Christ's in heart and mind,* will crucify the flesh with the affections: and lusts; and, having his cross constantly in view, will die unto sin and live unto righteousness.†

Another effect of our looking upon him, whom we have pierced, will be, that, unless we are void of all sense of gratitude, we shall love him as he loved us, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and wash us from our sins in his own blood.‡ And St Paul had so strong a sense of our obligation to love him, who first loved us, that he declares, in the most peremptory manner, 1 Cor. xvi. 22. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be anathema, maran-atha. The point of the spear serves instead of a key (as St Bernard expresses himself) to let us see through his wounds his very bowels, the bowels of tender love and kind compassion, that would for us endure to be so cruelly treated. If affection ought to be mutual and reciprocal, "Who," or "what, shall separate us from the love of Christ." Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

The love of Christ comprehends in it also the unfeigned love of the brethren; and it is an express injunction, that, as he laid down his lifefor us, we ought, if it be required, to lay down our lives for the brethren. And, as perfect love casteth out fear, looking upon Jesus whom we have pierced, we shall be animated, in the next place, in all the

* Ii, qui sunt Christi carnem constrictam tenent, viresque ejus, ad peccandum scilicet, confrin-gunt; sicut homo cruci affixus constringitur, frangitur, et cum sanguine vires ei abscedunt." Grotius, &c.

+ "Non sufficit a malis abstinere, sed danda et virtutibus Christianis opera." Estius.

+ "Hæc ablutio, ut et redemptio, non est metaphorica, (ut Grotius supponit,) sed vera, per solutionem veri Aures sanguine proprio facta." Harmonia Apocal.

Maran-atha. "Non verisimile est, Judaicam hanc fuisse excommunicationis formulam, quæ apud Judæos quidem omnino non habetur. Præstat ergò Maran-atha interpretari, Dominus nostervenit, scilicet, ad sumendas pœnas de Judæorum gente ob exosum Christum, &c. de quo adventu Scriptura S. et magna et terrifica loquitur, &c." Lightfoot, &c.

§ "Interrogatio est vehementer negans." Camerarius.

{ "Si Christus ita nos dilexit, ut sanguinem pro nobis funderet, æquum etiam est ut nos pro ejus amore supplicia omnia perferamus, et debemus pro fratribus animas ponere." Ribera, &c.

persecutions

persecutions and tribulations which may befall us, to "run with par tience the race that is set before us," having this confidence, that, if so be we suffer with him and for him, we shall be also glorified together.* When we consider what contradiction of sinners he endured against himself; that, “When he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but, for the joy that was set before him, (of redeeming us from the curse of the law,) endured the cross, despising the shame;" can we be weary, and faint in our minds, under the severest trials of our faith? Thomas, having put his fingers into the print of the nails, and thrust his hand into his side, bursts forth into this emphatical and pathetical exclamation, "My Lord and my God:" which extorted from the blessed Jesus this mild rebuke;† "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." And, when we have this testimony of the incredulous apostle corroborated by the declaration of the centurion at the cross, Truly this man was the Son of God,+" surely we cannot want any farther confirmation of our faith, that God. was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, and that nothing shall be impossible to them that believe in him to whom all things are possible.

Being thus then rooted and grounded in faith and love, by the death and sufferings of Christ, a pious and frequent meditation upon them will inspire us with a lively hope of a blessed immortality. For Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, that unto them that look for him and to him, he might appear the second time, without sin, unto

• "Si constanti patientia adversa omnia toleremus, sicut Christus fecit. Bene adjicit conditionem, quia nativitas salutaris non accepta, sed custodita vivificat, ut ait Cyprianus. Vide Matt. x. 33." Grotius.

↑ "Quippe qui ex imbecillitate, non ex malitia, peccavit." Brugensis.

"

Agnoscit eum esse Messiam, quem pro filio Dei agnoverunt ipsi Judæi, ex 1 Par. xvii. 13, Ps. ii. 12; ex quibus centurio id audiverit." Lightfoot, Macknight, &c. "Et exinde inferamus unc centurionem proselytum fuisse." Mackn.

salvation.

t

salvation. And what would not he do for us, that for us would suffer all this? Or, rather, what could not he do for us, when we see him, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God; whence he will assuredły come again in power and great glory; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him. "Looking," then, “for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ,+" let us glory in the cross of Christ, and die unto sin as he died for it; so shall we live for ever with the Lord. In the mean time, let us, sorrowing after a godly sort, complete our repentance, perfect our love, increase our faith, and confirm our hope by frequently partaking, at the Lord's Supper, of the bread and wine which he himself instituted as sacred memorials of his precious body broken, and his precious blood shed, on the cross; always remembering that interesting admonition of his, "Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you; but whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

*The second time, &c. "Non, ut prius, cum peccato totius mundi sibi imputato." Gerhardus.

The great God and our Saviour, &c. "Deum filium. Ut Græci et Latini patres summo consensu accipiunt, excepto Ambrosio. Huic sententiæ fayet, 19, Græci sermonis constructio, r Osẽ nai owrñgos, non ros, quod ostendit utrumque prædicatum ad idem subjectum referri deberc. 2°. Quòd nomen impanías nusquam in N. T. nisi uni filio tribuitur. Illud autem, et salvatoris, ad humanam Christi naturam pertinet." Beza, Estius, &c. But Hawtrey observés that this should be the construction, of our great God and Saviour. See also Granville Sharpe, &,

A

A SERMON

ON THE

DEATH, RESURRECTION, and ASCENSION,

OF

CHRIST.

PSALM cx. 7.

He shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up his

head.

THESE words have been generally understood to relate to the passion, resurrection, and ascension, of Christ, which will appear more evidently by taking into consideration the drift and design of the whole psalm, which is entirely prophetical of the Messiah, or Christ, and was understood to be so by the Jews, as is manifest from our Saviour's

* "Totum ministerium Christi recte via dicitur, quia per hunc mundum iter facturus erat tanquam viator. Et hic brevem subjungit avans@ahaiwow, et, quomodo a sacerdotio ad regnum illud pervenerit, ostendit, nempe per passionem ad exaltationem." Calovius, &c.

†“ De Messiâ hunc psalmum interpretatur ad Danielem R, Saadia Gaon. Ita et veteres Rabbini, Barachias et R. Levi, citati a R. Mose Nahamanide." Grotius, &c.

discourse with the Pharisees on the first verse of it; for, though they could not but acknowledge that those words, "the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thy foes thy footstool,” were spoken of the Messiah, yet they were at a loss to shew how they consisted with his being the son of David, and could not answer

tinent question of the blessed Jesed, and could not answer this per

*If David, then, call him Lord, how is he his son ?*" And it may, perhaps, appear strange that they should be so little acquainted with the purport of this prediction, which pointed out the Messiah in so distinguished a manner, as not to know, assuredly, though so plainly told in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, that "God had made that same Jesus, whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ."

But they erred in this as in many other instances, because they knew not the Scriptures, i. e. they misunderstood and misapplied them : for, in consequence of the gracious design of God's being manifested in the flesh for the redemption of mankind, the Messiah was, necessarily, to have two natures, the one divine and the other human, and two characters, the one of a triumphant, the other of a suffering, person. And this conjunction of so opposite natures and characters must, of course, involve the prophecies, concerning this extraordinary personage, in great obscurity. Yet, not so great, but that, if they had considered them with due attention, they might have discovered their true import, and not been subject to that severe, but just, rebuke of our blessed Saviour, "Oh! fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?" For, by his ascension into heaven, where he sitteth on the right hand of God, and in his mediatorial capacity maketh intercession for

* "Inversa hîc est locutio, ut sæpe directa locutio fuerat, si filius &c." Grotius.

+"Non enim intelligebant duplicem Christi naturam. Pudebat autem eos Christum interrogare. Noluit etium Christus explicare, &c. tum quia nollent ab ipso doceri, tum quia nondum adesset tempus opportunum palam prædicandi divinitatem suam. Eam verò ità subindicavit ut nullus esset illis excusationis prætextus." Brugensis, : .1. . .⠀

us,