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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60234	Freedom from fear of death, through the death of Christ a sermon preached at Guild-Hall-Chappel, on Good-Friday, A.D. 1681 / by William Sill ...	Sill, William, d. 1687.	1681 (1681)	Wing S3787; ESTC R12824	20,138	46

what his undertaking the Office of Mediator did teach us to expect might fully answer our Wants and our Expectation from it All the promises of God are in Christ Yea 2 Cor. 1.20 and in him Amen Every Declaration of the Favour and Love of God the Father to us is to have its Completion through Christ in whom as his beloved Son Mat. 3.17 he is well pleased and in whom alone he is Propitious to us Luk. 2.14 And this Declaration of Peace on Earth and Good will towards Men is so surely Founded and firmly Ratified in Christ that we are taught to ground our Expectation of it upon the Faithfulness of God In so much that in the general every Act of a truly Christian and lively Faith by which we receive the Testimony of Christ is a setting to our Seal that God is true Joh. 3.33 and in particular If we confess our sins which will contain our Acknowledgment of Guilt and Obnoxiousness to Divine Wrath and our looking upon Christ as the Propitiation for our Sins together with that true Repentance and sincere Affection of the Heart which this Confession as being made not to Man but to God doth require we are then taught to look upon God as one that is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 1 Joh. 1.9 and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness But now As all this declares the Faithfulness of God and the Excellency of Faith which not only ascribes the greatest Honour to God but receives that Honour from God as to have no less Evidence of its Certainty than there is of the Unchangeableness of God himself seeing that it is impossible but that God should Accept what he hath freely declared that he will accept on our behalf from him whom he hath appointed the Mediator between himself and us So all this doth suppose that this Mediator doth faithfully perform what as such he undertakes to perform in order that it may be Accepted of by God And therefore seeing that the Holy Spirit of God in Scripture hath declared Rom. 3.25 26. That God hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins that are past through the Forbearance of God That he might be just and the justifier of him that Believeth in jesus It becomes necessary according to this wise Appointment of God and the agreement between Himself and the one Mediator between God and Men that this Mediator should be made like unto us and in this likeness that is in our nature suffer for our sins That he might be a faithful High Priest that he might in truth and reality and in the rigor of Justice perform all in things pertaining to God which was thus necessary to make reconciliation for the sins of the People Even all that as our High Priest he had undertaken to perform for our Perfect and Full Reconciliation and without which God was not obliged by any thing that he had freely Promised to Accept of his Offering in our stead For from what hath been said and from the farther evidence of that Place with which I will shut up this point It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1.19 20. and having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself it is put beyond all doubt that the Fathers Reconciling all things to Himself by the Son was no otherwise in the purpose and decree of God practicable but by the Peace which Christ made by the Blood of his Cross In all this we may discern much though we cannot reach to the whole of that astonishing Wisdom and Goodness which is in the Scripture set forth to us in that the eternal Son of God took upon him our nature that in that Nature he might by Death deliver us from that Bondage to which we were subject through Fear of Death from which we have the greater security because though it could be performed in his humane nature only yet the Dignity of his Person added an inestimable value to his sufferings It was the Eternal Son of God Bp. Pearson on the Creed p. 186. Gal. 4.4 Joh. 1.14 Act. 3.15 very God of very God who when the fulness of time was come was made of a Woman was made under the Law It was the Word which was made Flesh and dwelt among us It was the Prince of Life the Lord of Glory 1 Cor. 2.8 who suffered in humane nature which he Assumed into the Unity of his Person being put to death in that Flesh Rom. 1.3 4. according to which he was made of the Seed of David but as considered in an inseparable Conjunction with that Spirit of Holiness according to which he was declared to be the Son of God with Power by the Resurrection from the dead And now Psal 116.12 what shall we render unto the Lord for all his Benefits towards us What is Man O merciful God and gracious Redeemer that thou should'st thus magnifie him and that thou should'st set thine heart upon him Job 7.17 How should this give us such a deep sense of the great things of our Religion as may quicken and encrease in us all requisite Graces as may shew us our Misery by nature and lay more closely before us the Hope of Righteousness by Faith Gal. 5.5 which through the Spirit we wait for How should this encrease our Humility our hatred of Sin our Gratitude and an unfeigned Resolution of the most universal Obedience that we can possibly yield to the Faith and to the Truth and to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ Who besides all the other Obligations he hath laid upon us to obey him doth now more especially call upon us not only to consider that Victory which through him we have over Death Sin and the condemning Power of the Law but also to consider him as the Captain of our Salvation giving us a signal instance by those sufferings he did voluntarily undergo of that Obedience in which we must always be ready to imitate him whatever the Tryals of it may be that our Heavenly Father may think good to call us to and that indispensably if we expect any benefit by what he hath done and suffered For so the Apostle tells us Heb. 5.8 9. That though he were a Son yet learned he Obedience by the things which he suffered And being made perfect he became the Author of eternal Salvation unto all them that obey him Which Obedience that we may ever judge our selves infinitely obliged to pay and be heartily willing to pay it to the utmost let us ever have in our thoughts what he hath suffered for us and that our sins were the Cause of all the Meritorious cause of his Sufferings and that which gave the sharpness to them but especially let us be mindful of that incomparable Love which this proceeded from That so from the pleasing force of its constraint as by a compendious way and yet no less expressive of all those Bonds of duty which the Mercy we this day commemorate doth lay upon us not permitting any Circumstance of it to want its due moments of weight we may as from the joynt sense of all be prevailed with to live as those that expect that Deliverance which our most compassionate Saviour hath by his own Death obtained for us That we may live in all Holiness of life and die with comfort Looking for that blessed Hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Who gave himself for us that he might Redeem us from all Iniquity and Purifie unto himself a peculiar People Zealous of good Works Tit. 2.13 14. To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed as is most due All Praise Honour and Glory henceforth and for ever Amen FINIS

