Forty Sermons, Sermon 9
The Ninth SERMON, Preached at WHITE-HALL. Sixth Wednesday in LENT, 1664/5.
GAL. II. 20.
I am Crucified with Christ.
THE Ancient Observation of this Time would justifie my Choice, make the Text Seasonable in the most Severe sense it can put on, when in their Exomologeses they ate onelyonly the Bread of Sorrow, and tears were their Drink day and night, so as that in the Agonies of their Repentance they did Crucifie without a Meraphor, and mortifie the Body of Flesh as well as Sin. But it seems to have happened in our Sins as in our great Diseases, men are grown more skilful, and have found out much more grateful ways of Cure, there is no need of going through a discipline of Torments, a whole course of Medicinal Cruelty, but they can heal, at least palliate with more ease and speed. Besides that, Christianity is now of a more delicate and tender make, and cannot bear austerities, neither come I here to call for them, or to provoke their Constitutions; if they have found a softer and more pleasant way to Heaven, on Gods Name let them walk in it; onelyonly in our walk we are now coming within ken of the Cross of Christ, and we can bear commemorations of his Passion; they make the closing Ceremony of this Season, which was set aside on purpose by the preparations of Humiliation to fit us for the performances and expiations of that Day, by Repentance to put off our Old Man, the whole Body of Sin, that we may hang it on his Cross as we go by. That is the onelyonly use of this time, and the onelyonly application of that Day. Which I crave leave to shew you how to make at once: And without this that Ceremony howsoever solemn, will be meerly Pageantry, not Worship; the observation but dramatick; and we shall have no part in the Atonement, onelyonly in the Scene of that days Tragedy, rather than Sacrifice: He onelyonly Celebrates that Passion, onelyonly he partakes that Offering, who can say with S. Paul, I am Crucified with Christ.
In which words we shall first endeavour to discover what this Person is,
Secondly, What the Nature is of that Condition and estate which S. Paul does affirm here of that Person; and that
First, In it self, Crucified; I am Crucified.
Secondly, In its adjunct; with Christ, Which because it cannot signifie conjunction in time, he is not now upon the Cross, that I might say, now I am Crucified with him, nor when He was, was I, that I might say then I am Crucified with Christ; but we shall find it hath other importances. First it implies a likeness to Christ's Passion, I am Crucified as he was, so it means through the whole Rom. vi. and the being crucified with Christ is what S. Paul elsewhere expresses by the being made conformable to his death.
Secondly, It imports more, even Communication and partaking with him in his Passion, being planted together in the likeness of his death, Rom. vi. 5. and I am Crucified with Christ, does mean I have a fellowship of his Sufferings, as he words it Phil. iii. 10.
Thirdly, It means also a conjunction of causal Relation, that there is a Vertue and Efficacy in the Cross of Christ to work the Sinner into Crucifying of his sin so the particle must needs import, Ephes. ii. 6. foreign he hath set us together with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Where we are neither in conformity, nor fellowship, but onelyonly in our head and in our cause; so I am Crucified with Christ does mean his Passion hath an influence to Crucifie and cause in me the death of Sin.
