Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

X.

SERMON late years with his salvation; redeemed us from our enemies and all that hate us;-those horns, that, like those in Daniel, pushed down and scattered all before them, that threw down our temples, took away our daily service, set up the" abomination of desolation" in these holy places,-horse, and foot, and arms, and all the instruments of desolation,and stamped upon all holy things and persons: he has raised us up a mightier horn, to make those horns draw in theirs; a horn "in the house of his servant David:" restored our David his anointed to us, kept him his servant, returned him as he went, safe and sound in the principles of his religion; restored him and his house, us and ours, kept them at least from utterly pulling down. Oh that men would therefore now praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders he has lately done for the children of men!

As many scarlets now as you please, to adorn your gratitudes; as many torches now as you please, that we may see them; what solemn processions now as you judge fit to make to evidence your blessings to the Lord God of Israel, for what he has done for us, for either our souls, bodies, or estates. So shall God again bless all your blessings to you; the poor shall bless us, and the Church shall bless us, and these walls shall bless us, and the children yet unborn shall bless us, and all our blessings be continued to us; we shall be visited, and redeemed, and saved, upon all occasions, in all necessities, on every hand and at every turn, till he bring us at last to his eternal salvation, to sing eternal Allelujahs, everlasting Benedictuses, hymns, and praises, with all the blessed saints and angels, to God blessed for evermore.

To this glorious blessing He bring us all, who this day came to visit us that he might; Jesus Christ. To whom, &c.

THE SEVENTH SERMON

ON

CHRISTMAS-DAY.

2 COR. viii. 9.

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

"FOR ye know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ." And
do you know any grace of the Lord Jesus Christ like this
day's grace, the grace of Christmas? any grace or favour
like that grace and favour he this day did us, when he so
graced our nature as to take it on him? Surely, whether this
grace be his becoming poor, or our making rich, never was
it seen more than this day it was. Never was he poorer
than this day showed him, a poor little naked thing in rags.
Never we rich till this day made us so, when he being rich
became poor, that we being poor might be made rich.

[ocr errors]

SERMON
XI.

And rich, not in the worst, but in the best riches; rich in grace, but above all grace in Christmas grace, in love and liberality to the poor, the very grace which the Apostle brings in the poverty of Christ here to persuade the Corinthians to. See," says he, "that ye abound in this grace 2 Cor. viii. also." "For ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ." He was so full of it, "that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor;" made himself poor to make us rich, that being made rich we might be rich: to the poor, bestow some of his own riches upon him again, some at least upon

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

XI.

SERMON him who gave us all; supply his poverty who enriched ours; be the more bountiful to the poor, seeing he is now become like one of them, that as through his poverty we were made rich, so even in our very poverty we might abound also to 2 Cor. viii. the "riches of liberality." So the Macedonians did; so would he fain have the Corinthians too here, in covert terms; so he would be understood, and so are we to understand him. Christ's poverty here brought in as an argument to persuade to liberality.

2.

A grace so correspondent to the pattern of the Lord Jesus, so answerable both to the purport of Christmas and the purpose of the text, that it is hard to say, whether the day better explains the text, or the text the day. For whether we take the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ towards us, downward, or the grace of the Lord Jesus in us towards him, upward—whether for the grace he did us in becoming poor for our sakes, or for the grace we are to show to his poor members for his sake again, for his becoming poor and making of us rich-I see not how or where I could have chosen a better Christmas text, a text for the day, or a day for the text.

For here is both the doctrine and use of Christmas; the doctrine of Christ's free grace, and the free use and application of it too. The doctrine, that "our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that through his poverty we might be rich."

The use, that we are to "know" it, and acknowledge it; know it for a grace and favour; yea, know the grace, know it for a pattern too: "for ye know" it, that is, to that end ye know it, to take pattern by it, to return grace again for grace, to show grace to his for his grace to us, to supply his poverty in his members for his so gracious supplying ours, to answer the riches of his grace with being rich; in this "grace" also, in the grace of love and charity to the poor; the best way to be rich, and to abound to the riches of his glory.

But more to appropriate it to the day, you may please to take it in these particulars: Christ's birth; the Christian's benefit ; the evidence of both; the inference upon all.

XI.

I. Christ's birth. Egenus factus, when "he became poor." SERMON II. The Christian's benefit. Propter vos it was, "for your sakes" it was,-et ut vos divites, "that ye through his poverty might be rich."

III. The evidence of both. Scitis; no less than that of science; "ye know" it.

IV. The inference upon all. Scitis enim, for ye know it;— for what? For a grace and favour. Scitis gratiam, the first : and ut vos divites essetis, "that ye might be rich" in the same grace he was. Then, secondly, that ye may do answerable to your knowledge; for propter nos it is, for "our sakes he became poor," that for his sake we might look the better upon the poor; for that he made us rich, that we might be rich in good works; for that he made us rich by the way of poverty, that we might know our riches have a near relation to poverty, are given us for the poor as well as for ourselves.

These are the parts. And of all these the sum is, that Christ's birth is the Christian's benefit; the knowledge of which ought to stir us up to Christian charity: or, nearer the phrase of the text, that our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, became poor to make us rich; rich in all good gifts and graces, but especially in this of love and mercy to the poor; came down in grace to us to that purpose, both in the text and in the day, the whole and business of them both. I shall prosecute it in order, and begin with those words in the text that seem to point us to the birth of Christ-egenus factus: and if that were the original, the factus would be plain for his being made man. But as it is it is plain enough; he could not become poor but by becoming

man.

I. For there is not so poor a thing as man; indeed no creature poor but man: no creature lost its estate, and place, and honour, thrust out of doors, and turned as it were a-begging abroad into the wide world, but man. Other creatures keep their nature and place to which they were created; man only he kept nothing; first lost his clothes, his robe of innocence in which he was first clad; was then turned naked out of his dwelling, out of Paradise, only his nakedness covered a little with a few ragged leaves;

3.

XI.

SERMON fain upon that to work, and toil, and labour for his living to get his bread; forced to run here and there about the world to get it. All the creatures that were lately but his servants stood gazing and wondering at him, and knew him not, would no longer own him for their lord, he looked so poor, so despicable, when he had sinned; they that before were all at his command, by the dominion he had received over them, now neither obeyed his command nor knew his voice, so perfectly had he lost the very semblance of their late great master, so perfectly poor was he become. The devil kept a power, and awe, and principality, though he lost his seat; got a kingdom, though he lost his glory: but man lost all, glory and grace, riches and honour, estate and power, peace and ease, shelter and safety and all: so that to become poor can be nothing else but to become man; and Christ's becoming so, must be his becoming man.

Yet not to know it only, but to know it for a grace, as S. Paul would have us, we must know (1) who it is that became poor;—(2) how poor he became, who became poor;— (3) what he was still, though he became poor. "Our Lord Jesus Christ," says the text, he it is; egenus factus, he came to very want, πτάɣevσe, to a kind of penury like that of beggars. Yet Tλovσios av for all that it is; he continued rich still, though he was poor; he could not lose his infinity of riches, though he took on his poverty; quitted not his Deity, though he covered it with the rags of his humanity.

We first look upon his person, our "Lord Jesus Christ." He is a Lord, it seems, that became poor, that (i.) first: and truly, the first and only time that we read he entitled himMatt. xxi. self Lord, it follows presently, he hath need. "The Lord hath need." This may be true, as the Italian observes, of the lords and princes of the world; none need commonly so much as they, nor they before they came to be lords and princes; but of the Lord and Prince of Heaven, as our Lord surely is, that is somewhat strange that he should have any need; yet so it is: and it may serve to teach the best of us, of men, lords, and great ones too, to be content sometimes to suffer need, seeing the Lord of lords was found

poor.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »