Forty Sermons, Sermon 12
SERMON XII. OF CHRISTS BEING LORD and GOD.
John 20. 28.
My Lord and my God.
THAT which we have seen with our eies, which we have lookt upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, declare we unto you, saith St John Epist. 1. c. 1. v. 1. And truly these same senses did declare to Thomas the richest Article of the Christian Faith, the Resurrection, and helpt him to conclude, that Christ was therefore Lord and God. For when he had beheld Christ's hands, and thrust his own hands into his side, he answered and said, My Lord and my God. We have another sense comes in to evidence, and makes the application; we have this day not onelyonly seen and handled, but also tasted the Bread, that is, this Lord; and if we have received it worthily, and being become one with him we may upon our own most sure and close experience cry out, My Lord and my God.
The Text, you see answers both the Solemnities of the day. The Resurrection evidenced him to be Lord and God to Thomas, and so also to us; and our faithful receiving him will evidence him to be our Lord and our God, and in order to both these I shall handle them: for there be in the words these parts.
1. A Compellation given to Christ upon his appearance at his being risen, Lord and God.
2. The Relation of these applied, My Lord and my God. I shall shew
1. That the Resurrection did instal him to that title Lord.
2. Shew what that title does import,
1. By way of requiring, what kind of relation it hath to respect and homage.
2. By way of promise, what it holds out for hope. Then as to a word of application I will shew how the Sacrament applies both those importances.
1. How it is an assurance to perform what that title requires.
2. How it does confer what the title does promise.
To the first, that the Resurrection did install Christ to the Title Lord. As Christ was God he had indeed all Power and Autority from everlasting; that comes not under our consideration. But as he was the person sent and commissioned by God to bring mankind to Salvation; he was first to die for them, then to rule over them; and first to be their Priest, and then their Lord. After his crucifying when he was risen again, then he says All power is given to me both in heaven and earth, Matt. 28. 18. or in more express words Acts 2. 36. Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that fame Jesus, whom they have crucified, both Lord and Christ. His Cross was a step to his Throne, it merited that Autority for him, and was in part undertaken for it Phil. 2. 8, 9. And then for the importance of this Title as to that it does require is very obvious, Lord is a word of power and autority, it requires service and obedience. Nothing more frequent in the Prophets, than, when they have from God severely worded their commands, to add this sanction, I am the Lord: and as applied to Christ St Paul does say, I serve the Lord Christ. A servant is the necessary relative to a Lord, and truly doing what he doth command was the use he assigned of all that power he had given him, teaching them to observe whatever I have commanded. And truly if those Scriptures be remembred which secure his Autority thus, let us know that Power was the reward of his sufferings, and he endured them partly for the Title's sake; therefore says as much, and Heb. 12. 2. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God; did all this, that he might gain that place: or if that be not plain enough, then this is most express Rom. 14. 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living. Verse 8. That whether we live, we live unto the Lord: and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: that is, that both our life might be consecrated to him, our lives spent on his service, and our deaths be at his command; and this was part of the end of his death. And then I appeal to your own hearts, for what end, think you, he did so desire, and obtain this power? Do you think, when he was set at the right hand of God, he was exalted onelyonly to a name, that by all those sufferings he did acquire but a bare title, to be call'd Lord of Lords, as he is call'd Rev. 19. 16. but neither to look after our obedience, nor indeed to set us any law to obey, as some would have it? Was this power so dear to him, as that he would suffer all those torments to compass it, and yet when he hath it, that it should be so little regarded by him, as to suffer us to neglect & contemn it, to go on in a continued course of disobedience to all his precepts, to rebel against his Power, & never submit our appetites to it, but let every lording passion fly in his face, & every lust defy his Autority, let us be proud against that Lord, be higher than our duties and all the temper of virtues, and let every ebullition of our proud wrath trample on a statute back'd with hell-fire, yea and so believe that his death should procure us an impunity in doing this? What a wretched mistake is this, to think his bloud, which purchased him a power to command us, should purchase us a leave to disobey him? This is to make Christ's bloud divided against it self, and to make it spill and dash it self. That we should go on in a course of iniquity, or allow our selves some peevish vices, and stop our own consciences and a Preacher's mouth with saying Christ died for us, when as 'tis clear he died that he might be Lord, that is, that we might live and dy to him, do both at his command; and canst thou think that that death will excuse thee for not obeying, which was undertaken for that very end, that thou mightest obey him? Christ died to be thy Lord, and thou wilt have that death a plea for thee, when thou obeyest sin and the Devil his greatest Enimies. His Cross was his very Ensign and Standard against these Enimies, his Passion was his grappling with them, and his death his Victory. And yet thou dost again submit to their authority, becomest a subject to their power, and settest them Lord over thee, and fetchest the justification of this thy defection from that death and victory; and that is the same thing as to make them of no autority nor power, yea the captivity and ruin of those Enimies to be the reason of thy obeying them, to excuse thy disservice to Christ by saying he is thy Lord, and for thy rebellion and waging war with him pretend thou dost it under his own standard. No certainly his Title claims Obedience, and does assure thee thou must serve. This is the first thing what thou must do.
