not lie i. e. they will not fallere fidem datam Break their Covenant with me Or they are my people that will not shrink as
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
p. 592 593. It is for Christs honour 595. Four Inferences from it p. 596 597. Justice it self discharges the believer p. 176. and p. 596. K. KIng what manner of King Christ is to the Saints p. 205.206 Kingly power of Christ exercised over believers p. 196 197. Kingdom of Christ in the soul how obtained p. 195 196. How Christ administers his spiritual Kingdom opened in five acts thereof p. 197 198. Spiritual priviledges of Christs Kingdom p. 201 202. Five discoveries of our subjection to Christs Kingdom p. 203 204. Know some know Christ yet as to themselves better they did not p. 8. Knowledge of Christ the very kernel of Scripture p. 3 4. His Knowledge fundamental to all graces duties and comforts p. 4 5. Knowledge of Christ very profound noble and sweet p. 5 6. It s preferrence to all other Knowledge in divers respects opened p. 6 7. Knowledge of Christ not to be concealed by thy dispensers of it p. 11. To whom we must go for knowledge p. 107. Eminent knowledge how it aggravates sin p. 304. L. LAw what need to pray for good Laws and good Executioners of them p. 322. Laziness in prayer condemned p. 292. Leaving our fears of God final leaving us how cured p. 457. Life how Christ was humbled in his life opened in divers particulars p. 237 238. Light divine light infused by Christ p. 102. Three excellent properties of it p. 118. Three great differences betwixt common and saving light p. 123 124. A Caution against unthankfulness for and abuse of light p. 125. Little words yea Syllable and Letters how great a weight may hang on them p. 53. Lives their preservation the effect of Christs care and watchful providence p. 216. Love how worthy Christ is of our love p. 21. Wherein Gods love was chiefly manifested p. 88 475. The love of the Father and Son not to be compared but admired p. 66. Christs love to the Saints the fairest pattern p. 79. The ardency of Christs love to Sinners p. 88. Saints obliged to love Christ p. 233. The great evidence of the strength of Christs love p. 225 226 c. M. MArks of persons given by the Father to Christ p. 36. Five marks to discover the Subjects of Christs Kingdom p. 203 204. no marks of grace more dangerous than those that come nearest true ones p. 333. Mediator Christ is so according to both his natures p. 90. What the import of the word is p. 84 85. Five things implyed in Christs being a Mediator p. 86 87 88. Christ the true and only Mediator evinced by three arguments p. 89 90. How dangerous to joyn any other Mediators with Christ. p. 92. Meekness under abuses Christ like p. 411. How dangerous to abuse meek spirits p. 415. A pattern of meekness proposed p. 416. Mercies of believers brought forth with great difficulty p. 354. Ministers the best rule to measure them and their doctrine by p. 108 109. A serious Caution to Ministers p. 10 11. How dangerous to despise Christs Ministers p. 64 65. How daring a sin to invade the office of the Ministry and why God permits it p. 65. Necessity of of a standing Ministry urged p. 104 105. Ministers their test and essential qualifications in six particulars p. 108 109. Misery of the ignorant opened in divers particulars p. 119 120. Moses and Christ compared p. 97. N. NAture our nature not united to Christ consubstantially Physically or Mystically p. 53 54. Necessary the finishing of Redemption work by Christ necessary on a threefold account p. 480 481 Necessity of a Priest evinced p. 131. Night Christs last night on earth how employed p. 266 28 283. O. OBedience to Christ must be universal p. 98 99. Obedience to Christ evidential of our interest in him p. 203 Oblation of Christ the fountain of our best mercies p. 150 151. The matter of Christs Oblation his own soul and body p. 141 842. The preciousness of that Oblation p. 142. Obligations to holiness from God the Father p. 604. Obligations to holiness from Christ. p. 608. Obligations to holiness from the spirit p. 609. Obligations from our selves p. 611 612. Obligations from our enemies p. 615. Offices what offices Christ was sealed to p. 68 69. Old men in an unconverted state objects of great pity p. 445. Opposition to Christ knowingly how dreadful p. 405. Ordinances of Christ the great efficacy and whence it arises p. 