Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself, Part 1 (4 of 6)

Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself · Part 1 (4 of 6)

p. 113Object. 5. When sanctification is not evident, Cornwell, pag. 15.it cannot be an evidence of justification:

But when justification is hidden and doubtfull, sanctification is not evident;

Therefore sanctification cannot be our first evidence of justification.

The Minor is proved, Because when faith is hidden and doubtfull, sanctification is not evident: But when justification is hidden and doubtfull, faith is hidden and doubtfull; therefore p. 114when justification is hidden and doubtfull, sanctification is not evident.

The proofe of the Major is, 1. Faith is the evidence of things not seen; and so makes all things evident: then when faith is hidden, what can be cleare?

2. Because no sanctification can be pure and sincere, but when it is wrought in faith; and so it cannot be evident, but when it clearely appeareth to be wrought in faith.

Answ. 1. There is in the Conclusion (first) the first evidence of justification, that is not in the premises, against all art. The Proposition, When sanctification is not evident, it cannot be an evidence of justification, is weake, and weakly proved: For there is a twofold evidence, one of sense and feeling spirituall, another of faith. When sanctification wants the evidence of faith, that I cannot beleeve salvation from mine owne Christian walking, yet may the soule have evidence of feeling and sense, that we trust we have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly, Heb. 13.18. and wee dare say, Lord, wee delight to doe thy will, and long for thee, O Lord, as the night-watch watcheth for the morning; and, whom have wee in heaven but thee, &c. and can out of sense give a testimony of our selves, yea, and can place all our delight in the excellent ones, Psal. 16.3. & 119.62. 1 Joh. 3.14. so as the heart warmes, when we see the Saints; and in this case sanctification is evident, when remission of sinnes may be under cloud; else this Argument does conclude, if it have any feet, that sanctification ever and at all times is dark, when justification is dark; and so sanctification is never an evidence of justification, but when justification is evident: So the wisdome of God is taxed, as if hee would never have us to know that wee are translated from death to life, because wee love the brethren, but when wee evidently know, wee are thus translated, though wee had no love to the brethren: Then the Lord hath provided a candle for his weak ones, by this Argument, when it is day-light; but hath deny'd any candle-light, moon-light, or star-light, when it is darke night. 2. The Major is not proved: Faith is not so the evidence of all things, as that it maketh all things evident to our spirituall sense; for Cornwell granteth, faith may be hidden; then it can evidence nothing when it is is hidden. Love to the brethren, keeping of his commandements, yeeld sensible evidences that p. 115wee are justified, even when faith is not evident; and how many are convinced they have undoubted marks of faith and justification, who doubt of their faith and justification? And so the Minor and Probation of it is false; for it is most false, that when faith is hidden and doubtfull, sanctification is not evident: this is asserted gratis, not proved: As if yee would say, Ever when the Well-head is hidden, the streames are not seen; when the sap and life of the tree is not seen, but hidden, the apples, leaves and blossomes are not evident. This is a begging of the conclusion: for then should a man never, neither first nor last, know that hee is translated from death to life, because hee loves the brethren: Why? Because when translation from death to life, or when faith and justification is hidden, the love to the brethren, and all the works of sanctification are hidden; saith this Author.

3. The second proofe of the Major is lame; Sanctification is never pure and sincere, without faith, (saith hee;) Ergo, It cannot be evident, but when it appeareth to be wrought in faith. The consequence is null; just like this, Sweet streames cannot flow but from a sweet spring; ergo, It cannot be evident and cleare to my taste that the streames are sweet, except I taste the water at the fountaine-head, and see it with mine eyes; and my taste cannot discerne the sweetnesse of the fruit, except my senses were within the trunk or body of the true, to feel, see, and taste the sap of life, from whence the fruit cometh. Yea, the contrary consequence is true, because I smell sincerity, love, single intentions to please God in my works of sanctification; therefore I know they came from Faith; so the Holy Ghost should delude us, when hee saith, Wee know, wee know, or beleeve in Christ, because we keepe his commandements. Ergo, We cannot know this, except it bee evident, that our keeping of his Commandement come from faith, and the knowledge of God.

Object. 6. Such a Faith as a Practicall Syllogisme can make, is not a faith wrought by the Lords almighty power; Cornwell pa. 16.17.18▪for the conclusion followeth, but from the strength of reasonings, not from the power of God, by which alone divine things are wrought, Ephes. 1.19, 20. Col. 2.20.

But faith wrought by a word and a worke, and the light of a renewed conscience, without the testimony of the Spirit, is such a p. 116faith as a practicall Syllogisme can make: Ergo, such a faith so wrought, is not wrought by the Lords almighty power.

The Minor is proved, because all the three, the Word, the Worke, and the light of Conscience, are all created blessings and gifts, and therefore cannot produce of themselves a word of almighty power; and the word of it selfe is a dead letter, the worke is lesse: for faith commeth by hearing a word, not by a worke.

Answ. When Master Cornwell saith, By the power of God alone, Divine things (such as faith that layeth hold on Christs righteousnesse) are wrought, Ephes. 1.19. Col. 2.20. hee excludeth the ministery of the Gospel, and all the promises thereof, for they are created things, and so they have no hand nor influence in begetting faith. Antinomians will have us beleeve, that Paul, Ephes. 1.19.20. Col. 1.20. thinkes no ministery of the Word, nor any hearing of the preached Word, begetteth faith; contrary to Rom. 1.16. Rom. 10.17. but by the onelyonly immediate power of the Spirit we are converted without the Word. Nor is here that which is in question concluded; never Protestant Divine taught, that without the actuall influence of omnipotent Grace, can faith or spirituall sense that we are justified, be produced by the Word, worke, or created light alone; nor can the corne grow alone by power in the earth, clouds, or raine; nor any Creature move without the actuall influence of the omnipotent Lord, in whom we move: therefore by this reason we could not know that the Sunne shall rise, by the rising of the morning starre; nor can we have any supernaturall sense, by our holy walking, contrary to Scripture, 1 John 2.3. 1 John 3.14. But we know by this, all faith is ascribed by Antinomians, to the immediate testimonie and Enthusiasticall inspiration of the Spirit, as for the searching of Scripture (say aaRise, er. 39.they) its not a sure way of searching and finding Christ, its but a dead letter, bbEr. 9.and holds forth a covenant of works in this letter; and therefore, with the old Anabaptist, they'll have no teaching by Scripture, but onelyonly teaching by the Spirit. We hold that conditionall promises are made to duties of Sanctification,Gospel-promises are made to acts of Sanctification. therefore we may have comfort and assurance from them, in our drooping condition. Cornewell answereth, Pap. 23.24, 25. The promises are not made to us, as qualified with such duties of sanctification; for then they should belong to us of p. 117debt, not out of Grace, Rom. 4.4. But in respect of our Vnion with Christ, in whom they are tendered to us, Antinomians deny all conditionall promises.and fulfilled to us. Satisfaction is made to the thirstie, not for any right his thirst might give him in the promise, but becaus… it directeth to Christ, who fulfilleth the condition, and satisfieth the soule, and the soule must first have come to Christ, and gotten his first assurance from faith in Christ, not from these conditions and duties.

Answ. 1. This is a yeelding of the cause. We say there bee promises of the water made to thirsty soules, not as if the right, jus, law, merit, debt, that we have to them, belonged to us, for the deede done, but for Jesus Christ onelyonly. 2. Not as if wee upon our strength, and the sweating of free-will did conquer both the condition and reward. 3. But yet wee have comfort and assurance, when we by grace performe the duty, that our faithfull Lord, who cannot lye, will fulfill his owne promise. 4. He knoweth nothing of the Gospel, who thinketh not God by his promise commeth under a sweet debt of free-grace to fulfill his owne promise; and that this debt and grace are consistent. But Antinomians breath smell of fl…shly liberty, for they tell us, aaRise, raigne er. ….Conditionall promises are Legall, contrary to the Gospel, Rom. 10.9. John 3.16. Joh. 5.25. That bbEr. 38.that its not safe to close with Christ in a conditionall promise, if (c)(c)Er. 30.any thing be concluded from water and bloud, its rather damnation then salvation. That (d)(d)Er. 69.its a sandy foundation to prove that Christ is mine, from a gracious worke done in me by Jesus Christ, were it even Faith; For we are (e)(e)Er. 37.compleatly united to Christ, without faith wrought by the Spirit. ffEr. …7.Its incompatible with the Covenant of Grace, to joyne faith with it. To be ggEr. 2….justified by faith, is to bee justified by workes. That hhEr. 38.to say there must be faith on mans part to receive the Covenant, is to undermine Christ. Neither Cornwell, nor Saltmarsh, oppose these blasphemies, but extoll the Patrones of them in New-England.

Father save me from this houre.What kind of faith was in Christ. Christ had not saith of justifying the sinner, but of justifying his cause.

Father is a word of Faith. But had Christ need of Faith?

Answ. Not of faith of confiding in him that justifieth the sinner, except he had faith of the justifying of his cause, in Gods acquitting him of suretieship, when he had payed all; but hee had faith of dependencie on God in his trouble, that God would p. 118deliver him, and he was heard in that which he feared. And Q. 2. how could there be a faith of dependencie in Christ, for hee was the same independent, God with the Father?

Answ. There were two relations in Christ; one as Viator, going toward glory,How faith of dependencie was in Christ. and leading many children with him to glory; another, as comprehensor, seeing and enjoying God. 2. There were two sights in Christ, one of Vision, another of Vnion; the sight of Vnion of two natures, is the cause of the sight of vision. Christ being on his journey travelling toward glory, did with a faith of dependency rest on God, as his Father, seeing and knowing that the Union could not be dissolved; but as a Comprehensor, and one at the end of the race, injoying God in habit, there was no necessitie, that Christ should alwaies, Et in omni differentiâ temporis, actually see and enjoy God, in an immediate vision of glory.

For, 1. this implyeth no contradiction to the personall union,How the not-seeing of God might stand with the personall union. even as the seeing of God habitually, which is the most joyfull sight intelligible, and by necessitie of nature, does produce joy and gladnesse, may, and did consist in Christ, with groanings and sadnesse of Spirit, even before his last sufferings: so the interruption for a time, of the actuall vision of God, might stand with Christs personall happinesse, as God-man. 2. If we suppose there were just reasons, why God should command that Angels, and glorified Spirits, should not actually see God for a time, there were no repugnancy in this, to their true blessednesse, so it fell not out through their sinnes, no more then the Sunne should lose any of its nature, if wee suppose God should command it to stand still, and to be covered with darkenesse many dayes, as in Joshuahs time, it stood still in the firmament some houres, and for a time was covered with darkeness at the suffering of Christ. What an enterposed cloud of covering it was, or what a skreene did interrupt the flux of the beames and rayes of the Godhead from actuall irradiation on the soule and faculties, and powers of the soule of the man Christ is more then I can determine. Certaine it is, God was with the Manhood, and so neere as to make one person, but there was no actuall shining on the powers of the soule, no heate and warmnesse of joy, but as if his owne infinite Sea of comfort were dryed up, he needed a drop of the borrowed comfort of an Angel from heaven. Now whether this Angel, Luk. 22.43. did p. 119wipe the sweat of bloud off his holy body, and really serve him that way; or if the Angel was sent with good words from the Father, to comfort him, and say to this sense, O glorious Lord, courage, peace, and joy, and salvation, shall come; thy Father has not forsaken thee utterly: it cannot be knowne, but Luke saith, an Angel appeared from heaven foreign, strengthning him. But it was admirable,A rare providence that Christ is put to, (God save me.) that the Lord of all consolation, should stand in need of consolation, and a good word from his owne creature; or that the great Lord, the Law-giver, should need the comfort of Prayer, or any Ordinance. O what a providence! what a world is this! that God-man, sweet Jesus, is put to his knees, and his prayers with it. Come see the Lord of life at a weake passe, he is at, God helpe me, at Teares and sighing, God save me. This is more then if the whole light of the Sunne were extinguished, and it behoved to borrow light from a candle on earth; and the whole Sea and Rivers dryed up, and they behoved to begge some drops of dew from the clouds to supply their want.

2. Christ himselfe refused comfort to himselfe: There was a sea of joy in Christ, within him; but not one drop can issue out on the powers of his soule: joy is sad, fairenesse black, faith feareth and trembleth; the infinite All, lieth under the drop of the comfort of a creature-nothing. Riches beggeth at poverty's doore; the light is dark, greennesse withereth and casteth the bloome, life maketh prayers against the death of deaths, the glory and flower of heaven standeth sad and heavie at the jawes and mouth of hell. 3. Mat. 26. Hee prayed to this sense, falne on his face to the earth once, O my Father, remove this cup; but hee is not answered: Hee knocketh the second time, O my Father, if it be possible, remove this cup. O but here's a hard world, the substantiall Sonne of God knocking and lying on his face on the earth, and his Father's doore of glory fast bolted, the Sonne cannot get in. The like of this providence, you never read, nor heare of. The naturall Son of God cryeth with teares and strong cryes, with a sad, heavie and low Spirit to his Father; hee cannot get one word from heaven, nor halfe a glympse of the wonted glory that was naturall and due to him as God. O rare and sad dispensation! He must cry the third time, O my Father, remove this cup. We storme, …f the Lord doe not open his doore at the first knock: O what p. 120hard thoughts have some of God, if a floud of love issue not from his face at the first word!We are not to be discouraged▪ when we are not heard at first. but the Lords Saints are not to look for a providence of the honey drops of the fattest consolations of heaven, in every ordinance of prayer and praises. O what a sad administration, Psal. 22.2. O my God, I cry in the day time, and thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. The Church speaketh sadly to God. What can be worse then this? Lam. 3.7. Hee hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out; hee hath made my chaine heavie. Yet to open a sad heart in the bosome of a friend, farre more to God, is much ease; but here is worse, Vers. 8. Also when I cry and shout, hee shutteth out my prayer. Psal. 69.3. I am weary of crying, my throat is dryed: mine eyes faile, while I wait for my God. It is grace to put a construction of love and faith on the Lord's not answering our desires.Prayers of the Saints not ever heard …t first; and the Reasons. These experiences may silence us; 1. It may be good that the Lord answer, and not good that hee answer now: The Saints are often ripe for praying, when they are unripe for the mercy of a reall answer and help from God. 1Two things necessitate prayer, 1. Our duty to worship. 2. Our necessity and straits. But on our part wee are not ripe for an answer for any of these, being yet not humbled, and praying with slow desires, little fervour of faith. 2. Its possible it be 2our duty to pray, as supposing a reall necessity of what wee need, and yet it is not our good that God heare us now. No doubt Abraham and Sarah both prayed for a son, many years before the one was an hundred, the other ninety and nine years old; but it was not good that God should heare them till it be a miracle, and a new way, and more then ordinary providence they were answered. 3. God refuseth never to heare us, for 3favours that are non-fundamentalls toward everlasting life, but when its better be not heard, then heard: Moses might possibly not know a reason, but it was better for him that he saw afarre-off the good land, (more for faith and mortification and heavenly mindednesse, which hee saw not) then that hee should enter with the people into that land, which hee prayed for. 4. Not any of the Saints, considering that all things worke together 4for good to them that love God, but as they praise God that hee hath heard their prayers, so they praise God in some things that their prayers lie at a fast bolted doore, and take it well in other things that hee was displeased with them, and so p. 121that they have cause to be humbled, that God did grant their desire. Let it be that David prayed for a sonne, and God gave him Absalom; its a question, if David had not cause to wish hee had never been born. 5. God hath equally regulated and 5limited our desires to be heard, and our willingnesse, faith, submission, and patience, and our praises according as we are heard, or not heard; yet wee are lesse in praises, when wee are heard, and our desires fulfilled, and in submission,We are readier to pray then to praise. when wee are not heard, then wee are forward to praise; because necessity and straits can more easily obtaine of us to pray, and set on moving the wheels of our affections, then grace can keep our spirituall affections in heat of motion, or limit and border our naturall affections in praising, when they take them to their wings. David, Psal. 22. Psal. 69. O my God, I cry night and day, till my throat be dry in asking: but where doth hee say, O my God, I praise night and day, till my throat be pained in praising, and my heart and eyes are wasted and spent in submissive waiting for thee, and praising, for not hearing mee in some things. 6. God is equally gracious to his own, in not hearing and granting, as in fulfilling their desires. 7. No man should take it 6hard not to be answered at the first, when the prime heire Christ 7was kept knocking at his Fathers doore. 8. Heard or not heard, the prayers of faith have a gracious issue, though the drosse 8of them be cast away. 9 As praises have no issue, but to give to God, not to our selves; so prayers in faith are to be offered 9to God as God, though nothing returne in our bosome, that God may be extolled. Christ knew deliverance from this hour cannot be granted, yet hee prayes. 10 Faith is required no lesse to beleeve the good that the Lord mindeth us in not hearing 10us, then the good hee intendeth in hearing and fulfilling our desires: No condition of providence can fall wrong to faith; which can flie with any wings, and saile with every wind, so long as Christ liveth.

Father, save me from this houre.

Christ bottometh his prayer on the sweetest relation of a Father and a Son; Father, save me. So Joh. 17. Father, Christ bottometh his prayers on the sweet relation of a Father.glorifie thy Son. Vers. 5. And now Father▪ glorifie me. Six times in that prayer h… useth this stile. Mat. 11.25. I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Mat. 26. O my Father, p. 122remove this cup. His Father was great in his esteem: none like his Father. Its a strong argument to Christ, to perswade an hearing and a deliverance; and hee was heard in that which hee feared. Hee had no end in his coming into the world, but to doe the will of his Father ▪ Joh. 5.30. (2.) Love is a sweet ingredient in prayer: the beloved Disciple John, who onelyonly of all the Ev…ngelists setteth down Christ's love-prayer, chap. 17▪ useth it more frequently then any of the other three Ev…ngelists. 3. Propriety, interest, and covenant-relation is a sweet bottome and a strong ground for prayer: So in praying hath Christ taught us to say, Our Father which art in heaven. And Psal. 5.2. Hearken unto my voyce, my King, and my God. 2 King. 19.19. Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee save us out of his hand. Ezra bottometh his prayer on this, Chap. 9.6. O my God, I am ashamed and blush. And Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. 20.12. O our God, wilt thou no… judge them?

Vse.In prayer consider what claime and interest you have to God, if you be a sonne, and hee a Father: Bastards cannot pray; strangers without the Covenant,Sonnes onelyonly can pray. and Heathen, having no right to God as their God and Father, may petition God as a subdued people doe their Conqueror, or as ravens cry to God, for food, and as some howle upon their beds for corne and wine, Hos. 7.14. but they cannot pray; for praying aright to God there is required not onelyonly gracious ingredients in the action, but also a new state of adoption and filiation: many speake words to God, who doe not pray; many tell over their sinnes, who confesse not their sinnes to God; many speake good of God, who doe not praise God; many sigh and grone in praying, and have no deep sense of God or their owne sinfull condition. Trees growing together make not alwayes a wood. Ah, our prayers, God knowes, are often out of their right wits. Many cry, Father, to God, but lie; for they are not sonnes, and their words are equivocation. Thousands claime Father-ship in God, where there is no Son-ship, nor fundamentum in re, no ground in the thing it selfe. A new nature is that onelyonly best bottome of praying, that taketh it off from being a taking of the Name of God in vaine. All creatures speak of God, and, in their kind, to God; but onelyonly a sonne can speak to God in prayer, as to his Father: calling upon God, with a pouring out of the soule to him in Christ, is essentiall to sonnes.

p. 123Father, save me from this houre.