Of these in order; and
First, what this Person is? I say not who? we know it was S. Paul, but what? Gal. v. xxiv. Coll. iii. 5.and the reason of the Enquiry is because we find indeed elsewhere crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts required, and we are also bid to mortifie our members that are on the Earth; such as Fornication and Vncleanness, Covetousness and the like. But these are not I, how am I mortified in these? Is it because it may be they are grown so dear to me, that I am Crucified in their destruction? and long practice and acquaintance hath riveted them into my very heart? Now the Wen we know though an excrescent tumour, but an accessory bag of noxious humours, yet if it lay hold on any noble part, take in some Nerve or Artery, then he must cut the thread of Life that cuts it off: So he must rent my heart indeed that tears my pleasures from me; Life it self does seem to have so little salisfaction without them, that it is a death to me to part with them. Or else hath the Old Man no Soul? is he all Flesh? and hath Iniquity debas'd the whole of him, so that his very Spirit is become Body of Sin, so as that Wickedness should be our very Being, be all one with us, and I, and my corruptions prove denominations of one importance, signifie the very same? so it is indeed: Besides the carnal part that is sold under sin, and consequently does deserve the Cross, that punishment of Slaves, the part also that is in the quite opposite extream, that lusts against the flesh, that must be made away. Be ye … ansform'd by the renewing of your mind, Rom. xii. 2. And if there be any sublimer and more de…cated past in that, it must submit to the same Fate, … in the spirit of your mind, Ephes. iv. 23. Corruption hath invaded that: To foreign the diviner ruling part, is grown a slave to the Beast part of him, it hath debauch'd its notions whereby it should discriminate good from evll, so that now it can discern no natural difference between them, but does measure both meerly by his present inclinations and concerns, and the eternal Laws of Honesty are blotted our, and principles of interest and irreligion rais'd there in the place, and buttress'd by false reasonings and Discourses. Now all these Fortresses of Vice that maintain and secure a man in sin must be demolish'd,2 Cor. x. 5. all such imaginations cast down, and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God, and every thought brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ: That Spirit of the mind must be destroyed, and we transformed into persons of new notions and reasonings. But above all the remaining part of Man, his own Will must be mortified, which besides its natural foreign and foreign, by perverse inclinings to sollicitations of flesh is most corrupted, and most dangerous, in that which way soever it inclines, it draws the whole Man after it: If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ, it must be this; for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Cross (where although the Divine Nature gave the value, 'twas onelyonly the Humane Nature made the Offering) there it was the crucifying his own Will, that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice, and the price of our Redemption. God that had given him his Blood and Life, might call for it again when and how he saw good, and being due, it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin; but his free voluntary choice, his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Cross, his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination,Luke xxii. 42. Not my will, but thine be done: This his own Will was his own Offering; and such is ours, if we be Crucified with Christ, made conformable to his death; if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord; for our will is not given up to him, till it do perfectly comport with his; but that it cannot do, till we renounce our own desires, till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things, to such a resignation as she is storied to have had, who being in her Sickness bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death, made answer, Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine, this above all I desire, that thou wilt not do my will, I would have thee not do what I desire and would have. So that foreign, the whole of us, the Spirit, Soul and Flesh, go to make up this Person; and the body of Sin is the Old man entire. I, whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts, my Senses are the bands of wickedness, that procure for my evil inclinations, my members are the weapons of unrighteousness, my Body is a Body of Sin and Death, and the affections of my Soul are Lusts, its faculties are the powers of Sin, yea, and the Spirit of my mind, that Breath of God is putrefied; that foreign, that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate; and however I be partly Son of Man, and partly Son of God, yet I am wholly Child of Wrath, and so fit to be Crucified.
Which calls me to the next Enquiry, to the nature of the duty here intended, I am Crucified.
What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. vi. 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin: So that it means a through Repentance, and abandoning of former evil Courses: A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary, and persuade themselves they do perform it. At some time or other they are forc'd to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins, and have some sad reflections on them, beg for mercy and forgiveness, and do think of leaving them; and when they have return'd to them again, they shake the head, and chafe, and curse at their own weakness, and renew their purposes it may be; and do this as oft as such a Season as this is, or other like occasions suggest it to or move them: And with this they satisfie themselves, and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy, gloomy fit of their Repentance, all's well. Now shall we call this being Crucified? are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline? hath a Spear prick'd them to the heart, and no blood nor no water, no tears gush out thence? hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out?
Indeed I must confess, the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this Duty in expressions that are not so sower, but of an easier importance;Ephes. iv. 22. as first, put off the Old Man, as if all were but Garment; put it off I say, not as they strip'd our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Cross, but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them, who do begin with it betimes, before it get too close to the heart. foreign, &c. saith Theophyl▪ even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths, and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift, thy change of life like changing thy Apparel.