The second what thou maist expect from it, is easily discover'd, that is wages: For he will recompence every man according to his deeds, Rom. 2. 6. To them, who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, eternal life, v. 7. And glory, honor, and peace to every man that doth good, v. 10. For he is the Lord of glory, the Prince of peace, and Lord of life, the Scripture saith: in a word to sum up both what his Title doth require, and what we may expect from it, it saith Service and it saith Wages, and both are set down in that to the Heb. 5. 9. He is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him; and both here are applied to him who does in earnest owne the relation to this Title, and can say in truth My Lord: the next part, and first of the applying what it does require, Service, as it is the assuring of performance.
My Lord. And truly had we not entred any voluntary obligation, and had we not contracted formally to take him for our Lord, and not onelyonly owned all that the relation does import to be due from us, but engaged also to render it; yet he is to us both
1. By an Original right: he made us, and there is not a workman in the world hath so much right to require the uses of his own handy-work, to dispose of that same utensil which himself shap'd or fram'd, as the Lord hath to require our service. Did I perchance furnish the Lord with some materials for my self, or did I find any piece towards my making, contribute any least thing to my being, then let me claim somthing for my share in my self, and by the rule of fellowship with God have some use of my self to my self, and as to that let him not be my Lord. But there is no such thing; he called me into being out of the infinite resistance of vacuity, and nothing. He gave me body, soul, and every power and faculty, and he upholds every motion and inclination of those faculties, and gives me opportunities and objects for them. There is no considerability of any thing within me is from my self, but entirely owes its being from his store, and comes from the Almighty: and then what least imaginable pretence or plea can I have, why every motion and inclination both of soul and body should not be bound to look towards his service, and every action and thought acknowledge him My Lord. And
2. By purchased Title. He did redeem us from the service of those cruel Lords, Sin and the Devil, whose service is unreasonable and unmanly slavery, and whose wages is eternal ruin; and he bought the right and title to our service at a price, he became our Lord, Ye are bought with a price, 1 Cor. 7. 23. They that do not acknowledge this, are in the number of those men of whom St Peter speaks Epist. 2. c. 2. v. 1. denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction: and you may judge what kind of Lord he ought to be by the price he paid for the Title, what service he expected by the rates at which he purchased them, even at the bloud of God Acts 20. 28. He died, I told you, that he might be Lord. And now Lord, what is thy servant that thou shouldst thus value him, or what are his performances that thou shouldst buy them at these rates? And shall I give to Sin or Sathan those services, which he thus values, and thus buys? No, if thou art content to purchase that so dear which was thy own just due before, surely now by all rights thou art My Lord. But
3. He is so also by my own most solemn contract and engagement. And to pass by all the rest, and to stick to that of this day onelyonly, we did contract so in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and in receiving that we did most solemnly assume to do him faithful service, and took him for our Lord. And this would easily appear from hence, if Christ's bloud be the price with which he bought the right to be thy Lord, and this day thou didst come and here didst take that bloud to all those ends and uses it was given for, then in so doing thou didst ratify the contract, and take possession of the relation: but to do it more solemnly, and here I will not stand upon that proof which I have formerly made to you from the account that Pliny gave to Trajan the persecuting Emperor, tho truly it be strange that a Heathen should discern this was the meaning of their Sacrament, and Christians will not believe it. He, when he was emploied to persecute the Christians, tells him what he had found of them by racking some, and by confessions of others at their death, Soliti stato die convenire, seque Sacramento obstringere, ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, &c. to take an oath (they knew no other sense of the word Sacrament) to do what their Lord had commanded them. What have you don this day? Why Christ was sworn your Lord this day, and you have taken an oath of service, entred into a bond of duty and obedience; and if you wilfully shall fail of doing this, your Worships will be brought against you, your Communions will come in as so many evidences that you have forfeited, so many oaths that you have broken. No sure, I will henceforwards tie my self to better performance; for I have hamper'd my self with obligations, entangled my self with one other engagement, I have again sworn at the Altar, Thou art my Lord. But I have a more solemn proof of this, that he who comes to the renewing of a Covenant with God (now Christ we know saithaLuke 22. 20. that that cup is the new Covenant in his bloud) he does enter into an oath of God, Deut. 29. from verse 10. to 15. Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God, your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood, unto the drawer of thy water, that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day; that he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob: neither with you onelyonly do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day. Now out of this they who are not convinc'd that our first entring Covenant with God by Baptism is a vow, altho the Church require that we should look upon it under that Solemnity, and tho St Peter call it foreign a stipulation, or if they think it something like it, yet 'tis a vow but in the childrens name, and so it does not strike those apprehensions of so sacred an engagement into them, themselves may see here at an entring Covenant little ones entring into an oath: and this was not the first giving of the Covenant, that so any thing might be thought peculiar to that, but onelyonly a repeting of the Covenant in their presence, verse 1. and least that we should think their standing there in solemn manner, might imply something more than ordinary verse 14. 15. take us that stand here this day before the Lord our God, but also with him that shall be born hereafter. Many expositors, and the Jerusalem Exposition says with all the generations of you that are to come foreign, as if they stood with us this day. And the Targum of Jon. Vziel says, they do stand, that is, as to this intent and purpose, that as soon as they are admitted into Covenant by Circumcision, they are within this oath. Littles ones therefore that can be admitted into a Covenant by receiving of the sign of it, they then enter an oath of keeping it. And then, my Brethren, we have entred an oath to continue Christ's faithful Soldiers and Servants unto our lives end, and that is, thou, and I, and every one have sworn he is my Lord. O my Savior I was baptized, and at that time did swear service, and then if I should fail thee now, I renounce my Allegiance, I go from my fealty, and I throw of my Covenant. Every evil action I deliberately commit, brands me with the dishonorable base stile of one that slights his oaths; there is no hold of his vows, not his most sacred ones, those that he makes to God. Every vain or passionate oath, how true soever, speaks me perjured; the draughts of intemperance would wash off the water of my Christendom; every unclean lust, every impurity of Flesh or Spirit does as it were bemire and wipe out my contract with my Lord. For I covenanted to be pure and clean, for I was wash'd into the very name of his retainer. I could not have that title of that relation without being cleansed. There I did swear defiance against all his Enimies, the Devil, World, and Flesh, and all worldly and carnal lusts, that I would neither follow not be led by them; and if I should serve them now, I should be a Rebel and a Traitor to my Lord against my bond, and covenant, and oath. No, my Lord, I will not serve these, where death must be my wages, the Fiends my Comrades, and my Conquest Hell; I'le not do homage to destruction, engage to be true and faithful to my own ruin, pay allegiance to my perdition. Thou hast my worship and my service by bargain and by oath, I have sworn Thou art my Lord. Now all this is of much more force in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, where I do formally and knowingly seal to this Covenant; and when we do this on our knees in the most solomn manner that is possible, this must needs be a more express entring into Christ's oath, than that there of the Jewss was the entring God's oath, which was in probability onelyonly coming and standing before the Lord to hear the Covenant, which God had struck with that nation before in Horeb. Or if it were performed with Sacrifice, which may seem probable in that it is exprest foreign, that thou shouldest pass into the covenant. So your Margent reads there verse the 12. alluding to their manner of confirming Covenants by dividing the beasts, and setting one half against the other, and passing betwixt the divisions: so we see Jer. 34. 18. This is passing into the Covenant, and therefore the LXX. read here Deut. 29. 12. That thou shouldest enter into the Covenant of the Lord thy God, foreign, that rite of dividing and passing thro being onelyonly the Symbol of curses against them that shall break their Covenant, and imprecations in Hieroglyphicks: so that in Jer. 34. 18. 'tis most literally, if we translate the words foreign according to their importance, I will make those men, that have transgressed my Covenant, the calf, or as the calf, as the Syriac reads; I will divide and separate them among the Nations, and give them to the sword, and cut them in pieces, the ceremony signifying to be don to him that does not stand to his Covenant. Now surely this is don to more advantage in the Sacrament, where Christ's body is torn, and his bloud poured out no doubt with the like commination implied, that being the very meaning of pouring out bloud in Covenants; so that we entred there the Lord's Covenant and imprecation, swearing that he shall be our Lord with a most threatning sense. And surely if we be not careful to observe our oath, we have vow'd agonies to our selves, and sworn our own condemnation, when there I curse myself with all the curses of the Covenant, if Christ be not my Lord.