66. No power to operate on the heart in themselves p. 115 116. Ordinances not to be despised p. 64 65 571. Overplus of merit in Christ satisfaction Whence that overplus is p. 181 182. P. PAin there may be much pain but no curse in a believers death p. 351. Pains of Christ how great on the Cross p. 466. Christs pains in three respects greater than what the damned feel in Hell p. 468. Pardon God no loser in pardoning the greatest of sinners p. 176. Parents prayers for their Children how beneficial p. 262 26â— Patience of Christ almighty patience p. 388 389. Excellent properties of patience p. 389 390. The grounds and reasons of Christs patience 391 392 393. Eight excellent helps to patience p. 394 395 396. Pattern Christs desertion the pattern of ours in six respects p. 457 458. Patterns of holiness who are so p. 628. Perfection twofold Subjective and Effective both found in Christ. p. 479 480. Persecution followed Christ from the Cradle to the Cross p. 237. The greatest piety exempts not from it p. 244. Person of Christ extraordinary p. 73 74. Pilate who and what he was p. 318. Policy of Satan in chusing instruments p. 309. Poverty of Christ how great p. 239 240. Prayer a proper means to increase knowledge p. 107. Prayers of Saints presented by Christ p. 157. Christs last prayer what it was for the matter of it p. 285 286. What for quality p. 286 287. A singular relief against troubles to pray p. 289. Predication of the properties of each nature in concreto proper p. 57 58. Preferment spiritual by union with Christ. p. 21. Priesthood of Christ implyes six things p. 128 129. Priesthood of Christ defined p. 130. The necessity of Christs Priesthood evinced upon a double ground p. 131 132. He appears before God for us p. 168. Prejudices against Religion for its professors sake how unâ—ust p. 308. Price what Christs death being so called implyes p. 166. Properties of each nature distinct notwithstanding the hypostatical union in Christ. p. 56. Prophet Christ is so p. 97 98. Two parts of Christs prophetical office p. 96. The internal and principal part of it opened p. 113 114 c. Prosperity the ready way to attain it p. 219. Five things to be studied in it p. 220 221. Proverb of Sparta p. 419. Iewish Proverb p. 239. Proverb used in Gallens time p. 364. Providence its general influx on all creatures and their motion p. 209 210. Christ rules the providential Kingdom by seven acts p. 210 211. Its over-ruling wicked counsel p. 211
212 361 362. Purchase Christs blood purchased a rich inheritance for the Saints p. 180 181. Q. SIX Questions opening the difference betwixt suffering for Christ in this world and for sin in that to come p. 526. R. REconciliation with God its nature medium continuation properties and terms opened p. 530 531. Why effected by Christs death ibid. Redemption of souls costly p. 175. Rejecting knowledge how dangerous p. 11. Rejecting Christ most fatal p. 91 92. Relation of Christs sufferings to us p. 168. Religion Christian Religion incomparably sweet and satisfying to the Conscience p. 134 135. What cause men have to bless God for it ibid. Remembrance of Christ what it is opened at large p. 269 270. Two sorts of it ibid. What it includes p. 270 271. The usefulness of remembring Christ. p. 277 278. Rest no expectation of resting till we have done working and sinning p. 586. Four things break a Saints rest on earth p. 587. Resurrection of Christ the certainty of it p. 546. The absurdities following the denyal of it p. 546. The manner of his Resurrection opened in many particulars p. 547 548 c. Christs Resurrection was the Resurrection of the Saints head and representative p. 549. Resurrection of Saints the effect of Christs Resurrection three wayes p. 550 551. The agreement of our Resurrection with Christs opened in five particulars p. 551 552 553. Retracting what we have professed or done for Christ condemned by Pilates example p. 363. Revelations of Gods will by Iesus Christ various p. 101. Gradual p. 102. Plain p. 103. Powerful p. 103. Affectionate p. 104. Pure p. 104. Perfect p. 104. Righteousness how dangerous to joyn any thing of our own with Christs Righteousness in point of Iustification p. 177. S. SAcrament a special pledge of Christs care and love p. 273. Sacrament seasons heart melting seasons p. 276. Sacramental Bread and Wine whence their excellency p. 267. Saints their security for salvation