Christ ought to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory For besides the Correspondence that cannot but be between what God hath Fore-told and what doth come to pass it may not be unfit to observe a Denotation in all this of Gods Ordinary Methods in dealing with the Sons of Men He having thought it convenient to Exercise them with many Hardships before he bring them to an Immutable Happiness And therefore God having determined that those whom he purposed to Glorifie should even in this respect be Conformed to the Image of his Son Rom. 8.28 29. It was necessary that by Suffering he should be the First-born among many Brethren And therefore we should Learn from what befel him to Expect Sufferings and from his Example both to be Willing to suffer and How to suffer That God is to be Glorified in All that we are or are Capable of as well in Suffering as in Doing That we should never decline any Suffering Mat. 5.10 1 Pet. 2.18 c. or any Occasion of it for Righteousness sake And that even when we suffer wrongfully we are so to behave our selves as by our Christian-like Deportment to express that Meekness Patience and Submission and hearty Praying for our Persecutors which he did express to the wonder of all that beheld him We must hence learn to be Subject to all those that have Authority over us not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward For unto this matter doth St. Peter apply the Argument he fetcheth from what our Saviour suffered 1 Pet. 2.21 Telling us that Hereunto we are called because that Christ also suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth Who when he was reviled reviled not again When he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously This reason of the Fitness of our Saviours Sufferings is very Pious and the Application of it most Necessary But whatever Reasons we may take notice of they must all be considered with respect to Gods Decree and good pleasure and may not so be laid down as to make what We may Apprehend as Necessary a Limiting of the absolute Freedom of the Divine Will Which being premised I am willing a little farther to insist upon the Consideration of the Fitness that Christ should take Our nature upon him and therein suffer for us from what we read in the next Verse but one after my Text That It behoved him in all things to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God to make Reconciliation for the Sins of the people Upon these Two things I shall lay the main Stress of the matter and consider them in such a way as may be most pertinent to the main Subject of my Text. 1. That he might be a Merciful High-Priest the eternal Son of God took our nature upon him Not that he needed this to make any Addition to his Mercy which is infinite but that having those Affections that are Common to our nature and in our nature having had a lively Sense and Experience of our Infirmities Heb. 4.15 We according to that infinite distance there is between the Incomprehensible and Self-sufficient God and our poor Defective and Polluted nature might with the greater Assurance go to this Emmanuel this God with us Mat. 1.23 John 1.14 to the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us and lay open all our wants before him 1 Tim. 2.5 as the One Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus For the infinite Perfections of God which are nothing else but the one same uncompounded Essence though apprehended by us under differing Conceptions which we call Justice Mercy Power c. are so far above our Comprehension that when according to our Measure we endeavour to form such Notions of them as may be a sufficient Ground for our Trust and Confidence without the lest Wavering or even Suspicion that our Ignorance may be Prejudicial to us we find our minds so Dazled with the exceeding glory of the Object and our thoughts so divided and many times Contrary to each other that the more we Think of that which cannot be Comprehended by us the more we are Confounded and do at last find it Impossible to have any firm Rest and assurance for the Soul which can pretend to Exceed that Discovery we have of God in Christ He that confiders what our Saviour hath told us of himself I am the way and the truth and the life Joh. 14.6 No man cometh unto the Father but by me must be wanting to himself in admitting that light which he may receive if he be at any loss in the certainty of this That as in Christ we have all requisite Knowledge of God so in and through him we can only expect to find the Great God who is Glorious in Holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Exod. 15.11 to be propitious to us It is therefore our Happiness that we have an High-Priest who having taken our Nature upon him hath thereby brought what is Necessary for us to know of God to that Measure that we are able to reach to The safest Prospect we can take of Gods infinite Attributes is in him that is the brightness of Gods glory Heb. 1.3 and the express Image of his Person And though it may be a dangerous Curiosity to lanch out too far into this Depth yet this is our Comfort and it should be our main Concern that we have in Christ not only a Satisfactory but even a Glorious discovery of that particular Attribute of God in which our lost Condition is chiefly concerned even that of Mercy in our Merciful High-Priest 2. It behoved the Son of God to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God to make Reconciliation for the Sins of the People He having Undertaken to make Reconciliation and by so doing to shew himself in a most eminent manner to be our High-Priest and the Manner of this reconciliation being Agreed on between the Father and the Son how could it be but that the only Happiness of Sinful and Miserable Men must depend upon the making of such a reconciliation as would be Effectual How can we apprehend Christ to have been a Merciful High-Priest but we must conclude that he was therefore a Faithful High-Priest His Mercy inclined him to Compassionate our misery and to Intercede with God for Pardon as our High-Priest and therefore as our Faithful High-Priest he did not only Intercede for us but he interceded for us Powerfully He did all that in the Wisdom and Decree of God was necessary to obtain our Reconciliation Thus in all things he was like unto his brethren that he might be a faithful High-Priest that what we had need of and