And now it will be needless for me to go on and prove, that if we be not careful to fulfil the importance of this relation, my Lord, in order to what it requires, 'twill be in vain to expect the benefit of that relation, in what it does import. He that hath not don service as to his Lord, must not lookbMatt. 25. 21. to enter into the joys of his Lord: he that hath not don his will, 'twill be in vain for him to cry at the last day Lord Lord, altho he come with never so applying Titles, and cry my Lord, and tho he call upon any other Title of his Jesus. He died indeed for our sins, but he rose again for our justification. His Resurrection did entitle him to be our Lord. If he be risen to thee, he is thy Lord. But these two make up the confession of a Christian Rom. 10. 9. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: and look not for it from any other relation to him. Thy Priest may sacrifice for thee, but Christ thy Lord must pardon thee: thy Jesus on the Cross must pay thy ransom, but if the Lord make you free, then are ye free indeed, John 8. 36. Do not deceive thy self with looking no farther than to thy Jesus in his sufferings; thou must relate to him also in his Power and Autority, thou must depend upon thy Jesus dying and risen too; not onelyonly on thy Jesus on the Cross, but on thy Jesus on the Throne: thou must cry out My Savior, and thou must cry My Lord; and if thou canst in truth and in reality, he is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him; that is, he is an everlasting Savior to them, to whom he is a Lord. His all Autority will be emploied in thy deliverance, he will shew himself a Lord to thee onelyonly in pardoning, saying and rewarding thee, and his all-power both in Heaven and Earth will be to thee Omnipotence of mercy: for he that is thy Lord, he is thy God also. The third thing, My God.
I must take the same method here that I us'd before. First see what the Resurrection did contribute towards this Title God, and what that Title does imply, both as to what it doth require, and as to what it imports by way of promise and encouragement.
Secondly see what the Sacrament contributed towards making the application, My God, and what that imports in order to both the other things.
1. Altho this Son of God according to his Divine Nature was Everlasting God, and, as the Nicene Creed expresses, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, and was called so in Scripture John 1. 1. and the Word was God; yet it is sure this person Jesus Christ was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead, Rom. 1. 4. And this text is the first place in the New Testament, where this person is expresly called God. Thomas upon the evidence of this Resurrection crying out, I do acknowledge that thou art my very Lord, and that is a most certain argument to me that thou art the Omnipotent God of Heaven; and this his Resurrection did contribute to his Title God. Now I enquire what this implies, and that will be made clear from Deut. 26. 16, 17, 18, 19. This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes and his commandments and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voyce. And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments: And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor, and that thou maiest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken. So that you have there the certain meaning of that mutual relation My God and My People as to what it requires: and so we see 'tis but the same engagement that the other Title did import, onelyonly with an higher inforcement and ground of obligation; and therefore God himself that by his Prophet Malachy c. 1. had used the other-argument of Master or Lord foreign v. 6. and Governor v. 8. Offer it now unto thy Governor, will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person? makes use of the like climax and gradation; as if he had said, Had thy obedience to thy Ruler no more care nor endeavor in it, had thy services to thy Lord no more devotion nor zeal, were thy performances to thy Governor so slight and so regardless, so full of supine negligence, to say nothing of transgression and contemt; were thy presentments to thy Prince so unhandsom, slubber'd & heedless, so unchosen, unprepared & so trivial, would they be content with them? And must I? No surely, Cursed be the deceiver verse 14. that mocks me with his imperfect, lame, sick services, with outsides of attendance, yea with irreverence, with casting of my words behind him, with polluted offerings; for I am a great King, saith the Lord. But afterwards in case of an higher affront he breaks into an higher resentment c. 3. 8. Will a man rob God? This is such a thing as the Lord's Rhetoric could lay no greater aggravation on it, than by asking the question, whether any man could heat himself into such a mad impiety, and not be confounded at the thought of such an enterprise, to abuse his God. Now such an obligation of obedience to the Lord Christ he owns, that does acknowledge him his God, this it requires.
