performed his will, when his Son performed it: so that, as our Lord imputed our sins to our Redeemer, he imputes his righteousness unto us; and as he was well pleased with him, so he was well pleased, in him, with as many as are received into this covenant. 2. Peace with God. This is the natural consequence of the former. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The only cause of breach between God and his creature is removed, and peace and love restored between them. 3. Free access unto God. For we are restored unto peace with him, and consequently access unto him; and indeed it is a part of that duty, which he expects from us. Our access to him is not only our privilege, as the access of a subject to his prince, or a child to his father; but it is our duty, as a thing injoined unto us in testimony of our dependence and love to him. 4. Consequently, peace with our own selves, and our own conscience; and that upon a double ground. 1. Because our conscience is sprinkled by the blood of Christ, which defaceth and obliterateth all those black items, that otherwise would be continually calling upon us: 2. Because conscience ever sideth with God, whose vicegerent she is in the soul, and hath the very same aspect for the most part that heaven hath and therefore, if it be clear above, it is or dinarily quiet within; and if God speaks peace, the conscience, unless distempered, doth not speak trouble. 5. An assurance of a continual supply of sufficient grace, to lead us through this vale of trouble, without a final apostasy or falling from him. Were our salvation in our own hands, or managed by our own strength, we should utterly lose it every moment: but the power, and truth, and love of God is engaged in a covenant of the highest solemnity that ever was, sealed in the blood of the Son of God, for our preservation; and it shall be as impossible for us to fall from that condition, as for the Almighty God to be disappointed. No, his counsel and truth, the constant supply of the blessed Spirit of Christ, shall keep alive that seed of life, that he had thrown into his soul. For his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 6. Sufficient grace to preserve us from, or support us in, or deliver us out of, temptations. We stand more in need of grace, than we do of our bread; because the consequence of the want of the former is of more danger than the latter, by so much as the soul is more valuable than the body. If our Father is pleased to furnish us with our daily bread, how shall he then deny us our daily and hourly supplies of his grace? Especially, since our interest therein is founded upon the covenant made in the blood of Christ: My grace is sufficient for thee. 7. A favourable acceptation of our duties; since they are the performances of children, and therefore not measured according to their own worth, but according to the relation and affection whence they proceed. 6 8. A gentle and merciful pardon of our failings, even as a father pitieth and pardoneth the infirmities of a child, and though he does not dispense with presumptuous offences, yet he either observes not, or forgives their many infirmities. And it is a privilege of high concernment to us, that as in our first con version the blood of Christ washeth away a whole life of sins at once, so after our conversion the same fountain stands open, whereunto we may and must resort to cleanse our daily failings. Christ received by faith in the heart is a continual sacrifice, which I may present unto the Father, for my sins committed after my conversion. 9. A comfortable restitution of a just interest in the creatures. When man forsook the allegiance he owed to his Maker, the interest he had in the creature did, as it were, escheat to the Lord: and though his goodness afterward permitted him the use of them, yet it was still, as it were, upon account: and, as the sons of men have a great account to give unto God for their sins, so they have for his creatures. Christ hath restored unto us a better propriety in that, which civil right hath made ours, than what we had before. 10. A comfortable and sanctified use of all conditions: in prosperity, moderation; in adversity, contentedness; in all, sobriety. For as our Lord hath purchased for our grace, to use all things aright, so he hath obtained for us an inheritance that renders the best the world can give us unworthy to be valued, and the worst it can give us unworthy to be feared, in respect of the blessedness which he hath settled upon us. 6 11. Consequently, contempt of the world; because higher matters are in my eye, such as the best the world can yield cannot equal, nor the worst it can inflict cannot take away. All this upon, 12. A lively hope, a hope that maketh not ashamed; even of that glory, which my Saviour came down from heaven to purchase by his blood. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, and prepare a 6 place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, ye may be also. A hope of a blessed resurrection after death; a hope of that blessed appearance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; a hope of that glorious sentence, in the presence of men and angels, Come, ye blessed,' and a hope of an everlasting estate of blessedness and glory in the presence of the great God, and glorified saints and angels, unto all eternity. And the efficacy of this hope, dipped in the blood of Christ, brings us victory. 1. Victory over sin. Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace. He that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as he is pure. 2. Victory over the world, in the best it can afford us; it's flatteries, and favours. These are too small and inconsiderable, when compared with this hope they shine like a candle in the sun, and are ineffectual to win over a soul that is fixed in this hope, and victory over the worst the world can inflict. Our Lord hath conquered the world in this respect for us: Be not afraid, I have overcome the world: and conquered death in us; This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith. 3. Victory over death; which now, by means of this blessed hope, is stripped as well of her terror as her power; thus Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And now though the nature of this argument hath carried my meditation to a great height, yet to avoid mistakes, some things I must subjoin. 1. That when I thus aggravate the sufferings of our Lord under the imputed guilt of the sins of mankind; yet we must not think that his sufferings were the same with the damned in duration, so neither in kind nor in degree: for this could neither consist with the purity of his nature, nor innocence, nor dignity of his person, nor the hypostatical union of both natures in him. But he suffered as much, as was consistent with these considerations; and as considering the dignity of his person, was equivalent to the sin and demerits of all mankind. 2. That his righteousness, imputed to us, doth not exempt us from acquiring a righteousness inherent in us. This were to disappoint the end of his suffering, which was to redeem us from our vain conversation, and make us a peculiar people zealous of good works. 3. That this purchase of salvation by Christ for believers is not to render them idle, or secure, or presumptuous: where there is such a disposition of soul, it is an evident indication, that it is not yet truly united unto Christ by true faith and love; his grace is sufficient to preserve us, and always ready to do it, if we do not wilfully neglect, or reject it.' Judge Hale left also some Poems, of a religious description, written chiefly upon several Anniversaries of his Saviour's Birth, from 1651 to 1668 inclusive, if the four undated may be ascribed to that interval; in which case, only one will be wanting to render the series complete. That of 1663, as a specimen of his poetical piety, is here attached. 'WHEN the great lamp of Heaven, the glorious Sun, To leave the Winter tropic, and to climb The Zodiac's ascending Signs; that time |