But alas! for all the easiness which this expression hints, where the sins also lie in the Attire, as besides emulation, pride, vainglory, great uncharitableness and inhumanity, cruel injustice and oppression often do, when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this kind: when the sins therefore lie in the Attire, and they may put them off without a Metaphor, yet it is so hard that it cannot be done; sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a Neck, a Patrimony thrust upon one joint of one least Finger, and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors; for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread; but that's a Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue. And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this Duty? Circumcise your selves to the Lord, and take away the foreskin of your hearts, Jer. iv, 4. These are harder and more bloody words, they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to, as much as to uncloath and flea would do. It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Cross. To foreign saith Ctesias of one, having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified: And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour, when they put off his Cloaths they strip'd his Skin also; left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh. Yet this expression sounds harsher, when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts, and tear it from thence, flea that: When long Conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onelyonly given them Regallias, but hath made them necessary to us, so as that we cannot be without them; when Custom craves with greater feaver than our thirst; when if we want it, we have qualms, saintings of Soul, as if the life were in that blood of the grape, when men can part as easily with their own bowels, as the Luxuries that feed them; if you take away their Dishes, then you take their Souls which dwell in them; when the sins of the Bed are as ne…dful and refreshing as the sleeps of it; when to bid a man not look, not satisfie his lustful eye, is every jot as cruel as that other, I… thine eye offend thee pluck it out: For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight, he hath no use of it; yea if this be indeed a kindness not to leave him Eyes to be to him the same as Appetite to Tantalus, that which he must not satisfie, and is his hell: 'Tis easie if the Lust be got no further than the Eye to pull them out together; but if through that it shoot into the Blood and Spirits, mix heats with those, if it enwrap the heart, twist with its strings, and warm the Soul with its desires; so that it Spirit all the motions, all the thoughts and wishes of the heart; when it is thus, to make the heart to stifle its own motions, stab its thoughts, and strangle all its wishes; to untwist and disentangle and to tear it thence, if this be to be Circumcised with the Circumcision of Christ,▪ and he that hath not the sign of this, the Seal of the New Covenant, as he that in the Old had not the other, was, must be cut off; our long habituated hardned Sinners must not think that there is any thing of true Repentance in their easie, perfunctory, sleight performances; there is something like Death in the Duty, which yet is required of us farther under variety of more severe expressions; for we are bid thirdly to slay the Body of Sin, Rom. vi. 6. to mortifie our members, Col. iii. 5. and to Crucifie, Gal. vi. 14. which how it may be done, the next consideration of S. Paul's condition in the Text, and my next part declare. I am Crucified with Christ, that is, first as he was, by being made conformable to his Death.
And truly should we trace him through all the stages of his Passion, we should hardly find one passage but is made to be transcribed by us in dealing with our sins.
First he began it with Agony, Matth. xxvi. 37.when his Soul was exceeding heavy, for it labour'd with such weight of indignation as did make the Son of God to sink under the meer apprehension:Vers. 38. And he was sorrowful unto Death, so as that his whole Body did weep Blood. The Sinners passion, his Repentance is exactly like it, it begins always with grief and sense of weight, whoever is regenerate was conceiv'd in sorrow, and brought forth with pangs, and the Child of God too is born weeping. And for loads, the Church when she does call us to shew forth this Death of Christ, as if she did prescribe that very Agony, requires that we should find that Garden at the Altar, makes us say we are heartily sorry for our misdoings, the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable. So that the Sinner's Soul must be exceeding heavy too.
Secondly, There he is betrayed by his own domestick, sold for the poorest Price imaginable, as a Slave for thirty pieces of silver. I shall not mind you what unworthy things the love of Money does engage men to; to sell a Christ, a Saviour, and a God! and rather than stand out, at such a base rate, as we scorn to buy a sin at; every single act's engagement to Damnation, costs more than the Ransom of the World is sold for; and the Blood of God is purchas'd cheaper than any one opportunity of Vice does stand us in! But I onelyonly mind you here, that he shall have a better hire that will but be a Judas to his own iniquities: do but betray the Regent sins, deliver them up and thou shalt have everlasting Heaven.