Now as to what the Title does import by way of promise; here to be the God of any body signifies to be their Almighty Benefactor, him from whom that person may expect, and shall receive all good things, that the power of a God includes. So it is clear it does, when God proclaims himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and says, that is his name and his memorial to all generations, Exod. 3. 15, 16. From whence our Savior concludes Matt. 22. 31, 32. that Abraham and the other must have a life after this; for otherwise how is he yet their God? How can he be a Benefactor to the dead? And in the tenor of the Covenant, where it is past, it means, I will bestow upon them all the mercies of the Covenant. So in the Old, that place of Deut. 26. 16, 17, 18, 19. so in the New Heb. 8. 10, 12. where 'tis explained, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more, So that my God does mean, first he that I vow all worship and service to, and secondly he from whom I claim and challenge all those glorious things that are contracted for us in Christ's Covenant, the happy issues of the whole chain of methods that he works for us, the designed mercies of his Predestination and the privileges that he calls us to, the comfortable condition in which his Justification does instate us, the graces of his Sanctification, and the incomprehensible blessedness of his Glorification: yea and all the preservations and mercies of this life, all these are challenged in this, Thou art my God. For so Jer. 31. 33, 34. which is repeated in the Heb. 8. 10, 11, 12. whatever both parts do contract for, man's duty and God's promises, is all sum'd up in this, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. By which words also he assures them all deliverances from evil, and enstates upon them the securings of his Providence, both to themselves and their posterity. And if God mean all this, when he does say I will be their God; then man he vows and claims all this, when he does say my God.
Now let us see how this days performance does both these. First how it vows and swears all duty, worship, and service, all that Christ requires by his Covenant, I have already shewn, so that that part is don; onelyonly we may take notice Whose belly is his God, in St Pauls words Phil. 3. 19. the man who does mind nothing but his sensual appeties, and notwithstanding Christ's commands contrives all satisfactions for that, and enjoys them: that either casts the body of Christ into a stomach filled with late surfet and drowns his bloud in such intemperate draughts as are yet unrepented of, or else within a few days after overlaies that body with some riot, or spews that bloud out in the overflowings of his woful draughts. These whatsoever they have don to day, cannot yet say, my God; not onelyonly because they so defy his Worship which they vowed, but because they set up an Anti-God against him, and while they vow upon their knees he is their God, yet at that same time they adore their appetites. Nor if Covetousness, or rather inordinate lusting, as the word bears, be Idolatry, as St Paul oft expresses, and surely without taking in the Heathen uncleanesses in Religion: and it is ill for some persons of these days, that they had not the luck to be born Heathens, that so they might have bin unclean devoutly, committed in obedience to their Gods, presented their bodies living sacrifices to be kindled by the flames of lust, and whose whoredoms were their pieties; for many live now, as if they did not onelyonly wish, but almost think so. But abating this, there is sure more Idolatry in the courthips and the practice of that sin than any other. There is no other thing does cast a man into such base degenerate and unworthy submissions to atchieve or to cover his transgression, lower than any thing but the unclean commission it self. Now if this be Idolatry, the lustful person hath an Idol, and then he cannot say to Christ my God. And thus they in whom the God of this world hath blinded their mind, in St Pauls words 2 Cor. 4. 4. they who serve Satan by going on in any vitious custom of the World; or in a word, they that disobey Christ for this God of the World, this Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that works in the Children of disobedience, Ephes. 2. 2. they cannot say to Christ my God; tho they bow at his Altar, they obey the Devil, and he will not be a partner together with the Devil. So that every one of these is perjur'd, when he says my God; much less can he plead the claim, my God, the last sense.
Now in that sense My God does challenge as a right and a peculiar all the Blessings temporal, Spiritual and Eternal, all that the promises of Christ do offer, or that the hopes and expectations of a Christian fly at: all these, I told you, God included, when he said I will be their God; and therefore all these he does truly challenge, that can say my God. It is an huge Confidence that a poor soul may take, when he can go to God as David does Psalm 119. 94. I am thine, save me; secure thine own, O Lord, or else it will be thy loss what I shall suffer. For I am thine, vindicate thine own right, let neither Sin nor Devil rob thee of thy own peculiar. Behold I commit thine own charge with thee, and then take care of that. Shall that miscarry that is a part of thy custody and care, a part of thy possession and inheritance; for all this is implied in that challenge, my God. For they whose God he is, they are his People, that is the correlation. Now that means a special People, Deut. 7. 6. a peculiar People, 1 Pet. 2. 9. a peculiar Treasure, Exod. 19. 5. his People of inheritance, Deut. 4. 20. his Jewels, Mal. 3. 17. the Jewels of his Crown, Zach. 9. 16. If I am his, I am so under all these precious notions, and then how dear, how valuable am I to my God, who make up his inheritance, who do enrich his treasury, who give a lustre to his Diadem of glory, and am a Jewel in his Crown? How secure may I be? For will God wretchlesly lose his inheritance, or will he not take care of his especial things, or will he throw away his treasure, or will he throw his own Crown to the ground so to dash off the Jewels of it? That place of Malachy expresses the different condition of those that are God's People from the others that have no relation to him, in respect of God's carings and protection, Mal. 3. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Ye have said, it is in vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts? And now we call the proud happy: yea they that work wickedness are set up; yea they that temt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord, spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. In times of undisturbed abundance and of full prosperity, when the God of this World is good to them that serve him, when the Lord lets men alone, and the ungodly thrive; then indeed his protections are not much regarded, but wickedness and wealth do seem the strong securities. But when God sends his indignation abroad, and when his judgments sweep away those confidences, then this will be a comfortable consideration: Come what will come, I have one that will care for me, one that hath writ me in his note book, his book of remembrance to put him in mind, that he is to provide for me: and when the most florishing ungodly man shall be stript of all his hopes and trusts, so that there remains no least relief from them, nor can he look for any from the Lord, he is not of his People; then have I one that will make me up amongst his Jewels, have the same care of me as of his precious and peculiar treasures; I have a right and title to his protections, to provide for, and to take care of me: it is his office, he undertook it in his Covenant, and not to do it were to break his compact which he hath bound himself to with an oath. For I am his, therefore I can with confidence go to him. I am thine, save me. Therefore the words afford me greater grounds of confidence, when they give me autority to challenge him, and tell him, Thou art mine, my God. All the securities that his preserving mercies signify, all the watches of his providence, all the blessings that fulfil his Attributes, as goodness, they are all mine, for he is mine. Can I fear the malice of Adversaries? shall I doubt the fury of that spoiler that even robs necessity, will rob me even to a perfect desolation? Ah my poor soul, Nunquid sibi Christianum. I am sure it cannot take all from me; it must void Heaven before it can disfurnish me of all, it must commit a rape upon my Jesus; for while they leave him, I have my God. Can I want any thing for this life or the life to come, if there be a supply in Christ? I may be sure to have it, if his Divinity can effect it; I need not want, for I have right to him, he is my God. What one thought can afflict or trouble me long, unless it be such an one, for which there is no help for in God? If such a one indeed do seize me, there is danger; but till that happen cPsalm 42. 5.why art thou so troubled, O my soul, why art thou so disquieted within me? O put thy trust in God, in Christ, for he is my God. Can I desire indeed, when I have him? Sure I am strangely greedy, if the Almighty be not enough for me, more unsatisfied than Hell if Christ, that is God, cannot suffice me, if I am not content when he is my God. O my soul, Christ never failed to pay his debts, he is a happy Creditor to whom he owes, especially where he owes that debt, and where he owes himself. Now if thou be a faithful and Religious Soul, he is thy debt, as due to thee as thy own portion. dPsalm 119. 57.Thou art my portion, O Lord, saith David; thou hast as great a right to him as thy inheritance:ePsalm 16. 5. Thou art the lot of my inheritance, saith he again, as St Thomas here He is my God.
But never hath a faithful Soul more right to lay this claim than at the Sacrament to both the claims that I have treated of.
