The Great Duty of Self-Resignation to the Divine Will, Section 2 · Chapter 12
CHAP. XII. Of the Example of our BLESSED SAVIOUR.
XII. OUr fifth Example of Holy Resignation is our Lord Jesus Christ: Of all Examples the greatest: the brightest and fairest Pattern of all: for none ever obeyed, none ever suffered so much as the holy and blessed Jesus, and through sufferings was this Captain of our Salvation made perfect, Heb. ii. 10.
He is the foreign, the Captain and brave Leader of the noble Army of Martyrs, as all self-resigning Souls are: For to give their body of Sin, and Self-desires to be burnt, their own Wills to be consumed by the flames of Divine Love, what is it less than Martyrdom?
And I chuse to mention our Saviour next to David, (though he was indeed far before him in Obedience and Submission) because he is the Spiritual David, and called by the name David by the Prophets, (David being an Historical Type and Figure of Christ both in his Troubles and Triumphs, and therefore the second Psalm is applicable both to David and Christ) and because there are some memorable conformities between them as to this particular of Resignation.
1. Christ had his Iudas, as David his Achitophel: one near to him, and that did eat at his table, conspired and lift up the heel against him.
2. Israel, whom God calls his Son, dealt as unworthily with Christ as Absolom did with David.
3. David (as we have shewn) being conspired against, goeth with his servants out of Ierusalem, passeth over the Brook Kidron, goes up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, he weeps as he went, his heart was sore pained within him, the storms of death were fallen upon him, and horrour overwhelmed him: as he complained upon this occasion Psalm lv. 2, 4, 5. And now it was that he exprest his humble Resignation to the Will of God in those words: Behold here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.
And this Spiritual David, beginning to undergo his last and greatest Sufferings, goes out of Ierusalem, where his enemies were conspiring to destroy him, and Iudas helping to facilitate their cruel enterprise. He, with his Disciples, passeth over the Brook Cedron, (the same with Kidron) John xviii. 1. he comes to the mount of Olives, (the same with Mount Olivet) Matth. xxvi. 30. and in a Garden there, he began to be sorrowful and sore amazed, Mat. xxvi. 37.and very heavy: Told his three Disciples that his Soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Ver. 38. Heb. v. 7.Here he wept, he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears: And, being in an Agony, sweat as it were drops of bloud. And here he exprest his humble Resignation to the Will of his Father in these words: O my Father, if this Cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done, Matth. xxvi. 14. Or as it is in St. Luke: Father, if thou be willing, remove this Cup from me, nevertheless not my will, but thine be done. And those words whereby David expresseth his Resignation, Psal. xl. 7, 8. we find applied unto Christ, Heb. x. 7. Lo I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God. And in him were they verified in a far more eminent degree.
There was no compare between David's Resignation and our Saviours, his Cup was much more bitter, his Sufferings were not such as are common to men, but were of an extraordinary nature, being designed for an extraordinary end, viz. The making atonement and expiation for the sins of the world. He bare our sins in his own body on the tree; was wounded for our iniquities, bruised for our sins. And he was a Person far from deserving the least of sufferings by any the least default: For he was spotlesly, innocent, and ever lived in most perfect Obedience to the Will of God.
Yet notwithstanding the unspeakable greatness of his Sufferings, and his non-desert of them, he did not in the least complain of his Father for giving him up to them, but intirely submitted to and acquiesced in his will and pleasure. The Cup that my Father gives me to drink, (saith he) shall I not drink it? Not as I will but as thou willest.
And the Resignation of his Soul was also exprest by the most wonderful Meekness & Charity he discovered towards his bloudy Enemies, even in the midst of their unsufferable abuses and barbarous cruelties. He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep dumb before the shearers he opened not his mouth. Wherein also David was a Type of our Saviour, viz. in his behaviour towards the reviling Shimei already mentioned.
But the Resignation of our Blessed Saviour (which was of all others incomparably the greatest) I shall not farther inlarge on, because I have discoursed already of it, and shall have yet farther occasion to speak more in another Chapter; I will onelyonly add, that this is the Copy we are to eye most, though we are incompassed about with a great cloud of other Witnesses, and noble Examples of this Vertue.