from whence it is p. 262 263. Sanctification of Christ respects us p. 74 75. Our Sanctification the best evidence of our interest in a sanctified Iesus p. 80 81. Satisfaction to God necessary to our reconciliation p. 131. God stood upon full satisfaction p. 131. No meer man can satisfie God p. 132. Christs death made full satisfaction for sin p. 167. What divine satisfaction is p. 168. Five things imported in the satisfaction of Christ p. 168 169 170. Errors about the satisfaction of Christ refuted p. 171 172. Divers objections 173 c. of the Socinians answered about it p. 172 173 174. All thoughts of satisfying God by our selves to be abandoned p. 177. Sealing of Christ what it imports p. 69 70. How God the father sealed him p. 70 71. Why Christ must be sealed before he would act as Mediator p. 62 63. How many wayes the Spirit seals us p. 67. His sealing us an evidence of Christs being sealed for us p. 67. Security of believers argued from Christs Mediation p. 93. Self-denyal of Christ for us p. 20. Self-denyal for Christ how reasonable p. 22. Sentence given against Christ what it was Opened in six particulars p. 319 320. In what manner Christ received his Sentence p. 321. Services accidentally done for Christ unacceptable p. 362. Signes in the Sacrament of the Supper are of three sorts p. 272. Sin an infinite evil in it and how that appears p. 174. The horrid nature of sin opened p. 470. The deep pollution of sin p. 174. Sitting at Gods right hand what it imports opened in seven particulars p. 578 579 580. The Saints sitting with Christ what an advancement to them p. 582. Christ to be eyed in prayer as sitting at Gods right hand p. 584. Christ did not sit till he had finished his work Nor must we p. 586. Society we may have with such here whom we shall have no Society with in Heaven p. 309. Sorrow what it is p. 329. Sorrow distinguished into habitual actual natural supernatural p. 330. Souls how precious they are p. 440. Their sympathy with their bodies and their body with them p. 470. Spirit weighty considerations to keep Saints from grieving the Spirit p. 572. Stoop how low a stoop Christ made to recover us p. 224 225 226. Substance of Christs Mediatory Kingdom and the manner of administration distinguished p. 159 160. Substitution of Christ in our room as our Sacrifice necessary p. 159 160. The excellency and eternal efficacy of this Sacrifice opened p. 140 141 142 143 c. Success of Christs interest in the world unquestionable p. 366. Surety Christ is so and what his being so imports p. 85 86. Sufferings of Christ how great p. 466. They may affect natural hearts for three Reasons p. 330 331. Sufferings for Christ how glorious p. 526 527 58â— Sympathy of Christ with all that were burdened with sin or sorrow p. 241 242. T. TEars what they are p. 329. A double fountain of tears opened p. 330. Temptations of Christ fierce various and tedious p. 240 241. The great relief in temptation p. 246. Suitable temptations greatly hazard our ruine p. 305 306. Thief on the Cross his wonderful conversion p. 442 443. his example incourages none to delay conversion p. 443. Thirst proper and figurative p. 464. Thirst a great affliction p. 464. Christs thirst attributed to a double cause p. 466. Thirst in Hell what it is p. 472. Saints shall never thirst in Heaven p. 473 474. Throne how the Saints are confessors with Christ upon his throne p. 628. Time the preciousness of it and whence it results p. 435 436. Title affixed to the Cross of Christ what it was opened in six properties of it p. 358. The providence of God in the draught of Christs title remarkable in five things p. 360 361. Tryal of Christ for his life how managed p. 313. The inhumanity thereof p. 313 314. No man knows his own spiritual strength till it be put to the tryal p. 380. 381. Trust The Father and Son mutually trust each other p. 33. All our concerns to be trusted in the hands of Christ. p. 219 220. Trust in man how vain and foolish p. 309. V. THE Vicegerency of Christs sufferings p. 168. Understanding what it is and how opened p. 112 113. The proper office of Christ p. 114. Four things implyed in opening the understanding p. 114 115 116. Opening the understanding effected instrumentally by the word and spirit p. 117. The Union personal is extraordinary p. 54 55. How conserved when Christ was in the grave p. 57. How needful it is that Christ have union with our persons as well as natures p. 61. Unprincipled professors will become Apostates p. 305. Unbelievers where death will land them p. 440. Upbraid how those that perish under the Gospel will be upbraided by Iews Pagans and Devils p. 231 232. Uses that God will make of the Saints example in the day of judgement p. 628. Four uses he makes of it in this world p. 624 625 626. W. WEak