Christ had no meanes of refuge safer and surer in his trouble, when hee knew not what to doe, then prayer. Christ had never a greater businesse in hand,The power of prayer. then now hee was to transact with God, and divine Justice, the Law of God, in the weighty bargaine of paying a ransome of dearest and preciousest bloud, to open the new way to heaven; hee had to doe with devills, principalities and powers, and hell, to subdue devills, and death and hell, and to redeeme his Catholike Church from the second death; and hee was to offer himselfe a Sacrifice to God, through the eternall Spirit, for the sinnes of the whole elect, and hee must use prayer in all this great work. The greatest works have been thus effectuated. For the dividing of the red sea, Moses cryed to the Lord, and it was done. Hezechiah obtaineth 15. yeares lease of his house of clay from Jehovah his Land-lord; and how? 2 King. 20.2. Hee turned his face to the wall, and prayed. Jonah broke the prison of hell by prayer. Jeremiah had many against him, Chap. 20.12. VntoUnto thee (saith hee to the Lord) I have opened my cause. Daniel, in his captivity; Ezra, when the people were under wrath; Ester and her maides, when the Churches destruction is warped, and in weaving, by prayer loose the captive bands, and break death's jawes. So low a man as Job, Chap. 7.20. was, What shall I say to thee, O preserver of man? David looketh back to his prayers, Psal. 34.6. and when hee is over-whelmed, Psal. 61.2. From the ends of the earth will I cry to thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. To Elias this is the key that openeth heaven. The last great work, the perfecting of Mysticall Christ, the judgeing of the world, the putting crownes on the heads of so many thousand Kings, must have prayer to bring it to passe: Even so come Lord Jesus. The putting and keeping on the crowne on Christs head, is by prayer: his Sword, Crowne and Scepter, stand and prosper by this prayer, Thy Kingdome come. 2. Though Christ kn…w of his owne deliverance, and was sure of it, yet hee will not have it but by prayer. Christ had Son right to heaven, yet he will take a new gift of heaven, by prayer-right: Christ maketh prayer his new Charter. Joh. 17.5. Father, glorifie me, with the glory which I had with thee b…fore the world was. Christ will have his Spouse, though his by conquest, and the law of buying, and ransome, made over to him p. 124by a De novo damus, Psal. 2.8. Ask of me, (pray to me) and I will give thee the Heathen. His Kingdomes pillar is prayer. Psal. 72.15. Prayer also shall be made for him continually, that his Throne may stand, and hee may beare the Crown. What, must wee pray for Christ, hee prayes for us? Yea, wee pray for Mysticall Christ, and his Crowne. Its better to hold lands of Christ by prayer, then by conquest or industry, by right of redemption or heritage; even the rich who have broad lands, when the bread is at their lip, and on the table before them, are to pray, Give us this day our daily bread. Have you wisdome, honour, learning, parts, eloquence, godlinesse, grace, a good name, children, peace, ease, pleasure, wife, houses, lands, see how yee got them; if not by prayer, in so farre they are unjustly purchased: the next best is to get a new charter of them by prayer. I grant, conversion is not obtained by my praying, because an unconverted man cannot pray, no more then the birth can pray it selfe out of the mothers womb; yet its gotten by Christs prayer. Some after sicknesse have health, as robbers have the Travellers purse, they have them by spoile, not through Christ, or any prayer-right: Victories, and subdued Cities, are better taken and enjoyed by prayer, then by bribes or money.

Vse. They know not the use of prayer, who teach, that we are not to pray against that which cannot bee avoyded: So Libertines Rise, reign, ruine, …r. 34.say, we are not to pray against all sinne, because it cannot be avoyded: but the old man must bee in us, so long as we live, The Lord hath so decreed the end, as that he hath ordained Prayer to be a necessary way to accomplish his end. Yea, Paul 1 Thess. 5.23. prayeth, that the very God of peace may sanctifie the Thessalonians throughout, foreign. And we know that we cannot bee free of temptations in this life; yet pray we not to be led into temptation, which is not so much, that the body of sinne may be fully rooted out of us, and inherent Sanctification may bee perfected in this life, as that wee may bee delivered from guilt and damnation, and from the power and dominion of sinne, and that praier may bee staires up to the laying of the last stone of the new building; yea though it was revealed to Peter, and the Disciples, that they should deny Christ, and as sheep bee scattered away. When the sword should awake against the Shepheard, p. 125and this was unavoidable, in regard of the decree of God, and fulfilling of the Scripture, Zach. 13. Yet were the Disciples to pray they might be so guarded against that temptation, as they might not leave, and forsake Christ in his sufferings.

Father save me from this houre, foreign.

That which Christ deprecateth hath two things considerable. 1. That his sufferings were so tymed, and de…ined, as they should endure, but for an houre. 2. But it was a sad houre; there is an Emphasis put on it, this houre.

1. Christs sufferings are but houre-sufferings,Christs sufferings but for an houre. wee behoved to suffer eternally.

Object. Ergo, Christ suffered not that same punishment that we were to suffer for sinne, if Christ had never dyed for us.

Answ. 1. He suffered not all,Christ suffered … value, what wee should have suffered▪ according to every accident and circumstance, that we were to suffer; it is true, we should have suffered sinnefull despaire, and there could bee no mixture of sinne in his cup. 2. We should have suffered for ever, hee exhausted all the paine, and the curse in some few houres. But he suffered all that wee were to suffer according to the due equivalencie, worth, and substance of the suffering. Christ payed (as we say) as good; A d…bter oweth ten thousand Millions to a Prince, to be payd in silver, at so many severall termes; the Surety of this broken debter payeth the whole summe at one terme, and in gold, the excellentest mettall: it is the very same debt, and the same bond acquitted, as if the summe had been payd by the chiefe debter. Christ, by paction, payed all in cumulo, at one terme, and in excellent mettall and coyne, being the deare blood of God. A Traitor is to die, and suffer hanging, or headding for such a high point of treason; the Princes Sonne will die the same death for him; onelyonly, by paction, hee hath, because of the eminency of his person, a priviledge, which the principall man had not: what if hee bee hanged in a chaine of Gold, and a crowne on his head, or bee beheaded with a silver-Axe, it is the same satisfactory death for Law and justice, as if the other had dyed like himselfe, there were some sparkles of the Majesty and Crowne of heaven, or some glistering Rubies and Diamonds did shine in Christs death, which could not have been in ours, and it was convenient it should be so,

p. 1262. Christs time-sufferings is more then our eternall sufferings, because of the dignity of his person. Its true, a poore mans life is as sweet and deare to him Physically, Whence commeth the dignity of Christs sufferings.as the life of a Prince, in the court of nature, in curia naturae; its a like taking to every man; but in curia forensi, if we speake legally, and in relation to many. David a king is more, for his royall place, to save and judge many thousands, then ten thousand of the people. 2. A prince shamed and disgraced, sh…ll lose more honour, then a man of a low,The more exce…lent the life of Christ was, the more heavie was the l…sse thereof. poore, and base condition; the honour of a free, and just prince, is by a thousand degrees more then the losse of honour in a wicked and base slave. Sinners had litle to lose in comparison of the Prince of life, like us in all things, except sinne.

3. The more noble priviledge that life hath, as the more immediate communion with God, the losse of life is a greater losse. It is more for glorious Angels to lose their happy and blessed life in the fruition of God, then for damned Devils to lose their being, who are in chaines of darkenesse. It is more for the Spirits of just and perfect men, who are now up before the throne, to be made miserable, to lose life, and such a life; glory, and such a glory, then for slaves of hell, living in wickednesse, to be thrust downe to hell with everlasting shame; It is more that the whole Sea, and all the Rivers be dryed up, then that one winter-fountaine be dried up. Christ had more to lose then all Angels and Men, even to be suspended of the vision of God, for a time was more then all that Angels and Men could lose for ever.

4. Its true, the influence meritorious from Christs person on his suffering is not reall, but infinite in a morall estimation. But give me leave to thinke it disputable, whether or no, it dependeth not on the free decree and pleasure of God, that the punishment of sinne be infinite in duration, or if it depend on the nature of sinne, and of divine justice; so as essentially God be necessitated, not from any free decree (that is not properly necessitie) but essentially from that spotlesse and holy justice, which is essentially in him, to punish those who equally sinned on earth, with equall torments in hell, and all with eternall punishment. Yet notwithstanding all this, Christ, by his death, not onelyonly exhausted, the infinite punishment due to us; as infinite mountaines of Sands can drinke up all the finite Seas, Rivers, Brookes, and fountaines of the earth; but he purchased to p. 127us an infinite and eternall weight of glory, by the worth of his merit, Now, by this there must be more in Christs death, then we can easily conceive: as it is more to bring Israel out of Egypt onelyonly, and devide the red Sea, and to present them living men on the shore, then to doe that, and also to give them in peaceable possession, that good land which floweth with milke and honey; And its much to deliver a slave from perpetuall poverty, misery, and bondage; and not onelyonly that, but positively to make him a rich, honourable, and glorious King; all which Christ by his bloud purchased to us: I leave it then to be disputed, whether Christs sufferings had not onelyonly a morall, meritorious and legall worthynesse, from the free act of Gods acceptation, or also an intrinsecall worth and weight, reall, and intrinsecally congruous, and proportionable to the paine and shame he delivered us from, and the glory that positively he conquesed for us. It is more to pay a poore mans debts, then to make him rich.

Quest. 1. If Christs sufferings were limited, in regard of time and houres, why then could he suffer infinite punishment? How Christs sufferings were were limited, being infinite.It involleth a contradiction to limit that which is infinite; and if an Angel was sent to comfort him, it is like, God did extend mercy, and not unmixed and satisfactory justice to him.

Answ. Moderation in suffering, as an Angel to comfort him, that not a bone of him should be broken; that he should not lye three full dayes in the grave, that his body should not see corruption; all these may well stand with sufferings, that are infinite, morally, and from the worth of his noble and glorious person, who is God blessed for ever. And it proveth that all the exactest justice that the Lord followed in the persuing Christ to the second death for our sinnes, was not in inflicting punishment on Christ intensively, and intrinsecally infinite, and which should be infinitely satisfactory, if wee lay aside all supposition of the punishment of the person suffering, who was infinite, and of the free and voluntary acceptation of God.

Quest. 2. But then was not all the infinitenesse of justice in punishing Christ, not in inflicting paine infinitely and intensively extreame on him, but in that the person was infinite▪ but the paine finite, both in time and otherwise.

Answ. Wee hold that the suffering for the time, was so extreme, that hee and hee onelyonly could …ndure the infinit… wrath p. 128of God; but whether all the infinitenesse of paine flow from this, that the person was infinite, or that the paine was intrinsecally infinite, we desire not too curiously to determine: Sure the infinitenesse of his person conferred infinitenesse of worth to his merit; so as hee purchased a Church by the bloud of God, Act. 20.28. The Lord Jesus gave himselfe for his Church, Ephes. 5.25, 26. and a ransome for many, Mat. 20.28. 1 Tim. 2.6. But I see no reason, why Christs suffering should be thought finite, because hee suffered in some few dayes; then the Lords acts of creating the world, of raising the dead, working of miracles, should be finite acts, because absolved in a short time.

