ページの画像
PDF
ePub

read, Heb. vii. 25. "That he ever lives to make interceffion;" and, Heb. xii. 24. "That his blood fpeaks for good things for "them." Now, that his blood shall obtain what it pleads in heaven for, is undoubted, and that from the confideration of this covenant of redemption. For here you fee that the things he now asks of his Father, are the very fame which his Father promised him, and covenanted to give him, before this world was: So that, befides the intereft of the perfon, the very equi ty of the matter fpeaks its fuccefs, and requires performance : Whatever he asks for us, is as due to him as the wages of the hireling, when the work is ended; if the work be done, and done faithfully, as the Father hath acknowledged it is, then the reward is due, and due immediately: 'and no doubt but he shall receive it from the hands of a righteous God.

Ufe 4. Hence, in like manner, you may be informed of the confiftency of grace with full fatisfaction to the juftice of God. The apostle, 2 Tim. i. 9. tells us, "We are faved according to "his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Jesus Christ

before the world began." That is, according to the gracious terms of this covenant of redemption; and yet you fee notwithstanding, how ftrictly God ftands upon fatisfaction from Chrift: fo then, grace to us, and fatisfaction to justice, are not fo inconfiftent as the Socinian adversaries would make them; what was debt to Chrift, is grace to us: when you hear men cry out, Here's grace indeed! pay me all, and I will forgive you ; remember, how all mouths, are ftopt with that one text, Rom. iii. 24. "Being juftified freely by his grace;" and yet he adds, "through the redemption that is in Chrift."

Use 5. Again, Hence judge of the antiquity of the love of God to believers: what an antient friend he hath been to us; who loved us, provided for us, and contrived all our happiness, before we were, yea, before the world was. We reap the fruits of this covenant now, the feed whereof was fown from eternity; yea, it is not only ancient, but alfo moft free: no excellencies of ours could engage the love of God; for as yet we were not.

Ufe 6. Judge hence, How reafonable it is that believers fhould embrace the hardest terms of obedience unto Chrift, who complied with fuch hard terms for their falvation: they were hard and difficult terms indeed, on which Chrift received you from the Father's hand; it was, as you have heard, to pour out his foul unto death, or not to enjoy a foul of you. Here you may suppose the Father to fay, when driving this bargain with Chrift for you:

Father, My Son, here is a company of poor mifèrable fouls,

SERM. III. that have utterly undone themfelves, and now lie open to my justice! Juftice demands fatisfaction for them, or will fatisfy itfelf in the eternal ruin of them: What shall be done for thefe fouls? And thus Chrift returns.

Son. O my Father, fuch is my love to, and pity for them, that rather than they fhall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their furety: bring in all thy bills, that I may fee what they owe thee; Lord, bring them in all, that there may be no after-reckonings with them; at my hand fhalt thou require it. I will rather choose to fuffer thy wrath than they fhould fuffer it: upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.

Father. But, my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the laft mite, expect no abatements; if I fpare. them, I will not spare thee.

Son. Content, Father, let it be fo: charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it; and though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treafures, (for fo indeed it did, 2 Cor. viii. 9. "Though he was "rich, yet for our fakes became poor") yet I am content to undertake it. Blush, ungrateful believers, O let shame cover your faces judge in yourfelves now, hath Chrift deferved that you should stand with him for trifles, that you should thrink at a few petty difficulties, and complain, this is hard, and that is harth? O if you knew the grace of our Lord Jefus Chrift in this his wonderful condefcenfion for you, you could not do it.

:

Ufe 7, Laftly, How greatly are we all concerned to make it fure to ourselves, that we are of this number which the Father and the Son agreed for before the world was; that we were compre hended in Chrift's engagement and compact with the Father?

Obj. Yea, but you will fay, who can know that? there were no witnesses to that agreement.

Sol. Yes. We may know, without afcending into heaven, or prying into unrevealed secrets, that our names were in that covenant, if (1.) You are believers indeed; for all fuch the Father then gave to Christ, John xvii. 8. "The men that thou

[ocr errors]

gavet me (for of them he spake immediately before) they "have believed that thou didft fend me." (2.) If you favingly know God in Jefus Chrift, fuch were given him by the Father, John xvii. 6. "I have manifested thy name unto the men thou "gaveft me." By this they are difcriminated from the rest, verse 25. "The world hath not known thee, but these have known," c. (3.) If you are men and women of another world; John xvii. 16. “They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.”

[ocr errors]

May it be faid of you, as of dying men, that you are not men and women for this world, that you are crucified and dead to it, Gal. vi. 14. that you are strangers in it? Heb. xi. 13, 14. (4.) If you keep Christ's word; John xvii. 6. “ Thine they were,

66

and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word." By keeping his word, understand the receiving of the word, in its fanctifying effects and influences into your hearts, and your perfeverance in the profeffion and practice of it to the end, John xvii. 17." Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth." * John xv. 7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye "fhall afk what ye will." Blessed and happy is that foul upon which these bleffed characters appear, which our Lord Jefus hath laid fo clofe together, within the compafs of a few verses, in this xvii. chapter of John: These are the perfons the Father delivered unto Chrift, and he accepted from the Father, in this bleffed covenant.

SERMON IV.

Opens the admirable Love of GoD in giving his own SON for us.

JOHN iii 16. For God fo loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, &c.

γου

U have heard of the gracious purpose and defign of God, to recover poor finners to himself by Jefus Chrift, and how this defign of love was laid and contrived in the covenant of redemption, whereof we last spake.

Now, according to the terms of that covenant, you shall hear from this fcripture, how that defign was by one degree advanced towards its accomplishment, in God's actual giving or parting with his own Son for us: "God fo loved the world, that " he gave," &c.

The whole precedent context is spent in difcovering the nature and neceffity of regeneration, and the neceffity thereof is in this text argued and inferred from the peculiar respect and eye God had upon believers, in giving Chrift for them; they only reaping all the special and faving benefits and advantages of that gift: "God fo loved the world, that he gave his only be VOL. I.

"gotten Son, that whofoever believeth in him should not perish." In the words are to be confidered.

). The original fpring or fountain of our best mercies, the love of God. The love of God is, either benevolent, benefi cent, or complacential. His benevolent love, is nothing else but his defire and purpose of faving and doing us good fo his purpose and grace to Jacob is called love, Rom. ix 13. "Jacob "have I loved :" but this being before Jacob was, could confift in nothing else but the gracious purpose of God towards him. His beneficent love, is his actual doing good to the perfons beloved, or the bestowing the effects of his love upon us, according to that purpose. His complacential love, is nothing elfe but that delight and fatisfaction he finds in beholding the fruits and workings of that grace in us, which he first intended for us, and then actually collated or bestowed on us. This love of benevolence, is that which I have opened to you, under the former head, God's compact with Christ about us, or his design to fave us on the articles and terms therein fpecified.

The love of beneficence, is that which this fcripture speaks of; out of this fountain Christ flowed to us, and both ran into that of complacency; for therefore he both purposed, and actually bestowed Chrift on us, that he might everlaftingly delight, in beholding the glory and praise of all this reflected on himself, by his redeemed ones. This then is the fountain of our

mercies.

2. The mercy flowing out of this fountain, and that is Chrift: The mercy, as he is emphatically called, Luke i. 72. The marrow, kernel, and fubftance of all other mercies.

*

[ocr errors]

gave his only begotten Son: This was the birth of that love, the like whereunto it never brought forth before, therefore 'tis expreffed with a double emphafis in the text, the one is that particle r fo; "he fo loved the world:" here is a fic without a ficut: How did he love it? Why, he fo loved it; but how, much, the tongues of angels cannot declare. And moreover, to enhance the mercy, he is ftiled his only begotten Son: to have given a Son had been wonderful; but to give an only begotten Son, that is love unexpreffible, unintelligible..

3. The objects of this love, or the perfons to whom the eternal Love delivered Chrift, and that is the [World.] This must re

* Hic igitur unigeniti nomen i'uqatinov eft ad commendandam in nos amoris divini vehemantiam. i. e. This ftrong epithet, of only begotten, is given, in order to heighten the exceeding greatness of the love of God towards us. Bulling, on this place.

fpect the elect of God ju the world, fuch as do, or shall actually believe, as it is exegetically expressed in the next words, "That "whofoever believes in him fhould not perish :" Those whom he calls the world in that, he ftiles believers in this expreffion; and the word [World] is put to fignify the elect, because they are fcattered through all parts, and are among all ranks of men in the world; thefe are the objects of this love: it is not angels, but men, that were fo loved; he is called have anos, a Lover, a Friend of Men, but never φιλάγελος, οι φιλόκλsos, the Lover or Friend of Angels, or creatures of another species.

4. The manner in which this never-enough celebrated mercy flows to us, from the fountain of divine love, and that is most freely and spontaneously. He gave, not he fold, or barely parted from, but gave. Nor yet doth the Father's giving imply Christ to be meerly paffive; for as the Father is here faid to give him, fo the apostle tells us, Gal. ii. 20. That he gave himself," who « loved me, and gave himfelf for me:" The Father gave him out of good will to men, and he as willingly bestowed himself on that fervice. Hence the note is,

DOCT. That the gift of Christ is the highest and fullest mani. festation of the love of God to finners, that ever was made from eternity to them.

How is this gift of God to finners fignalized in that place of the apostle, John iv. 10. "Herein is love; not that we loved "God, but that he loved us, and fent his Son to be the propi "tiation for our fins?" Why doth the apostle fo magnify this gift in faying, "Herein is love," as if there were love in nothing elfet! May we not say, that to have a being, a being among the rational creatures, therein is love? To have our life carried fo many years like a taper in the hand of Providence, through fo many dangers, and not yet put out in obfcurity, therein is love? To have food and raiment, convenient for us, beds to lie on, relations to comfort us, in all these is love? Yea, but if you speak comparatively, in all these there is no love, to the love expreffed in fending or giving Chrift for us: These are great mercies in themselves; but compared to this mercy, they are all swallowed up, as the light of candles when brought into the

1.2

+ God loves all his creatures; and among these he especially loves thofe he hath endowed with reason, and of those he loves more especially these who are members of the Only begotten; and much more the Only-begotten himself. Aug. T. 9. on John,

« 前へ次へ »