opened and comfortably applied being the first step of his Exaltation Argumentum quo probamus Christum seipsum suscitasse vi propria petitur exipsa Resurrectionis activitaeâ—c Christus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surrexit Matth. 28.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 1.3 Maccov soc Com. p. 874. Doct. * Joh. 20.14 Mark 16.12 Joh. 20.19 1 Cor. 15.6 1 Cor. 15.7 1 Cor. 15.8 Joh. 7.26 Joh. 21.1.2 Luk. 24.36 In morte erat solutio in motu an t ut aiunt in fieri verum in Resurrection completa fuit â—â—de nostri justificatio sea à debito absolutio non morti sed Resurrectioni Apostolo meritò tribuaâ—â—r c. Maccov loc Com. â—â— 809. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Est incedere cum pompâ— Majâ—state Genus humanuâ— in paâ—â—nte primo veâ—â—â— in radice putruâ—t Greg. Proximum instrumentum sive â—eâ—es sonni est cerebrum uâ—pote is quo spiritus animaâ—es frigâ—fiunt coâ—deâ—santur aut etiam resolvâ—ntur dissipantur proximè tanquam in pâ—opria spiâ—ituum animalium officina in quo etiam radices nervorum obstruâ—ntâ—r per vapores ne spiritus animales sensui communi servire aut in partes reliquas inferiores corporis propagari liberè possint Keckerm Syst. Phys. p. mihi 441. Optimum in â—â—oquoque genere est regula â—ensura ceteroram Membri detruâ—catio vel obtusio nonne moâ—â— mâ—mbri est Si u ivâ—rsalâ—s mors Resuâ—rectione rescinditur quanto majâ—s portionalis Tur. de Resur How far short do we come of the primitive Christians whose faith in the Resurrection and contempt of death Cyprian thâ—s expresses â—ente integra side firma virtute robusta parati ad omnem Dei voluntat ne fimus pavoâ—e mortis omni excluso iâ—mortalitatem quae sequitur cogitamus Et cum accersitionis propria dies venerit incunctanter libenter ad domiâ—â—m ipso vocante venimus Cypr. sect 5. de laps Quod iâ—terim morimur ad iâ—mo talitatem morte transgredimur non est â—xitus sed transitus c. Cyprian ubi sâ—p Absorpta est mors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in perpetuum ex Hebraeo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod victorian sigâ—ifiâ—at perpeâ—nitatem Class Rhet. sac p. 468. Infer 2. Nâ—mo potest in haâ—â—ita infutura â—audere neâ—essâ— est uâ—am amittat qâ—i alâ—eram vult possidere Aug. Mr Marshall Infer 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In unum coâ—cresâ—re vel coal scere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Si bonus bora facit benè ad bonum Serm. 40. Wherein the Ascension of Christ is opened and variously improved being the second step of his Exaltation Vâ—lâ—bat Maâ—ia Christ mâ—am lecâ—i praenimio scilicet aâ—oe ejus gaudio quod ruâ—un in â—aâ—â—e pâ—â—sâ—â—tem vâ—d sâ—â—t Bâ—câ—r in Loc. Mr. Henry Ieanes second part of the mixture of Scholastical and Practical Diviniâ—y p. 273 Doct. Ascensio totius fuit personae naturae tameâ— diviâ—â— noâ— convenit nisi figuratè Sâ—d humanae naturae maximè pro riae convenit c. Ames Med. p. 114. Dâ—sipulorum infirmitas hujus inter stitii moram postulabat Ames Ne terrenan vitam videretur meditaâ—e Ames Consolationem summam hoc ingressu nobis noâ—strat neque enim sua sed nostra causa ut de coelo descendit ita coelum ocâ—upavit ut nobis ibi locum atque doâ—icilium pararet Pareus in La. Molerus in loc Gâ—â—us Aynswerth Mr. Case in his Piâ—gah Luk. 24.51 Vide â—codatâ— and English Annot. c. Soâ—â—nt principâ—s post victoriam dum triumphant â—agna mâ—nera pâ—cunias in populum sibi triumphanti gratulantem Iubilaâ—tem spargere Zâ—nch Excitas â—â—cto es eccâ—esiae tiâ—â—iâ—er cos qâ—i popâ—lum â—uun â—â—â—uâ—t pâ—â—se â—â—tur biad multos â—x hostitus tuis ad hoc regnum adaucis Molerus in loc Causa hujus ascensionis fuivirtus Divina sed acâ—edebat insuper condâ—tio corporis glorificati quod aequè sursum fertur atque deorsum Ames Infer 1. Infer 2. Infer 3. Infer 4. Joh. 16.14 Mr T. Goodwin Luke 1.35 Isa. 61.1 Col. 1.19 2 Cor. 9.6 Joh. 16.9 1. Pet. 1 12. 