Our debt of love to Christ eternall.Hence wee cannot say, what an obligation is on us to Jesus Christ, …ove for love is too little; because our drop of dew can … no proportion to his infinite and vast sea of tender love to us. As Christ gave himselfe an infinite ransome, by Law, for us; so hee brought us under an infinite debt of love and service to him. Christ payed all our debts of Law to infinite Justice, but wee shall never pay all our debt of love to him. O how many thousand talents are wee owing to Christ? And because glory is a love-engagement to Christ, the longer we enjoy the glory of heaven, through millions of Ages, the debt to the Lamb, to him that sitteth on the throne, will be the greater, and shall grow infinitely: Praises for eternity shall take nothing down of the debt. Know, you are the sworne and over-engaged and drowned debters of Jesus.

Vse 2. The sufferings of Mysticall Christ are but for an houre;Our sufferings short, and measured by yards for a night, and joy in the morning; Psal. 30.5. A little season, Revel. 6.11. Three dayes, Hos. 6.1. A short time, and the vision will speake, and will not tary, Hab. 2.3. Heb. 10.37. Its but tribulation ten dayes, Revel. 2.10. And which is shorter then all, a moment, 2 Cor. 4.17. and the shortest of all, Isai. 54.7. a little moment. All the generations of the first-born, that were in great tribulations, and in the wombe and belly of the red sea, are now come off safe, and landed on the shore, and are now up before the throne in white, triumphing with the Lamb; the houre is ended, some of them two thousand yeares agoe are eased of burning quick, of the sword, of the t…th of lyons. Jobs face now is not foule with weeping; Davids soule droopeth away and melteth no more with heavinesse, as Psal. 119. The traces of tears on Christs faire face, p. 129are fifteen hundred yeares agoe washed off, and dryed with his Fathers hand. Paul is now beyond fears without, terrors within, and the sentence of death. All the Martyrs now are above the fire, the faggo…s, the rack, the gibbet, the axe. What thoughts hath John Baptist now of beheading? or Steven of stoning to death? the gashes and wounds of the stripes of the Apostles, scourged for the name of Jesus, are over now: There is not one sigh, nor one t…are, nor one cry, nor one death, now in heaven, all the former things are gone. Afflictions are but a short transe, for an houre; our short-living sufferings will be over quickly: We are near the shore. Our inch of winter shall weare out, there is but a little bit of soure death before us; the Ceremonies of death's approaching, of the noyse of its feet, of its awsome and dreadfull gloome, the train of little images of death, the aking of bones, the stiches of heart, the paine of the side, and such soft passing accidents, and the name are more then death it selfe; and all these shall passe over quickly. Wee have not Centuries nor Millions of yeares to suffer; hee who limited a time to the Head Christ's suffering, hath set so many sand-glasses, and determined so many houres for all our sufferings. Yea, 2. the gall in our cup must be weighed by Gods owne hand: Not a man killed more in the two Kingdomes, nor a house burnt, nor a scratch in the body, nor one wound in the poore souldier of Christ, but all are numbred; all goe by ounces, graines, and scruples in heaven: there is a paire of just and discreet ballances before the throne. Crucifie Christ, and pierce his side, but not one of his bones can be broken: there be broken bones of two, one at either side of him, within the breadth of five fingers to him. Cast Joseph in the dungeon, but hee must not die there. Cast Moses in the river, when hee is an infant, to die there, but Pharaoh's daughter must bring him up as a Prince. Let Job's body be afflicted, but save his life. Imprison and scourge the Apostles, but there is more to doe, by them, ere they be killed. Make the Kingdome of Judah weeping captives in Babylon, but the dry bones must live againe. Let David be sore afflicted, but hee cannot be delivered unto death, Psal. 118. Let Daniel be a captive, and meat for the lyons, but hee must be saved and honoured. Appoint a day for the destruction of the Jewes under Ahashuerus, let death be shaped and warped, but they shall not dye. Love, p. 130even the love of Christ, whose seven spirits full of wisdome are before the throne, is a straight line, a just measure, and weigheth all to the tempted soules, that nothing shall goe above their strength: no burden more then their back, no poyson, no death in their cup, no gall, more then the stomack can endure. You may, O redeemed ones, referre your hell to Christs love, and make over all your sorrowes to his will; see if hee will destroy you. Let Christ be Moderator to brew your cup, and Free-Grace be Judge of your portion of Christs crosse, and the crosse may bruise your shoulder,…weetn…ss of love … Christ measureth by yards, and weigheth by ounces all the sufferings of the Saints. it shall not grind you to powder. Had I ten eternities of weale or woe, I durst referre them to the bowels of Christs boundlesse mercy and free love▪ shall I be the first that Christs warme love over-killed and over-destroyed? Christs love is infallible, and above error. Fatherly providence determines all so equally, measureth all so straightly, tempereth all so sweetly, that black death is suggered with white heaven, the sad grave a palace royall for a living and victorious King: Apples of life grow on the saddest crosse that the Saints beare. The love of Christ hath soft and silken fingers; love measureth out strokes, Revel. 3.19. And can love kill and destroy a sonne of Gods love?

Vse 3.The sufferings of Christ and the Saints be measured by hours: God is the Creator of Time, and tempereth the horologe. My times are in thy hands, Psal. 31. How long Ephraim a raw cake 1shall be in the oven, is decreed from eternity. 2. Put away 2your scum, your froth, and the ill bloud, and you have a dyet-drink from Christ, the shorter while. 3. You think long to 3have Britaines houre, or the ten dayes of Pestilence and Sword on Scotland, We are not to weary for length of time under sufferingor the vastations of Ireland, the warres, divisions, and new blasphemies of England, gone, and over; but though wee lose much time, and have bidden farewell to yesterday, and shall never see it againe, yet the Lord of time loseth not one moment; if through acquaintance and familiarity you may become good friends with the crosse, and beare it patiently: doe for Christ, what you will doe, for time the former is an act of grace, the Lord will thank you for it; the latter is the work of a carnall man, and will yeeld you no thanks. 4. Life is a burden to you, when it hath such a soure and sad convoy as heavie afflictions; and the soule looks out at the windowes of the clay-…rison, O when will the Jaylor come with the keyes, and enlarge p. 131a prisoner? But why would you fall out with a friend, for a foes cause. Christ hath sewed them together for a time; the vision will not tarie. Christ is on his journey, wait on, let patience have its perfect worke, its a floore that lyeth long under ground, it is a long quarter betweene sowing and earing, yet Faith hath ay a good crop.

This houre.

Among all the houres that Christ had, this was the saddest. 1. Christ saw that his life in this houre would be taken from him; it was convenient that Christ, who was a man, like us in all things except sinne, should not be a stock in dying; but have actuall paine and sense in the losing of his life,Death soure and blacke to nature, and to Christ, for sund… reason… for Christ had as much nature, though no corruption, as any man; and life is a sweet inheritance, its natures excellent free-hold, and no man is willingly, and without one sigh or teare cast out of this free-hold, and Christs nature was not brasse or yron. Sorrow 1and sadnesse found a kindly lodging in him. 2. Hee had a clay tent of flesh and bloud, as the children have, that Hebr. 2.15. 2he might deliver them, who through the feare of death, were all their life time subject to bondage. He must in our nature put on actuall feare to deliver the Saints, from habituall feare. Nature cannot, without horrour, and a wrinkle on the brow, looke straight out on the breadth of deaths black face. The Martyr… kissed death, because the joy of heaven took lodgeing in their soule, by anticipation before the terme day, to confirme the truth of God; but death has a soure bite, and sharpe teeth, with all its kind kisses. Yea, but Christ must read in the face of Death more millions of curses, (a curse for every elect, single man, Deut. 27.26. Gal. 3.10.) then would have affrighted millions of Angels. O! but there was black and dolefull paintrie, hell; and thousand thousands of deaths in one, all writen on the visage of death, which was presented to Christ now; and when there was a sad, darke, and thicke courten drawne over Christs heaven, it must bee a soure kisse, to lay his holy mouth to such a black face as death now had. Christ was in sad earnest, when he said, Matth. …6.38. My soule is foreign, extreamly, out of measure, heavie, even to the death. 3. Christ having well tempered affections, his soule never being 3out of joynt with sinne, was not in dying foole-hardy, or p. 132bolde-life-wasting, or casting away the soule for a straw, is forbidden in the sixth Commandement.Christ sensible of paine and death as a…y man. Hee saw sad and bloudy bils given in against him. O how many thousands of sinnes, were all made his sinnes, by imputation? And Justice was to sell all the elect over to Christ, and to deliver them all, by tale, to free grace, at no cheaper rate, then the rendring of the soule of Christ, to harder then ten thousand millions of ordinary deaths. Christ behoved to earne heaven at the hardest cost, for all his owne, with no lesse then the noble and eminent life and bloud of God; such a summe was never told downe in heaven, before or after. 4. There is much weight on this houre, in regard of Christs opposites;Coelestis ira quos premit miseros fa…it. Humana nullos. Gods Anger against Christ. Many edges of words in Christs complaint, My God, my God why hast thou, &c. three hoasts came against Christ, Heaven, Hell, Earth; any Adversary but God, the enimity of men cannot make me, or any man formally miserable. There be great edges and Emphasis, in these words, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me. Not a point, not a letter of them can be wanting, they are so full and Emphatick. 1. My God, my God, the forsaking of Angels is nothing, that Men, all men, friends, all my inward friends, forsake me, is not much; they doe more then forsake, they abhorre Job their friend, Job. 19.19. that father and mother, and all my mothers sonnes forsake me, is hard, yet tollerable, Psal. 27.10. Psal. 31.11. Psal. 88.18. Yea, that mine own heart, and flesh forsake me, is an ordinary 1(may bee) amongst men, Psal. 73.26. But Gods forsaking of a man is sad. 2. If he bee a God in covenant with me; 2both God, and then my God, that is a warme word, with childe of love; if he forsake me, it is hard: When our owne leave us, we forgive all the world to leave us. 3. In forsaking there is a great Emphasis; any thing but unkindnesse, and change of heart 3and Love is well taken; this speaketh against Faith; though Christ could not apprehend this; the Lord cannot change, Christs could not beleeve such a blasphemy, yet the extremity of so sad a condition, offered so much to the humane and sinnelesse and innocent sense of Christ, a change of dispensation. 4. Me, Why hast thou forsaken me, the sonne of thy love, thy 4onelyonly begotten Sonne, the Lord of glory, who never offended thee; but the relation of Christ to God, was admirable; hee was as the sinner, made sinne for us; in this contest, the enimity of a Lyon and a Leopard is nothing, Hos. 13.7.8. the renting of the caule, of the webbe that goeth about the heart is p. 133but a shaddow of paine, to the Lords running on a man as a Giant, in furie and indignation. 2. Hell, and all the powers of darkenesse, came against Christ in this houre, Col. 2.14, 15. (3.) All the earth, and his dearest friends, stood aloofe from his calamity; there was no shoare on earth to receive this ship-broken man.