Thirdly, We find him next carried before the High Priest. And the strictest times of Christianity would serve their sins so, to receive his doom upon them, to be excommunicated into Reformation: But I shall not urge how we can discover to a Physician our shames, all our most putrid Guilts as well as Ulcers, and make him our Confessor in our most secret sins; neither will I be inquisitive why the Physicians of our souls are balk'd; but will pass this part of the Conformity, and follow Christ to Pontius Pilate. And for this part we our selves are fitted, the whole furniture of a Judicial Court, all that makes up both Bench and Bar is born within us. God hath given us a Conscience whereby we are a Law to our selves, Rom. ii. We have foreign, which the Jews did want; such evidence as is sufficient to condemn us; the same Conscience that is privy to our doings, and stands by our thoughts, and sees through our intentions, is a thousand witnesses: And that there may be a Prosecutor, our own thoughts accuse us saith S. Paul; and if we will give them way, will aggravate each Circumstance of guilt and danger, bark, and howl, and cry as loud against us, as the Jews did against Christ, for Sin is of so murthering a guilt it will be sure to slay it self: and that he may not want his deserved Ruin, the Sinner makes his own Indictment, yea, and his own Sentence too, for our own heart condemns us, saith S. John: And when ever it does so, Oh that we would follow it through all the gradations that brought Christ to Death! and use our wickedness as he was us'd; strip it from its Cloaths, bare it from its fair pretexts it useth to be dress'd in! Lay our anger naked from all those excuses which our provocations, that either wrath or humour will be sure to think intolerable, do make for it! strip our Pride and Vanity from those paints and dresses which the Custom of the Age, that does require and warrant strange things, dawbs the sin with! use our Luxuries and Intemperances so, and the other greater and more thirsty dropsie, that of Wealth, and of unjust unworthy gains, which there are richer Luxuries in too! And there are none of these but have their pleas, their colours which they set themselves out in, to please the Appetite and to deceive the Mind, all which we must strip off; and then when we have laid them naked, spit upon them, vomit all our spleen and contumelious despite at that which hath made us so ugly in Gods sight; scourge it with Austerities, and buffet it as they did Christ, and S. Paul did himself, 1 Cor. xvi. 27. And when the Body of Sin is thus tamed and weakened, it will be easie then to lead it out and crucifie it. A Crucifiction this that does make our Good-Friday be a day of Expiation and Atonement to us: A sight which next to that of his own Son upon the Cross, is the most acceptable to the Lord; when he does see us execute his Enemies although they be our selves, and Crucifie the dear Affections of our bosom as God did. This is indeed to be conform'd unto the death of Christ.
If I might have leave to go before you and to let you into the Example, draw the Curtain from before the Passion, I would call my Sins out, drag them to behold that Prospect, hale them into the Garden, shew them how he was us'd there. You my Extravagancies of my youth my mad follies and wild jollities, come see my Saviour yonder, how he swoons when guilt began to make approaches towards him! and can I make my self merry with nothing else but that which made him die? tickle, chear, and heighten my self with Agonies? You my intemperate Draughts, my full Bowls and the riotous Evenings I have past, look yonder what a sad night do these make Christ pass! look what a Cup he holds, which makes him fall lower to deprecate, than ever my Excesses made me lie. You my lazy Luxuries, Fulness of Bread, and Idleness, whereby I have controul'd Gods Curse, and onelyonly in the Sweat of others Faces eat my Bread, and in that dew drank up the Spirits of those multitudes that toil to faintings to maintain my dissolute life, see how he is forc'd to bear the whole Curse for me! how the Thorns grow on his head, and how he Sweats all over. You my supine Devotions which do scarce afford my God a knee, and less an heart, not when I am deprecating an Eternity of all those Torments which kill'd Christ! look yonder how he prays, behold him on his Face petitioning, see there how he sweats and begs. You my little Malices and my vexatious Angers, that are hot and quick as Fire it self, and that do fly as high too, that are up at Heaven strait for the least wrong on Earth! look how he bears his, how his patience seems wounded onelyonly in a wound that fell upon his Persecutors! and when one that came to apprehend him wrongfully was hurt,Matth. xxvi. 51. as if the Sword of his defence had injur'd him, he threatned and for ever curs'd the black deeds of that angry Weapon,Verse 52. and made restitution of what he had not taken, made his Adversary whole whom he had not hurt!Luke xxii. 51. See how with his cruel Judges he is as a Sheep, that not before his shearers onelyonly, but before his Butcher too, is dumb. You my Scorns, and my high Stomach that will take no satisfaction but Blood and Soul for the faults of inadvertency, for such as not the wrong, but humour makes offences: lookhow they use him, they buffet, and revile and spit upon him. Ye my dreadful Oaths and bitter imprecations which I use to lace my speeches with, or belch out against any one that does offend me in the least, making the Wounds and Blood of God, and other such sad words, either my foolish modes of speaking, or the spittings of my peevishness. There you may see what 'tis I play with so, you may behold the Life of Christ pouring out at those Wounds which I speak so idly of, and what I mingle with my sportive talk is Agony, such as they that beheld afar off struck their breasts at, and to see them onelyonly was a Passion. Ye my Atheisms and my Irreligion—but alas you have no prospect yonder, it's but faint before you who out-do the Example; whatsoever Judas and the rest did to the Man Christ Jesus, you attempt on God, you invade Heaven, Sentence, Cruicifie Divinity it self.