1 Joh. 3 24. Rom. 8.9 Rom. 8.26 Joh. 14.16 Ezâ—k 36.27 Infer 5. Spes futurae nostrae haereditatis in â—aâ—ite nostro pleâ—issimè confirmatur nos cun eo in coelis collocaâ—i suâ—us Synop. purioris Theoâ— Disp 28 p 342. Serm. 41. Wherein Christ sitting at Gods right hand is explained and applied being the third step of his glorious exaltation Ratio appellationis primaria est respectu â—atris coelestis à quo ab aeterno per ineffabilem generationem instar luminis de lumiâ—e resplenduit secundaria respectu hominem c. Glas. Rhet. p. 175. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 insculpere dicitur non tam imaginem ex sigillo cerae impressam quam ipsâ—m sigillâ—m denotare Glas. Rhet. sac p. 159. Doct. Dâ—xâ—ram Patris nominamus gloriam honorem dâ—itatis in qua cùm filius Dei aâ—te secula extiterit tanquam Deus in exâ—â—lâ—is Patri â—onsubstantialis postremis temporibus incarnatus etiam cùm corâ—ore consedit Damasc Lib. 4 c. 2. de orch â—ide Dr. Edw. Reynolds in Psal. 110. p. 35 36. Sedent quià labore quiescunt ab eo râ—creunt se. Gâ—n 18 1. quo sensu quidam aâ—cipiunt quod de Christo dicitur Sedere ad dextrâ—m Dei i. e. in Coelis apud Deum in aeterna illa beatitudine quiescere à laboribus ac miseriis quibus sese ultro pro nobis subjecerat Rav. in verbum sedere Significat ergâ— haec sessio Christi ad dextraâ— patris noâ— propriè gloriam illam regnum naturale quod filio Dei cum Patre ab aeterno fuit commuâ—e hoc eâ—im pacâ—o etiaâ— spiritus sanctus ad dextram Dei sedet sed regnum oeconomicuâ— voluntarium in quo tanquam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mediator nâ—ster ad ecclesiae sâ—ae collectionem ac defensioâ—em à Patre est constitutus Synops pur Thol Disp. 23. p. 343. Aurel Vict. Qui Constantiâ—i toties perteruit uâ—bem sub Tamberlano sella Canis quae fuit Mr. Tho. Case his Pisgah part 3. p. 21. Infer 1. Uxor splendiscit in radiis Mariti Infer 2. * A Saint indeed p. 64 65 66. Infer 3. Infer 4. Non ignomiâ—iosum est nobis pati quod Christus passus est nec vobis gloriosum facere quod fecit Iudas Hierony Dr. Manton on Jam. p. 228. Curet non me quoque torque donas Et insignis hujus oâ—diâ—is militem creâ—s Thuan. Hist. Infer 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iâ—quiâ—tum esse Turbulentus Serm. 42. Wherein Christs coming to Judgement being the fourth and last degree of his Exaltation is opened and improved Ad reglam dignitatem pertinet illa potestas qua Christus factus est judex omniâ—m hominum angelorum Ames med p. 117. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Definitus seu constitutus Doct. 1 The Certainty of a Judgement Per sive propter justitiam suam in saepe valet pro. Poli Synop in loc In tanta injuria confugi ad Dei Iudicium in quo pronunciabit qui sunt justi qui sontes Drusius Hoc malo remedium opposui Merc. Contra illum iâ—justitiam consolabar me hac cogitatione quod Deus omnes Iudicaret Geirus Si nullum pecatum manifestâ plecteretur poena nullum esse divinam providentiam credâ—retur Rursum si omne peccatum appertè pâ—niret nullum fore Iudicium crederetur Aug. Mr. Howe 's blessedness of the right p. 343. Sr. Charles Woâ—sely Unreasonableness of Atheism p. 76. 2 The qualiâ—y of the Judgement â—ase his Pisgah Italiam Italiam laeto clamore salâ—ant Virgil. Aenid Ad Dei verbum fit ultima resolutio fidei ad Dei tribunal ultima resolutio judicii That this Judgement makes for Christs Honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infer 1. Geodwirs Triumph p. 146. Infer 2. Infer 3. Infer 4. The General Use of the whole pressing to holiness which is the main scope of the Doctrine of Redemption Secundum dictamen instinctum impulsum spiritus 〈◊〉 gratiae i missae inditae robis à spiritu saâ—cto R. A. Virdiciae Pietatis Obliâ—ations frâ—m the Father 2 Obligations from the Son 3 Engagements from the Spirit The Spirits Expostulation with careless Christians Mr. Polewâ—eils Treatise of quenching the Spirit * Zozomen lib. 2. cap. 8. Mr. T. Malls Exhor to holy living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dan 11.33 34 35. Cum ergo fideles sessâ—ri aicuntur cum Christo id intelligi debet nor de autoritate vâ—l potestate judicandi in ipsis sed 1. de co quod factari sunt in Christo capite suo 2. De approbatione sententiae à Christo latae Apoc. 19. v. 1.3 de eorum testificatione ratione Ministerii conversatio tis comparatione vitae eorum cum vita injustorum qua judicis justitia manifestabitur Synops. purior Theol. p. 798.