In regard of that which was taken from Christ, it was a sad houre; which I desire to be considered thus.Christs soule-s…ff…rings most … how his life was invaded. 1. The most spirituall life that ever was, the life of him who saw and enjoyed God, in a personall union was vailed and covered. (1. Possession in many degrees was lessened: but in jure, in right, and in the foundation not removed. 2. The sense and actuall fruition 1of God, in vision, was over-clouded, but life in the fountaine 2stood safe in the blessed union. 3. The most direfull effects, in breaking, bruising, and grinding the Sonne of God, betweene 3the millstones of Divine wrath, were heere. Yet the infinite love and heart of God, remained the same to Christ, without any shaddow of variation or change. Gods hand was against Christ, his heart was for him. 4. Hence his saddest sufferings were by 4divine dispensation and oeconomy. God could not hate the Son of his love, in a free dispensation, he persued in wrath the surety, and loved the Sonne of God. 5. It cannot bee determined 5what that wall of separation, that covering and vaile was,The persona… union not dissolved in C…rists suffering. that went between the two united natures, the union personall still remaining intire, how the God-head suspended its divine and soule-rejoycing influence, and the man Christ suffered to the bottome of the highest and deepest paine, to the full satisfaction of divine justice. As it is easie to conceive how the body in death, falleth to dust, and ill smelling clay, and yet the soule dieth not, but how the soule suffereth not, and is not sadned, is another thing. How a Bird is not killed, and doth flee out, and escape, and sing, when a window is broken, with a great noise in the cage, is conceivable: but how the bird should not suffer, or be affected with no affrightment, is harder to our apprehension; and how ship-broken men may swime to the shoare, and live, when the shippe is dashed in an hundreth pieces, is nothing hard; but that they should be nothing affrighted, not touch the water, and yet come living to shoare, is not so obvious to our consideration. Yea, that the soule should remaine united with the body, in death, and the Ship sinke, the p. 134passengers remaining in the ship, and not bee drowned, is a strange thing. The Lord suffered, and dyed; the Ship was broken and did sinke, the soule and body seperated, and yet the God-head remained in a personall uinion, one with the Man-hood, as our soule and body remaine together, while we live and subsist entire persons.

Vse 1. Christ hath suffered much in these sad houres for us: hee hath drunken Hell drie to the bottome,Vse 1. and hath left no Hell behind for us,Christ did … the whole Crosse, we but … bit… and … of it. Heb. 12.2. Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith, he hath not onelyonly suffered so much of the Crosse, but he hath suffered all the crosse; he hath endured the crosse, despised shame. In the originall, the words are without any Article, foreign. It is as much as he hath left no crosse, no shame at all to be suffered by us; and Phil. 2.8. He was obedient to the Father: he saith not to the death, but to death, even death of the Crosse, foreign. It holdeth forth to us, that Christ suffered so much for us, as hee hath taken up to heaven with him the great Crosse, and hath carried up with him, as it were, the great death; and hath left us nothing, or very little to suffer; and indeed Christ never denyed, but affirmed, he himselfe behoved to dye: but for the beleever, he expressely denieth, hee shall dye, and that with two negations, Joh. 11.26. foreign, He shall never in any sort, dye; and for our sufferings, Paul calleth them, Col. 1.24. foreign, the remnants, the leavings, the dregs, and after-drops of the sufferings of Christ, the sips and dew-drops remaining in the bottom of the cup, when Christ hath drunken out the whole cup; so are our affections, and being compared with what Christ suffered, they are but bitts, fragments, and small pieces of death, that we suffer, for the first death that the Saints suffer, is but the halfe, and the farre least halfe of death; its but the lips, the outer porch of death; the second death, which Christ suffered for us, is onelyonly death, and the dominion, Lordship, and power of death is removed. Why doe you then murmur, fret, repine under aflictions, when you beare little wedges, pinnes, and chips of the Crosse? Your Lord Jesus did beare for you the great and onelyonly Crosse, that which is death, shame, and the Crosse, foreign, by way of excellencie so called. It is true, the Spouse of Christ, since the beginning of the world, and since Christs p. 135time these 1600. Yeares, hath been crying as a woman travelling in birth of a Man-childe, and the Dragon neare persuing her, and is not yet brought to bed. Lord Jesus, when will the Man-childe be borne, and thy Spouse be eased of the birth? Yet is not this disease deadly; Sion, as soone as shee travelled, brought forth her child, Isai. 66.8. All her shaddowes of sufferings shall be quickly gone. The Spouse cannot die of childbirth paine; Christ will save both the Mothers life, and the Babe.

2. Sinne is a deare and costly thing: In heaven, in the Count-book of Justice, it goeth for no lesse then the bloud of God, Vse 2.the shaming of the Lord of glory; Justice, for the request of all the world, and the prayers of Christ, could not abate one farthing.Soules are of great value with God. A mans soule is a deare thing: Exchange of commodities, of silkes, purple, fine linnen, is much; exchange of Saphires, Diamonds, Rubies, and other precious stones, for baser commodities, is much more; and that ships-full of the gold of Ophir should bee given for bread, and things obvious, is a rich traffiquing: but the market and value of soules, as it hath not, since God made man on earth, fallen or risen; so it is ever above a world. Mat. 16.26. What hath a man profitted, if hee lose this? God will not take Silkes, nor Purples, nor Saphires, nor Rubies, nor Navies loaden with fine gold, nor any corruptible thing, 1 Pet. 1.18. for soules. The price is one and the same; soules were never bought, nor sold, nor exchanged, nor ransomed, but once; and the price is one, and as high as the soule and bloud of the Lord of life. Job 27.8. What is the hope of an hypocrite, though hee hath gained, when God taketh his soule from him? let him cast up his accounts, and lay his charges, hee stands a poore man, a man without a soule. What mad men are wee, who sell soules daily for prices so farre below the Lords price?We sell soules at an easie rate. A man that would wood-feet a Lord-ship of many thousands yearly, for a base summe, some pence, or for a nights sleep in a straw-bed, and bind himselfe not to redeeme it, what a waster were hee? how worthy to begge? Satan is going through the world, and hee gives some pence in hand; O how sad a reckoning, when the Devill the cozening Creditor comes at night, with his back counts, Pay mee for your sweet lusts I gave you: answer my Bill for your idle oaths, your lies, oppressions, cozening, Covenant-breaking, your unjust judging, p. 136your starving, and murthering of the widdow, and the fatherlesse, by detaining of the wages of the Souldier, your sleighting of Christ, and reformation, and the price is referred to God, and the market knowne. Sathan can abate nothing, thy soule he must have, and within few dayes the body too; is this wisdome to earne hell? and to make away a noble soule for a straw?

3. What are wee to give for Christ? what bonds of love hath he layd on us, who earned our Heaven for us at so deare … price? I desire onelyonly these considerations to have place in our thoughts.

11. As God had but one Sonne, and one onelyonly begotten Son, and he gave him for sinners;How great & strong was Christs love. God h…d one Son, he gave him for us, Christ had 2. loves, …. glories he bestowed them on us. so Christ had two loves, one as God, and another as man, he gave them both out for us; and two glories, one as God, one as Man, and Mediator, the one was darkened for us, foreign; he emptied a Sea of glory for us, he powred it out for us, and for his other glory, he laid it downe, as it were in hell, endured infinite wrath for us.

2. He went to death and the grave, made his testament, and left his love, grace, and peace in legacie to us.

3. Greater love then this hath no man; but he saith not, 2greater love then this hath no God. That God did let out so much 3love to men is the wonder of the world, and of heaven. Wee may find words to paint out creatures, and the garment may be wider then the thing; but should Angels come and helpe us to find out expressions for Christs love; words should bee below and in this side of Christ.

44. Behold the man, saith an enemy of Christ, but behold him more then a man, behold the Lord in the Garden, sweatting out of his holy body, great blobs and floods of Love, trickling downe upon sinners of clay. Men and Angels come see, and wonder, and adore.

5. Love was Christs cannon-Royall, he battered downe 5with it all the forts of hell, and triumphed over Principalities, and powers; Christ overcome with love.Christ was judgement-proofe; he indured the wrath of God, and was not destroyed: he was hell-proofe, and grave-proofe, hee suffered, and rose againe; but hee was not love-proofe, (to borrow that expression) he was not onelyonly love-sicke for his Church; but sicke to death, and dyed for his friends. Cant. 2.4. His banner over his Church, was love; Saints bee sworn to his collours, die and live with Christ: and take Christ p. 137in the one arme, his cause, and Gospell in the other, and your life betweene both, and say to all enemies; take one, take all. The midst of Christs Chariot is paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem, Cant. 3.10. Christs royall seat, both in the Gospel, in which he is carried through the world as a Conquerour, Revel. 6.2. and in the soules of his children, is love. From the sense of this, it were our happiest life, to live and love with Christ, for hee hath carried up to heaven with him, the love and the heart, and the treasures of the sonnes of God; so as all ours are with him above time.