And now having shewed my Sins this Copy of themselves, what they are in their own demerits, when my bowels do begin to turn within me at that miserable usage which Christ underwent, it will be a time to execute an act of Indignation at my self, who have resetted in my bosom all these Traytors to my Saviour; made those things the joy and entertainment of my life which had their hands in the Blood of my God; and what a stupid sensless Soul have I, that was never troubled heartily at that, which did make him almost out of hope? and if this be the effect of sin, then it is time for me to throw it off, O my Jesu! sure I am, I am not able to support the weight of that thou didst sink under. Thou didst come to bear our sins in thy own Body on the Tree, therefore in thy Body they were nailed to the Cross, and then certainly I will not force and tear them thence: No, there I leave them, and will never re-assume them more; which resolution is the effect of that vertue and efficacy which is in the Cross of Christ to the crucifying of sin, which is the second sense in which the Christian does profess with S. Paul, I am Crucified with Christ.
There are some Learned Men, that when they would assign reasons sufficient to move God to lay the punishment of our iniquities upon his Son, and execute that Indignation that was due to us on the most innocent, most Holy Jesus, give this onelyonly, that this was the highest and most signal way imaginable to discover Gods most infinite displeasure against Sin, and by consequence to terrifie men from the practice of it: For if any thing in Heaven or in Earth could make us fear, and from henceforth commit no such evil, it was surely this, to see Sin sporting in the Agonies of Christ, Iniquity triumphing in the Blood of God: To see those dire instances of the deservings of a Sinner, those amazing prelusions to his expectations; and consider it was easier for God to execute all this upon his Son than suffer Sin to go unpunish'd. Indeed they make all that is real in the whole account they give of satisfaction made to God for sin to consist in this, that the temporal Death of Christ (which God by vertue of his absolute Dominion may inflict on the most innocent, taking away that which himself had given, especially since Christ who had that right over his own life, which none else had, did of his own accord submit to it; and he laid down his life, who had a power to do so.) That Death I say,John x. 18. might justly be ordain'd by God for an Example of his Wrath and Hatred against Sin, and then might be accepted in the stead of their death, who were warned by that example, and affrighted from committing sin. And truly there is colour for it, for all satisfaction seems either of a loss sustain'd, which is acquired by compensation, or the satisfaction of our Anger, which is commonly appeased by the sufferings of the injurious party; or else the satisfaction of our fears and doubts, that we may be secure not to sustain the like again, which is most likely to be best provided for by punishment: For sure one will not venture upon that which he must suffer for the doing.
Now of all these the first, the satisfaction of compensation, as it cannot properly be made to God who could sustain no real diminution by Man's sin:Job xxxv. 8, 9. For though thy wickedness, saith Job, may hurt a man as thou art, yet if thou sinnest what doest thou against God? or if thy transgressions be multiplyed, what doest thou to him? but onelyonly as the breaking of his Law does in S. Paul's expression dishonour him amongst men; so also it were easie to demonstrate that this one example does exalt more of Gods attributes, and to a greater height,Rom. ii. 23. than either if his Law had been obey'd or executed, if that either were our business, or if this sort of satisfaction did not properly belong onelyonly to the offended party, not the supream Judg or Governour as such, under which notion God is here to be considered. As neither does the second satisfaction, that of anger, the Judg being to be like his Law, that hath no passions or affections. And truly …e the things that do satisfie our angers and revenges are no real goods, the satisfactions of them are unnatural, and therefore surely not Divine: Monstrous appetite that hath learn'd to desire mischief, hath also taught us to delight in misery, and be satisfied with the griefs of others, which being nothing to us cannot be our good: And although we are stil'd Children of Wrath, as if our portion were to be onelyonly Plagues, our inheritance Perdition, and the fearful issues of Gods Fury: Yet since to be angry signifies in God no more than this, to testifie what great abhorrency he hath to sin, how contrary to him, how not to be indur'd it is: It was impossible for God when he had once resolv'd to pardon sin, to testifie that more than by resolving not to pardon it without such an Example; so that it did satisfie his anger perfectly. But all true satisfaction lies in the provision that is made by punishment against future offences.