1. To be his Treasure, his peculiar Treasure; for the Church tells us, If with a penitent and true heart we receive that holy Sacrament, then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his bloud, then we dwell in him and Christ in us, we be one with Christ and Christ with us; an Union which fulfils what Christ hath praied for John 17. 21, 23. I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one with us. Here's Unions and interests enough, and all cemented and assured by the worthy receiving of this Sacrament. I am certainly his, if I be made one with him, and dearer than his Jewels, and more peculiar to him than his Treasure; for I am him himself. And the same thing will prove that he is mine; for certainly if I have a title to him ascertain'd, if I be made one with him, I may well call that mine to which I am united. So when he dwells and is in me, then I may say He is my Christ, my God. And then, he that there faithfully performs worship and service to him, and so does take him for his God, then if his God be his inheritance, there he does make his entry: if his God be his portion, there he receives his portion. The Priest there gave thee, if thou wast a good Communicant, the Body and Bloud of Christ, and his Body and his Bloud is he himself. Therefore thou didst receive him as verily as thou didst those, and if the Sacramental food be thine, then Christ is thine, and thou maist say my God.
My Brethren it was the Bloud of Christ that purchased all the glorious mercies of the Gospel, all the blessed expectations of a Christian; that was the price of all the joys of Heaven, that reconciled God to us, bought us an interest in him, and the happy enjoyments of himself for us: and then if in the Sacrament Christ do give me his bloud, when I can shew God that, bring him the price of the remission of my sins, the value of those glories, even the bloud of Jesus, come with the purchase-money in my hands that bought my interest in God, cannot I say those are mine, my Heaven and my God? Yea when I can say, O Lord Christ, whom I have undertaken to obey, my God whom I have vowed to serve and worship, thou art even my flesh; for there I ate thy flesh, and thou becamest flesh of my flesh: Thou art the portion of my cup, when thy very bloud doth fill full my cup, and so thou art my flesh and my bloud, then surely I may say with Thomas here my Lord and my God.
O Holy and Eternal Savior, who art made both Lord and Christ, and by thy Resurrection didst manifest the Omnipotency of thy person, the truth of thy Promises, and open a way to the everlasting glory and salvation, which thou hast prepared for them that give themselves up to serve and worship thee their Lord and God; pour down that blessed influence of this thy Resurrection on our hearts, in raising us from the death of sin to the life of Righteousness. Be thou our Lord and Christ, ruling us by thy laws, saving us by thy grace, and by thy Spirit applying the mercies of thy death, and so making us partakers of thy Resurrection; therein turning us from our iniquities, hereafter in raising us to Glory. O Lord we have this day made a Covenant of this with thee, and signed the Articles of it in the bloud of our God, swore to them at the Altar: give us grace, we beseech thee, to use the strictest care and watchfulness in our endeavors to perform with thee. Regard not how we have in times past onelyonly mock'd thee sacredly in these performances. O let it from this day be otherwise. We have bin onelyonly on a stage of Religion, when we are at our devoutest performances; and having turn'd our backs unto the Church, turn'd them also to our duty, put off the vizards of Religion, and we untired our selves of all our Piety almost as soon as the exercises of it were don; and howsoever we tied our selves, our froward wills have bin too strong for all our obligations, and burst out of them, broke all thy bonds asunder, and cast away thy cords from us: altho we tied them with all things that were most solemn and most sacred, vows and oaths, and tied them before the body of our crucified Lord and Savior, with the body and bloud of Christ in our hands, as if we had no other desires, no other cares that should do us good, than as we were careful to keep those resolutions and vows; and yet. O Lord, we did let them instantly loosen and slack, pass by and fail. Yea we did break them wilfully, and would not be held in by thine or our own bonds. O Lord, if thou look upon us in this guilt, sure thou wilt have no more to do with us, such false and perjured vow-breakers. But O look upon us in thine own bloud, which thou hast bid us pour out still to establish and renew our Covenant with thee; and let this Covenant, wherein we have now taken thee to be our Lord and God, and taken thee who art so in us, remain inviolable: be there then with thy Power and Autority, subdue our hearts and our desires, and bring them under the obedience of thy laws. Thou that art God Almighty, that didst conquer Death and Satan, bring it to pass that none of them prevail against thee now in our Souls, where thou art: but use thy strength, O Lord, to drive their power thence, that thy servants and thy people may not be enslaved to corruption and ruin, nor thy Enimy gain souls from thee, which thou hast purchased with thy bloud, that we having attain'd thee for our Lord and God, may claim the privileges of thy People here, have the watches, and cares, and securities that thou laiest out upon thy Treasures and the Jewels of thy Crown; and by thy body and thy bloud being made one with thee, and thou being ours, all things may be ours, thy grace here and thy joys hereafter; thy Spirit may be ours, and thy Heaven ours; and we in thee and thou in us, may all enjoy thy Kingdom, Power and Glory for ever.