6. Wee are not to feare death extreamely, nor hell at all. 6Christ feared both for our comfort:How death is sweetned to us …n Christ. hee hath taken away the worst of death; In that 1. He hath subdued hell and sinne, and there remaineth to us, but the outer side of death. 2. The beleever but halfe dies, and swoneth, or rather sleepeth in the grave. 3. He dyeth by will, because he chooseth to be with Christ, Phil. 1.23. rather then by nature, or necessity. 4. As dying, and sufferings are the cup that Christ dranke; so are we to love the cup the better, that Christs lip touched it, and left the perfume of the breathings of the Holy Ghost in it. In common Innes, by the way side, Princes, and common travellers, and thousands lye in one bed; the clothes may be changed, but the bed is the same. Christ tasted of death, Heb. 2. for us; but there was gall in his cup, that is not in ours: Christs worm-wood was bitter with wrath, ours sweetned with consolation.

7. All the Saints are in Christs debt, of infinite love. When we grieve the Spirit purchased by Christ, Christ repents not of his love to us.we draw blood of 7his wounds a fresh, and so testifie, that wee repent that Christ suffered so much for us. The Father hath sworn, and will not repent, that he is an eternall Priest, and stands to it, that his bloud is of eternall worth; and when the Father sweareth this, Christ is the same one God with him, and sweares, that he thinketh all his bloud well bestowed, and will never give over the bargaine, his Bride is his Bride, though deare bought, and his intercession in heaven speaketh his hearty Amen, and fullest consent of love to our Redemption.

8. All this was done by Christ for nothing; Grace fell 8from God, on the creature, by meere grace. Grace is the onelyonly hire of grace.

p. 13899. When Ancient Love looked first on sinners, how …glie and black did the Lord see and fore-see us to be? but Christ loved us, not according to what wee were, but to what Grace and Love was to make us; and that was faire and spotlesse. And this love was so free in the secret of eternall election, that it was not increased by Christs merits and death; but the merits, death, and fruit of this love, had being and worth from Christs eternall love, and Christs love hath no fountaine and cause, but love.

1010. The Law of Gratitude tieth us to love Christ; for hee hath loved us. If the love of Christ be in us, it worketh nothing in order to merit or hire; (Libertines need not weaken Christs love from doing, upon this feare;) but love doth all in order to the debt of love and oblieged expressions to love, which excludeth not Law, but the Law's rigid cursing and imperious commanding. Christs love is most imperious, but is no hireling, and looks not to the penny wages, but the free Crown.

But for this cause came I to this houre.

The fifth article of Christs prayer, the Correction.Here is the fifth Article in this Prayer; a sort of correction, in which Christ doth resigne his will, as man, to the will of God; as Mat. 26.39. Luk. 22.42. Neverthelesse, not my will, but thine be done.

In this there is offered to us a question, Whether or no there be in this Prayer any repugnancy in the humane will of Christ to the will of God? For 1. a correction of the humane will seemeth to import a jarring and a discord; 2. Christ desired that, the contrary whereof, hee knew was from eternity decreed of God. 3. The Law of God is so spirituall, straight and holy, that it requireth not onelyonly a conformity to it, and our will, actions,Christs will in his suffering subordinate to Gods will. Doubts on the contrary removed. words and purposes; but also in all our affections, desires, first motions, and inclinations of our heart, that no unperfect and halfe-formed lustings arise in us, even before the compleat consent of the will, that may thwart or crosse the known Law and command of God; and by this, Thou shalt not lust, Rom. 7. and the duty of the highest love wee owe to God, to love him with all the heart, soule, mind, and whole strength, Mat. 22.37. Mark. 12.33. Luk. 10.27. Some Arians and Arminians, Joh. Geysteranus at the Synod of Dort, have said blasphemously, that p. 139there was concupiscence and a will repugnant to Gods will in the second Adam, as in the first. But this they spoke against the consubstantiality and deity of the Sonne of God. To which wee say,

Asser. 1. Jesus Christ that holy thing, Luk. 1.35. was a fit high Priest, holy, harmlesse, undefiled, separated from sinners, Heb. 7.26. Which of you (saith Christ to the Jewes) convinceth me of sinne, Joh. 8.46. There could not be a spot in this Lamb sacrificed for the sinnes of the world, no prick in this Rose, no cloud in this faire Sunne, no blemish in this beautifull Well-beloved.

Asser. 2. An absolute, resolved will or desire of heart, to lust after that which God forbiddeth in his Law, must be a sinfull jarring betweene the creature's and the Creator's will. Now, Christ's will was conditionall, and clearly submissive; it lay ever levell with his Father's holy will.

Asser. 3. I shall not with some affirme, that, which in the generall is true,We are to conf…rme our will to Gods revealed will, as a rule; not to his decree, as it is his decree. a will contrary to Gods revealed command and will, called voluntas signi, which is our morall rule to obliege us, is a sinne; but a will contrary to Gods decree, called voluntas bene-placiti, which is not our rule oblieging, except the Lord be pleased to impose it on us, as a morall Law, is not a sinne. Peter and the Apostles, after they heard that prophecie of their denying of Christ, and their being sinfully scandalized, and their forsaking of Christ, when the Shepherd was smitten, were oblieged to have a will contrary to that decree, and to pray that they might not be led into temptation, but might have grace to confesse their Saviour before men, and not flee, nor be scattered: Here is a resolute will of men lawfully contrary to the revealed decree of God; yet not sinfull. But the Lords will that Christ should die for man, as it was a decree of the wise and most gracious Lord, pitying lost man, so was it also a revealed commandement to Christ, that hee should be willing to die, and be obedient to the death, even the death of the crosse; Phil. 2.8. Yea, a rule of such humble obedience, as wee are oblieged to follow; as is said, Vers. 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, &c. If the Lords will that Christ should die be nothing, but his meere decree, it could not obliege us in the like case to be willing, as John saith, to lay down our life for the brethren. Yea, Joh. 10.18. Christ hath a commandement p. 140of God, and the revealed will of God, to die for us; No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of my selfe: I have power to lay it down, I have power to take it againe: this commandement have I received of my Father. Here is an expresse commandement given to Christ, to die for sinners; and the Father loveth Christ for obedience to this commandement.

Asser. 4. A conditionall and a submissive desire, though not agreeable to a positive Law and Commandement of God, A conditionall desire though not a…eable to a positive l…w of God, no sinne▪is no sinne, nor doth the Law require a conformity in all our inclinations, and the first motions of our desires, to every command of God, though most contrary to nature, and our naturall and sinlesse inclinations.

1. If God command Abraham to kill his onelyonly begotten sonne, and offer him in a sacrifice to God, which was a meere positive commandement; for its not a command of the law of nature (nor any other then positive) for the father to kill the sonne; if yet Abraham retaine a naturall inclination and love, commanded also in the law of nature to save his sonnes life, and to desire that hee may live, this desire and inclination, though contradictory to a positive command of God, is no sinne; because the fifth command, grounded on the law of nature, doth command it. Nor did Gods precept (Abraham, kill now thy sonne, even Isaac thine onelyonly begotten sonne) ever include this, Abraham, root out of thine heart all desire and inclination naturall in a father to preserve the life of the child. So the positive command of the Father, that the Son of God should lay down his life for his sheep, did never root out of the sinlesse nature of the man Christ a naturall desire to preserve his owne being and life, especially hee desiring it with speciall reservation of the will of God commanding that hee should die.

2. A Martyr dying for the truth of Christ; may have a naturall and conditionall desire and inclination to live, though his living be contrary to the Lords revealed will, commanding him to seale the Gospel with his bloud, and to confesse Christ before men.

3. If the brother, sonne, daughter, wife or friend, that is as a mans owne soule, Deut. 13.6. blaspheme God; yea, if father or mother doe it, Deut. 33.8, 9. yet is a father oblieged to stone the son or daughter; the son, being a Magistrate or a Levite p. 141and Priest, to judge according to law, (the Priests lips should preserve knowledge, Mal. 2.8.) that his father or mother ought to be stoned to death; yet ought not father or son…e to lay aside that naturall desire of being and life to sonne, father, brother, which the law of nature in the fifth Command doth require; especially the desire being conditionall, with submission to Gods will, as the desire of Christ is here; and the Command to stone the blasphemer, that the father stone the son, the son the father, being positive, and though founded on the law of nature, that a man preferre his Lord Creator and God before sonne, or father and mother, yet are they not precepts of the law of nature, such as is the precept of nature that a man desire his owne life and being, the father the life and being of the son.

Asser. 5. The apparent opposition (for it is not reall) is rather between Christ's sensitive and his sinlesse meere naturall desire and affection, and his reasonable will, then his will, and the will of God: Nor can any say there is a fight or jarring between the conditionall desire of Christ subjected, in the same act of praying, to the Lords decre…, and the resolute and immutable will of God. The Law of God, because holy and spirituall, doth require a conformity between all the inclinations and motions of our soule, and the law of nature; but an absolute conformity betweene all our inclinations and every positive command of God, such as was the Lords command that Christ should die for sinners, is not required in the Law of God. If Adam submit his naturall hunger or desire to eat of the forbidden tree, to Gods Law, and eat not, there is no sinfull jarring between his will and Gods positive Law, Thou shalt not eat of the tree of Knowledge of good and evill.

It becomes us, as Christs example goeth before us,Rules touching our submission to Gods will. to submit in the hardest and most bloodie providences, to the straight and holy will of God. 1. Christ pr…esseth he hath no will divided from Gods will; he layeth down his glory, his heaven, his life, his fruition of the sweet influence of an highest vision, love, presence, feeling of God in a personall union at the feet of God, that the Lord may carve and cut and dispose of him, and his blood, as he thought good. 2. All the difficulty in us, in whom dwelleth a body of sinne is to answer the objections, that flesh and blood hath against a sad providence; which I will labour to doe, and then give some rules for direction.

p. 142Obj. 1. This is a bloody and rough way that the Lord leadeth his people, Providence mysterious.that they drink wormwood, and gall of blood, and not tears onelyonly.

Ans. Providence is full of mysteries, let the way be shame, the crowne is glory, and the present condition be hell, the end is heaven; Providence is a hand-writing of mercy, though we cannot ever read it, more then Belshazzar could read his bill of justice; we see a woman with child, but cannot tell whether it be a living or a dead birth, shee shall bring forth; or whether the child shall be base and poor, or honourable and renowned, ere he die. The births in the wombe of providence are invisible to us; out of the ashes of a burnt and destroyed Church, the Lord raiseth up a Phenix, a Kings daughter, a Princesse that shall rule the Nations with a rod of iron, a Zion that hath the strength of an Vnicorne; yea, Iacobs seed shall be in many waters, his King shall be higher then Agag, and his Kingdom shall be exalted: God brought him out of Egypt, Num. 24.7, 8. Christ breweth the water of life, out of drinke of gall, wormwood, and blood; if the head be gold, as Christ is, the body cannot without great incongruity be base clay.

Confusions nothing against providence.Obj. 2. But all go wrong, confusion and vastation lye on the people of God.

Ans. To him who sitteth on the Throne, and gives Law and Judgement to the most unconstant things imaginable, the waves of the Sea, and orders them, and rules a Sea of glasse, a brittle and fraile thing, and a Sea of most unnaturall confusions, a Sea mingled with fire, nothing can be out of order, hell, the Beast and Dragon that make warre with the Lambe, the laying wast the holy City, the killing of the Witnesses; are all orderly means ranked by the Lord whose Armies cannot reele, nor spill their march, when he drawes them up to the execution of his wife decrees, the confusion is to our eye; but judgement law, and order there are, though not visible to us. Who can pull him out of his invisible and high Throne of wisedome, counsell and power? it may be he sits not alwayes on his Throne of justice.

1Obj. 3. But what a providence is it, that those that open their mouth against heaven are fat, Prosperity of the wicked, adversity of the godly not against providence.and shine, and prosper, and those that fear God are plagued every day; and killed all the day long and counted as sheepe for the slaughter?

Answ· 1. Offend not against the generation of the children of p. 143God, as if it were lost labour, and as good to sow wheat in the Sea, as serve the Lord, and walk mournefully before him, you see their work, but not their wages. 2. It is painfull to trace 2providence in all its wayes, circuits, bout-gates, lines, turnings. But 3. surely in the end God turneth the tables, …he maketh all odds equall, the emptie bucket goeth downe, the full cometh 3up. 4. The Lord hath set the wicked in a chaire of Gold, but on 4the top of a house, and rouling stone above the mouth of a pit ten hundred fathom deep: This is a jogging and slippery condition. 5. They slip away to eternity and to Hell in a moment. 56. Their happinesse is a golden dream, Psal. 73.12, 13, &c.

Obj. Meanes faile, men chan…e, creatures are weake.

Answ. So long as Christ changeth not,All goes well, so long as Christ liveth. and your Head liveth, and stirreth the helme of heaven and earth, all must be well, if all life, all health, and so much as eternall life be in the Head, how can the heart ake or quake, except it first create, and then fancie fears, and doe not really suffer?

Obj. 5. Our Kingdomes strength is gone, we cannot subsist.

Ans. Col. 1.17, 18. In Christ all things subsist, Faith looks to God in sad providences.he is the head of the body the Church. Faith is the substance, Bude…s the boldnesse and fortitude; Beza the firme and constant expectation; the Syrian, and Arabian, the confident gloriation of, or in things hoped for, and a convincing light and evidence of things not seen. There is good reason to beleeve that God will lift up a fallen people, who desire to fear him, and wait for his help.

Obj. 6. They plow upon Christs back, and make long and deep furrowes on Israel from her youth, Psal. 129.1.The enemie plow and sow, and Christ reaps.

Ans. True, plowing is a work of hope, but have you not seen Enemies digging a grave for Christ, and preparing a coffin for him ere he be dead? and they have been fain to fill up the living mans grave, and they plow, but Christ cometh in and soweth joy in the hot furrow, and reaps the crop, and the quiet fruits of righteousnesse. The enemies plant, and the Vintage is Christs, one sowes, but another reaps.

Object. 7. But the soules under the altar doe cry to God, and their bloud is not avenged: their bloud, Providence hath a time for all things.and their graves in their kind, make supplications before the throne for justice, yet the enemies prosper.

Answ. Hath not the Lord appointed a time for fighting, and suffering, and a time for triumphing, when these that have p. 144gotten the victory over the Beast, and over his Marke, and over the number of his name, stand on the Sea of glasse, having the harps of God, singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lambe: there was a time when the Lamb did weep, and in the daies of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and teares, unto him that was able to save him from death. Revel. 15.23. Heb. 5.7. It is a sin to carve a date of our owne for justice.

Object. 8. But he delayes his comming.

Answ. But he is not slack, as some count slacknesse. If generall justice to a world must be measured by thousands of years, as but one day to God; particular judgements may have hundreth of yeares; and when the Saints are killed, Christ surviveth them, to redeeme them from bloud, and disgrace, when they are dead, when their cause is judged, and they rotten into powder in the grave, they are redeemed, even when the soules under the altar, are avenged on their Murtherers.

Object. 9. It stumbleth many, that wicked men are fat, and their faces shine, as if God were with them.

Its a shame that the wicked are fat on common mercies, and not we on th…se same perfumed with Christ.Answ. If they be fat on common mercies, the more shame to the Saints, if they bee not fat, and their bones greene as an herbe upon the same fare, and the same mercies, perfumed with Christ, and there is more fatnesse and marrow in the higher, then in the lower house: Saints are leane through their own unbeliefe.

Now for rules of submission to providence in order to the Text, let these be considered;

Rule 1. Christs patience, and so our submission must bee bottomed on a looking above-hand to the will of God; every wheele in a great worke,All wheeles of provide n…e move according to the first. moves according to the motion of the highest and first wheele that moves all the rest. Every inferiour Court acts, as ordered by the highest and supreme Senate, the greatest in the Kingdome. Every inferiour or be in the heaven is moved in subordination to the Primum mobile, the highest that moveth all the rest; the motion of rivers regulate the flowings of lesser brooks. And things that move on earth, as the heavens move, so are they carried; the principle of motions and wayes in all morals, beginneth at the Highest mover, the just and wise will of God; all are to say, not my will, but thy will be done.

p. 145Rule 2. There is no ground of submission in a crosse-providence, but to looke to the end that Christ looked to,Looking to God, the onelyonly ground of faith in a crosse-providence. the Lords wise and holy will; He curseth, because the Lord bideth him, saith David of Shimei; and there hee fixeth his stake. The Lord hath taken away, saith Iob, and upon the Lords taking away, he saith, Blessed be the name of the Lord; Any man can say, Blessed be the name of the Lord, who giveth; the greatest part of men breake their teeth, in biting at the neerest linke of the chaine of second causes, but they arise never up to God, the first Mover.

Rule 3. Christ not onelyonly submitteth to Gods will, but he approveth that it may be done. So Ezechiah, Esai. 39.8.We must both submit to, and approve of providence. Hee said moreover, good is the word of the Lord, the thing was hard, that all in his house should be caried away to Babylon, and his sonnes should be captives. Yet the will of the Lord was good and just, when the thing willed and decreed of God was evill to him.

Rule 4. Christ will not hinder God to doe what he thinkes good; Thy will be done. Murmuring is a stone in Gods way;We are not to murmure. Murmuring is an Anti-providence, a litle God, setting it selfe against the true God, that stirres all in wisdome; and the Murmurer doth what he can to stop up Gods way. Old Eli, when he heard sad newes, saies, 1 Sam. 3.18. It is the Lord, foreign Let him, I hinder him not to doe, what is good in his eyes. David saith, 2 Sam. 15.26. If the Lord say, I have no delight in thee, behold here am I, let him doe to me, what seemes good in his eyes, here am I; is as much, as I will not flee him, nor hinder him, I lay my selfe under him to receive his stroakes. So Christ, Heb. 10.5. Psal. 40. Thou hast prepared my eares, or my body, here am I; Verse 7. Here am I to doe thy will.

Rule 5. Christ gave not away his naturall will; but in the act of willing, he submitted it;We make no… away our will when we submit it to God▪ it was a broken will that Christ reserved to himselfe, or a submitted will, hic & nunc. Christ seeketh not the resigning of naturall faculties in heard providences, but that we quite contest with God; and that our will be not abolished, but broken: especially, that we doe not quarell with Justice. Lament. 3.28. He sitteth alone, and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. Vers. 29. Hee putteth his mouth in the dust, if so bee there may bee hope. Vers, 30. Hee p. 146giveth his cheeks to him that smiteth them; hee is filled with reproach: there bee here many sweet signes of a broken will. 1. Solitary sadnesse. 2. Silence, the soule not daring to quarrel with God. 3. The stooping to the dust, and putting clay in the mouth, for feare that it speake against Gods dispensation, as Job 40.4.5. (4) A willing accepting of buffets on the cheeks, and reproaches; So Micha 7.9. I will beare the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned. When the soule is made like a broken and daunted heifer, or a silly heartlesse Dove, so as the man like a w…ll-nurtured childe, kisseth the rod of God. He is a bad Souldier,Mul…s est miles qui …, …ratorem gemens s… quitur. who follows his Captaine sighing, and weeping; Faith sings at teares, and rejoyceth under hope in the ill day.

Rule. 5. Its the childs happinesse, that the wise fathers will be his rule, not his owne; and for the Orphane, the Tutors wit,Gods w…ll for us, better then our owne is better then his owne will. Our owne will is our hell, Ezech. 18.31. Why will ye dye, ô house of Israel? Christs will is heaven. Christ thinks it is best, that his Fathers will stand, 1and his humane will be repealed. Rom. 15.3. for even Christ pleased not himselfe; to have no will of your owne, is the Pearle in the ring, a Jewel in submission. (2.) that the Lords 2end is good, he minds to have me home to heaven; then as in his six dayes workes of creation, he made nothing ill, so hee hath been working these five thousand years; and all his works of providence are as good, as his works of creation; hee cannot chuse an ill meane for a good end: if God draw my way to heaven through fire, tortures, bloud, poverty, though hee should traile me through hell, hee cannot erre in leading, I may erre in following.

Object. But there is a better way beside, and hee leades others through a rosie and greene valley, and my way within few inches to it, is a wildernesse of thornes.

Answ. Gold absolutely is better then a draught of water: but comparatively, water is better to Sampson, dying for thirst, then all the gold in the earth:Gods wisdome in creating good, and framing evill. So cutting a veine, is in it selfe ill; but comparatively, letting bloud through a cut veine, is good for a man in danger of an extreame Feaver; there is no better way out of heaven for thee, then the very way that the Lord leades thee. God not onelyonly chuses persons, but also things; and every crosse that befalls thee, is a chosen, and selected crosse, and it was shapen in length, and breadth, and measure, and p. 147weight, up before the Throne, by Gods owne wise hand: Heaven is the workehouse of all befals thee, every evill is the birth that lay in the wombe of an infinitely wise decree; so God is said to frame evill, as a Potter doth an earthen vessell, (so foreign jatsar signifieth;) Jer. 18.11. to frame a vessell of clay is a work of art and wisedome; so its a worke of deliberation and choise: God is said to devise judgement against Babylon, Jer. 51.12. And the Lord hath done to his people the things which he devised foreign is to think, meditate, studie, devise, Deut. 19.18. and Isai. 45.7. he creates darknesse and evill, it is such a worke of omnipotency and wisedome, as the making of a world of nothing, then if God follow infinite art in shaping vengeance against Babylon, farre more must he wisely study to mould and shape afflictions for his owne; for no afflictions befalleth the Saints, but they be well framed, chosen, wisely studied, forged, and created crosses. A Potter cannot frame by deeper Art and judgement, a water-pot for such an end and use; a fashioner cannot frame clothes in proportion for a mans body so fitly as the wise Lord in judgement and cunning, shapes & frames this affliction as a measure for thy foot only, poverty for this man,Affl…ctions proport…ned to every mans meas…re. and its shapen to his measure; wicked children and the sword on Davids house, fittest for him; such a loathsom disease for this Saint; want of friends and banishment for such a man, another more and heavier should be shapen to wide for thy soule, and another lighter should have been too strait, short, and narrow for thee. Its comfortable, when I beleeve the draught, portraiture, and lineaments of my affliction, were framed and carved in all the limmes, bones, parts, qualities of it, in the wise decree and in the heart and breast of Christ: It were not good to bear a Crosse of the Devils shaping; were there as much wormwood and gall in the Saints cup as the Devil would have in it, then hell should be in every cup, and how many hells should I drink; and how often should the Church drinke death? Its good I know Christ brewed the cup, then it will worke the end, for be it never so contrary and soure to my taste, and so unsavory; Christ will not taste poyson in it, he hath purposed I should sail with no other winde to heaven, and I know its better, then any winde to me, for that Port.

Rule. 6. Christ prescribes no way to his Father, but in the p. 148generall, The Lords will be done on me, (saith he) be what it will: Let hell, and death, and Devils malice, and heavens indignation,Gods will for every Saint a safe rule… and enmity, and warre, ill-will, and persecution from earth, hard measure from friends and lovers, if the will of my Father so be, welcome with my soule; welcome black crosse, welcome pale death,Faith welcometh all. welcome curses, and all the curses of God, that the just Law could lay on all my children, (and they are a faire number) welcome wrath of God, welcome shame, and the cold grave. The submission of faith subscribeth a blanke paper, let the Lord write in what he pleaseth, patience dares not contest and stand upon pennies or pounds, on hundreds or thousands with God; Moses and Paul dare referre their heaven, and their share in Christ, and the book of life to Christ, so the Lord may be glorified: Submissive faith putteth much upon Christ, Let him slay me, yet I will trust in him, said Iob 13.15. Heman alledgeth it was not one single crosse, Psal. 88.7. Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. And David Psal. 42.7. All thy waves and thy billowes are gone over me: One of Gods waves could have drowned David, afflictions coming in Armies, and in a battle-array, say that one single Souldier cannot subdue us. Lawfull warre is the most violent, and the last remedy against a State, and it argueth a great necessity of the Sword. Job had an Army sent against him, and from heaven too, cap. 6.4. The terrors of God doe set themselves in array against me. See what a catalogue of sufferings, Paul did referre to God, 2 Cor. 11.23, 24, 25, &c. one good violent death would have made away a stronger man then Paul, Many afflictions must be referred to God.yet he was willing for Christ to be in deaths ofen, foreign, many deaths, many stripes, many prisons, five times nine and thirty stripes, this was neer two hundred stripes, every one of them was a little death: Thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice in shipwrack, night and day sailing in the deep, in journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of his owne country men, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the City, in perils in the wildernes, in perils in the Sea, in perils among false brethren, in wearinesse, and painfulnesse, in watching often, in hunger, in thirst, in fasting often, in cold, in nakednesse, &c. Many of us would either have a crosse of our own carving,We love will-suffering as well as will-duties. as we love will-worship, and will-duties, so we love will-suffering, and desire nothing more then if that we must suffer, Christ with his tongue would licke p. 149all the gall off our crosse, and leave nothing but honey, and a crosse of sugar and milk, we love to suffer with a reserve, and to die upon a condition; an indefinite and catholique resignation of our selves without exception to Christ, and to undergoe many furnaces, many hels, many deaths as Christ will, is a rare grace of God, and not of ordinary capacity.

Rule 7. Christ, in submitting his will,In duties Gods revealed will should be our rule, in suffering his high decree. maketh the Prophecies, the revealed Gospel his rule: and in the matter of duty, is willing to be ruled by Gods revealed will; in the matter of suffering, hee is willing that the Lords will stand for a Law, to which hee doth willingly submit, and will in no sort quarrell with everlasting decrees. To be ruled by the one, is holinesse; to submit to the other, is patience: For patience is higher then any ordinary grace, in regard its willing to adore and reverence something more and higher then a commanding, promising, and threatning will of God. It was a grace in Christ most eminent,Patience an… high grace. in the Lamb of God, dumb, meek and silent before his shearers, the meekest in earth and in heaven, that hee did not onelyonly never resist the revealed will of God, but never thought, motion, nor any hint of a desire was in him, against the secret and o…ernall decree and counsell of God. The Image of God is in his works.Christ will not have us to make Images of him, who is the invisible God; but, when in his works of justice, power, love, free grace, hee setteth before us the image of his glorious nature and attributes, hee will have us to adore him in these. According to his decree of reprobation, hee raised up Pharaoh to be clay to all men; on whom, as on a voluntary and rationall vessell of wrath, they might read power, justice, truth, soveraignty; in these works wee are to tremble before him, and adore the Lord. So in works of Grace, that are the Image of the invisible God, the Lord is to be loved. 1 Tim. 1.16. In Paul, the chiefe of sinners, the Lord holds forth an image of the freest grace, no lesse then in the revealed will of God; for, 1. Christ made an example of mercy and free grace in him. 2. Hee made a speaking and crying spectacle to all Ages, an foreign, a printed copy of crying grace to all the world: and in this wee are to adore and submit to him. Such a limb of hell hath received mercy, not I, who before men was holier. O submit to this worke of grace, as to the copy of his eternall decree, and be silent.

Rule 8. Christ putteth nature and naturall reason, that his p. 150naturall will might seem to plead withall, under the Lords feet: So it would seeme strange.Many v…rtues in Christs s…bmi…sion to his fathers will. God hath many sonnes, but none like Christ: hee was a Sonne, his alone; hee had never a brother by an eternall generation; hee was the onelyonly heire of the house; but never a son so afflicted as hee: This seemes against all reason. But Christ brings in his Fathers will with an foreign, But, Mat. 26.39. Joh. 12.27. Luk. 22.42. Mark. 14.36. But thy will be done. Its against submission to put absolute interrogatories upon the Lord: Wee love to have God make an account of his providence to us, and that the last and finall appeale of the wayes of the Lord should be to our reason, as to the great Senate and supremest Court in heaven and earth. Its true, Christ putteth a Why upon God, My God, my God, why 1hast thou forsaken me? but, 1. with the greatest faith that ever was,What and how much reason was in Christs why, or … he …uts on the Father. a doubled act of beleeving, My God, my God. 2. With the extremest love, that ever was in a man; its also a two-fold cord of warmnesse of heart to his Father, My God, my God. 3. Its a word relative to the covenant between the Father and the Son; for My God is a covenant-expression, that the Father will keep what he hath promised to his Son; and relateth 2to the infinite faithfulnesse of the Covenant-Maker. 4. God, 3relateth to the Dominion, Lord-ship and Soveraignty that the 4Lord hath, and therefore that Christ will submit to him. 55. Christs complaint of the Lords forsaking, sheweth the tendernesse of his soule, in prizing the favour of his Father, more then any thing in heaven and earth. And therefore Christs why is a note of 1. Admiration: 2. Of sinlesse Sorrow; conjoyned with love, tendernesse and submission to God. Christ cannot speak to his Father, beside the truth: But every man is a lyar; and wee seldome put questions and queries upon Soveraignty, but wee preferre our reason to infinite wisdome. Job is out, and takes his marks by the Clouds, and the Moone, when hee saith, Job 13.24. Why holdest thou me for thine enemy? Chap. 3.11. Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost, when I came out of the belly? And Jeremiah 15.18. Why is my paine perpetuall, and my wound incurable, All Gods workes are with child of reason and causes.which refuseth to be healed? Chap. 20.18. Wherefore came I out of the wombe, to see labour and sorrow, that my dayes should be consumed with shame? All the Lords works are full, yea with child of reason, wisdome, and grave, and p. 151weighty causes: and though wee see not his acts to have a why, yet there is a cause, why hee doth all hee doth; reason is necessity to him, and an essentiall ingredient in all his actions.

Rule 9. In this Administration of Providence, with Christ, Providence goes many wayes at once.the Lord goeth many wayes at once: In this very act hee redeemeth the world, judgeth Satan, satisfieth the Law and Justice, glorifieth Christ, destroyeth sin, fulfilleth his owne eternall will and counsell. In one warre hee can ripen Babylon for wrath, humble his Church, deliver Jeremiah, punish Idolatry. In the same warre hee can humble and correct Scotland, harden Malignants, that they will not hearken to offers of peace; and blow up their haters, that they may be lofty through victories, and be ripened for wrath through unthankfulnesse to God. Providence hath many eyes, so also many feet and hands under the wings, to act and walk a thousand wayes at once. There is a manifold wisdome in Providence, as in the work of Redemption. In every worke that God doth, hee leaveth a wonder behind him: No man can come after the Almighty, and say, I could have done better then hee. Its naturall to blame God in his working, but unpossible to mend his work.