This is that which the Magistrate and Law requires, nec enim irascitur, sed cavet; for by Punishment they cannot call back the offences that are past, undo or make them not have been: but they can make men not to dare to do them again, nor others by their example.
This is the end why they annex Penalties to their Laws, expresly said so, Deut. xix. 20. Which end therefore when they attain by Punishment, the Law and Magistrate is satisfied. For it is not so much the Death of the Offender that is satisfaction of the Law, as the Example of Terror that it gives; and therefore humane Lawgivers have oft thought fit to change the Penalty; and where Death was appointed, to assign other sufferings that consist with Life, and prolong Misery and Terror, as Proscription, and the Gallies, &c. Accordingly to propose an Example of Terror to us, God laid all the severe inflictions of the Passion-day upon his own Son. Now it is evident that the example of a Man suffering for the breach of Laws does certainly hedg in those Laws, keep them more safe from violence; therefore we see those Laws are best observ'd which the Magistrate's Sword does most guard; and Experience would quickly make it good, a Land would prove but a meer Shambles, and a Man's life cheaper than a Beast's, if Murtherers and Duellists shall get impunity more easily than he that steals an Horse or Sheep. When on the other side, that Nation from whom we most receive the fashions of our Vices also, whom the honour of that sin is most peculiar to; though they seemed to value it above Estate, and Life, and Family, and Soul, yet we know could be beaten from it be some sharp Examples. And then when our Lawgiver, as he spake his Laws at first with Thunder and with Lightning, as if they brought their Sentence along with them, and the very promulgation was a Copy and Example of their Execution: So also he did write those Laws in Blood, to let us see what does await transgression, how he that spar'd not his own dear Son, will certainly not spare any impenitent, this could not chuse but have some influence, if 'twere consider'd. Should we call to mind the kindness God had at this time to lost Man, how he so long'd to pity him, that he resolv'd not to pity himself; how yet in all those turnings of his bowels within him, his repentings over Man, when his Compassion was at such an height as to give his well beloved Son to satisfie for our transgressions; in the midst of all those inclinations to us, at that very time how yet he did so hate our sins, that …athing else could satisfie him, but the Blood of God: How he made the Son of God empty himself of his Divinity and of his Soul, and all to raise a sum only to purchase one example of that Indignation that attends a Sinner; it will be easie then to recollect how unsupportable that Wrath will be to the impenitent in the Day of his fierce Anger; when he shall have no kindness left for them, but the Omnipotence of Mercy will become Almighty Fury: Who shall be able to avoid or to endure the issues of it? shall I think to scape them when he spared not his own Son? or shall I venture upon bearing that to all Eternity which that Son was not able to support some hours? Thus as S. Paul expresses, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, a Sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that is, he shewed what did await iniquity, that men by so great an example of his Wrath, might be frighted from the practice. Et si quis morte Christi admonitus paeniteat, iste per mortem Christi peccato mortuus esse dicitur, saith Origen on Rom. vi. 1. He who seeing that Example of Christ Crucified for sin is warned by it into Repentance, he is crucified with Christ. God dealing with us as Men do with a young Prince, that must be disciplin'd by the correction of another for his faults; and in this sense also, our chastisement was upon Christ, and by his stripes we are cur'd.
And now though I propose not this as if I thought this Reason were sufficient of it self, which seems to give no good account how any could be ransomed e're Christ suffered: (which yet certainly they were, the vertue of his Death extending to all former Ages, as it proved most evidently Heb. ix. 25. a place which Crellius himself does give no satisfaction to) if the satisfaction, of his Death consisted onelyonly in its being an Example, it could no more satisfie for the sins of former Ages, than it could be an Example e're it was in being: If that Death were accepted in the stead of their death, who by that Example are frighted into Repentance, what was accepted for their sins, who had no such vision of it, as that it could not or did affright them, yet repented? Yet to them that have beheld it in its vigour, they that can controul this check to Vice, and when to shew us an Example it cost God the life of his own Son, after the prospect of whose Cross he hath not any Terrour to propose, this being the contrivance of the Divine Mind, and the stress of all his most Almighty Attributes conjoyn'd in one compounded Miracle, can yet make all this vain and fruitless and have no effect, are not feared nor warned by it; but as if it signified no peril to their sins, they can come once a year to entertain themselves with the Example and go from the Agonies unconcern'd to the sins that inflicted them, and that shew forth themselves in them: Who act as if those were the onelyonly soft and pleasant things that crush'd his Blood and Soul out, as if those which did make the Son of God cry out as if he did almost despair, were the onelyonly fit things to make men jolly: And do thus as they did it in despite to this great method of Salvation, as if they did enjoy the indignation of the Wrath of God, as if those Agonies like the other difficulties of their sins did more provoke to them, or like the Paschal bitter herbs that typified them, were as sawce to the Riots of their Vices. These certainly are men of a most desperate appetite and courage. But 'tis much more to be lamented that the Law of God does not seem better guarded by this dire Example than it was of old among the Jews, when it shew'd the Sinner his deservings onelyonly by the dying of his Breast, and had no other sence nor satisfaction than the blood of Bulls and Goats: It is not very visible that it hath wrought upon consideration so as to make us more fear and beware; nay, we may question whether the example of my Bullock dying for my sin, would not restrain and terrifie me more than that of Jesus crucified for it: If I were to expiate the Blood with which I word my Anger and my Oaths, with the blood of my own Flocks, if that Luxury which pluriders every Element and brings a little Universe at once upon my Table to treat it self withal, were but to kill one Heiser for the Temple, and I to expiate each surfeit by one such Beligious Riot: Were I to quench the feavers of an Intemperance with a drink-offering, 'tis possible I should not be so prone to sacrifice to my Genius, if I must sacrifice to God for doing so, and I should be more tender of my Beasts than I am of my Saviour. Now how comes this to pass? It is impossible that we should be so apprehensive of our own demerits, should we see them represented in the suffering of a Beast, as when they are shewed to us in those of the Son of God. What is it then? Should we account our selves to suffer in our Beast? His Death were our own loss and punishment: And had we no communion in this Death of Christ? was not that our own? or account we our concern and share in that less valuable than in that of our Beast? Far be this from us, we are no further Christians than we can affirm with St. Paul (who challengeth a fellowship in all Christ's sufferings, and boasts it, saying) I am Crucified with Christ. Which brings me to the last sense of the words; I have a share and am a Partner in that Cross, and all the satisfactions that were wrought upon it.
This is that foreign Phil. iii. 10. a partaking in Christs Passion, having his Sufferings communicated to us, made our own, as if we had been crucified with him: as much as he that offered a peace-offering was said to be foreign 1 Cor. x. 18. to communicate with the Altar, and partake the Sacrifice which he really did. We read indeed there in the sixteenth verse, that in the Sacrament there is foreign foreign, the shedding of Christs Blood is there communicated, reckoned to us, but it is communicated in a Cup of Blessing.
And is this to be a Partner in his Crucifixion, to partake onelyonly the Sacrament of Crucifixion? not to receive the Wounds and Torments, but the Benefits, the pledge of the satisfactions of the Cross, the Seal of the Remissions that he purchas'd on it? Blessed Jesu! we should have born thy pangs, and all the dire things thou didst suffer, ought to have been ours eternally; that Agony which an Angels comfort could not calm, that dreadful Terrour which exprest it self in the cold Sweat of clotted Blood, that greater Terrour which came so near Despair as to make thee cry out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? all should have been our portion to everlastingness, and spent their fury on our Souls: And wilt thou have us bear no more of this than the remembrance? All our Mount Olivet and Golgotha be onelyonly the Lords Table and his Entertainment? dost thou communicate thy Agonies in Eucharistick wine? and is this to be Crucified with Christ? so he does account it seems. He that by vertue of the Cross of Christ hath crucified his body of Sin, Christ's satisfactions are accounted to him, he is esteemed to have a fellowship in all the sufferings, to have had an hand in all that was done for Man on the Cross, they are all reckoned his: And as Christ bore the guilt of all our doings on the Tree, so he will have us bear the name, and merit, and reward of his; for as S. Paul does express, Rom. vi. 5. We are planted together in the likeness of his death, by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins, we are inoculated as it were, and both together ingraffed in into the Cross, and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem, that Root of Expiation and Atonement; and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul says, Phil. iii. 9. found in him, we have his Righteousness. That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Cross, and there beholds his Saviour dying for him, and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him, graffed into his Death, and planted in his very Passion, as Origen and Thomas interpret. He may take confidence to say, Behold Lord, if the satisfactions of thy Eternal Justice be acceptable to thee, if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well-pleasing Sacrifice, look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul! turn not thy face from me, for whatever my guilts are, I have an equal Sacrifice, those are my satisfactions, and that blood my Offering, the Passion and propitiation of the Cross are …. I am Crucified with Christ.
We have gone through all the Parts, all the Considerations of this Expression, and have no more now to take notice of but this, that all of them must go together, that they never are fulfill'd asunder, but he only whom the efficacy of the Cross of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin, he onelyonly hath the satisfactions of the Cross imputed to him, he is planted with, ingraffed into Christ: For if any man be i… Christ, he is a new creature, old things are done away, 2 Cor. v. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day. He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford, wherein Opinions call'd holy, or a sanctify'd Faction give such interests, and to be in a party is to be in Christ; or else he may depend upon that Christ, that may be had with meer Dependance, that is ours if we persuade our selves he is so. Now sure, he that is persuaded he is Christ's, is either truly so persuaded or else falsly; if but falsly, that will not advantage him, for God will never save a man for believing a lye; but that he should truly be persuaded so without this Duty is impossible, for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts: therefore by good Logick he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's, and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all, he is not crucified with Christ.
And sure I need not put you in remembrance, that the man in whom sin reigns, and whensoever his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth, or come he cometh, or do this he doeth it, that the body of sin is not crucified in him; that which were nailed and fetter'd on the Cross and slain there could not command and rule him so.
Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing, so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin, and he dislikes it but alas commits it still, yet what he does allows not, but returns to do it at the next Temptation, afterwards would fain be good yet does not find how to perform, something governs in his members, leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin, this man although he hath the body of death, yet 'tis not crucified and slain; for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him, forces him to serve and to obey against his mind, it overcomes his own heart, and all inclinations to good, and conquers God within him: Till men have left off the custom of the works of sin, and all gross deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified, as that he is alive that walks and eats. Those works they are the fruits of the flesh, the off-spring of its lusts, and were that crucified, and we by likeness to Christ's death planted into the Cross, we could no more produce them, than that dead Tree the Cross could bear fruit, or than a Carcass could have heat to generate, the Grave become a Womb, or the dust bring forth.
Secondly, Yea more, they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them; and a man asleep works not, yet is alive, his fancy and his inwards work; and if sin be onelyonly kept from breaking out, and men commit not gross deeds of the flesh, but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart, cherish them in phansie, and design, and wish, onelyonly restrain the practice, or indulge to spiritual wickednesses; you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad, because he keeps within doors, and lives only in his Closet or his Bed Chamber, as say that sin is crucified, which while it stirs but in the heart, it is not dead.
Thirdly, Once more, we part from all acquaintance with the dead, the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us; howsoever we may have some throes of grief to leave it, yet we put it from us, we admit it to no more embraces; but if 'twere the loathsom Carcass of a Villain Traytor that was Executed, we turn from the sight as from a Fiend, it is a detestable and accursed spectacle. And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it, yea how dear soever it had been, he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it, than he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death; he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custom, as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend, he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle; he would also bury these his dead out of his sight. Thus he must needs be dispos'd that hath crucified his Old man.
And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him, yea those that are thus crucified with him, he hath already rais'd up together, and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. There already in their cause, and in their right and pledge, and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment.