"of the family throws to the dogs *." Think upon any other outward enjoyment that is valuable in your eyes, and there is not fo much comparison betwixt it and Chrift, in the esteem of God, as is betwixt your dear children and the lumber of your houses, in your efteem. If then God has parted fo freely from that which was infinitely dearer to him than these; how shall he deny thefe, when they may promote his glory, and your good? (2.) As Jefus Chrift was nearer the heart of God than all these ; fo Chrift is, in himself, much greater and more excellent than all of them: ten thou fand worlds, and the glory of them all, is but the duft of the balance, if weighed with Christ. These things are but poor creatures, but he is over all, God bleffed for ever, Rom. ix. 5. They are common gifts, but he is the gift of God, John iv. 10. They are ordinary mercies, but he is The mercy, Luke i. 72. As one pearl, or precious ftone, is greater in value than ten thousand common pebbles. Now, if God has fo freely given the greater, how can you suppose he should deny the leffer, mercies? Will a man give to another a large inheritance, and stand with him for a trifle? how can it be? (3) There is no other mercy you want, but you are entitled to it by the gift of Chrift: it is, as to right, conveyed to you with Chrift. So, in the fore-cited 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, 23. "the world is yours, yea, all is yours; for ye are Chrift's " So 2 Cor. i. 20. For all the promises of God in Chrift, in him they are yea, and in "him, amen.” With him he hath given you all things, us άñodañoı, 1 Tim. vi. 17. richly to enjoy the word fignifies rem aliquam cum laetitia percipere, to have the sweet relish and comfort of an enjoyment. So have we in all our mercies, upon the account of our title to them in Chrift. (4.) Lastly, If God has given you this nearer, greater, and all-comprehending mercy, when you were enemies to him, and alienated from him; it is not imaginable he should now deny you an inferior mer. cy, when you are come into a state of reconciliation and amity with him. So the apostle reasons, Rom. v. 8, 9, 10. "For if, "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the "death of his Son; much more being reconciled, we shall be "faved by his life." And thus you have the fecond inference with its grounds. : Corollary 3. If the greatest love hath been manifested in giving Chrift to the world, then it follows, that the greatest evil * Totum Turcicum imperium, quantum quantum eft, mica tantum eft, quam Pater familias projicit canibus. Luther. VOL. I. K and wickedness is manifested in defpifing, flighting, and rejecting Chrift. It is fad to abuse the love of God manifefted in the loweft gift of providence; but, to flight the richest discoveries of it, even in that peerless gift, wherein God commends his love in the moft taking and aftonishing manner; this is fin with a witnefs. Blush, O heavens, and be aftonifhed, O earth; yea, be ye horribly afraid! No guilt like this. The most flagitious wretches among the barbarous nations are innocent, in compa rifon of thefe. But, are there any fuch in the world? Dare any flight this gift of God? Indeed, if mens words might be taken, there are few or none that dare do fo; but if their lives and practices may be believed, this, this is the fin of the far greater part of the chriftianized world. Witnefs the lamentable ftupidity and fupinenets; witnefs the contempt of the gofpel; witnefs the hatred and perfecution of his image, laws and people. What is the language of all this, but a vile efteem of Jefus Chrift? And now, let me a little expoftulate with those ungrateful fouls, that trample under foot the Son of God, that value not this love that gave him forth. What is that mercy which you fo contemn and undervalue? is it fo vile and cheap a thing as your entertainment speaks it to be? is it indeed worth no more than this in your eyes? Surely you will not be long of that opinion! Will you be of that mind, think you, when death and judgment shall have thoroughly awakened you? Oh, no: Then a thoufand worlds for a Chrift! as it is storied of our crookbacked Richard, when he loft the field, and was in great danger by his enemies that preffèd upon him; Oh now, (said he), a kingdom for a horfe! Or think ye, that any befide you in the world are of your mind? you are deceived, if you think fo "To them that believe he is precious," through all the world, Pet. ii. 7; and in the other world they are of a quite contrary mind. Could you but hear what is faid of him in heaven, in what a dialect the faved of the Lord do extol their Saviour; or could you but imagine the felf-revenges, the felf-torments, which the damned fuffer for their folly, and what a value they would fet upon one tender of Chrift, if it might but again be hoped for; you would fee that such as you are the only defpifers of Chrift*. Befide, methinks it is astonishing, that you Fy, fy, faith one, upon this condemned and foolish world, that will give fo little for Chrift and falvation: Oh! if there were but a free market proclaimed of Chrift and falvation in that day, when the trumpet Thould despise á mercy in which your own fouls are fo dearly, fo deeply, fo everlastingly concerned, as they are in this gift of God. If it were but the foul of another, nay, lefs, if but the body of another, and yet lels than that, if but another's beast, whofe life you could preferve, you are obliged to do it: but when it is thy felf, yea, the best part of thy felf, thine own invaluable foul, that thou ruinest and destroyeft hereby, oh, what a monster art thou, to caft it away thus! What! will you flight your own fouls? care you not whether they be faved, or whether they be damned? is it indeed an indifferent thing with you which way they fall at death? have you imagined a tolerable hell? is it easy to perith? are you not only turned God's enemies, but your own too? Oh, fee what monsters sin can turn men and women into? Oh, the ftupifying, befotting, intoxieating power of fin! But perhaps you think that all these are but uncertain founds, with which we alarm you it may be thine own heart will preach fuch doctrine as this to thee; Who can affure thee of the reality of these things? why shouldst thou trouble thyfelf with an invifible world, or be fo much con cerned for what thine eyes never faw, nor didft ever receive the report from any that have feen them? Well, though we cannot now thew you these things, yet fhortly they fhall be shewn you; and your own eyes fhall behold them. You are convin ced and fatisfied that many other things are real which you never faw: but be affured, That "if the word fpoken by angels "was stedfast, and every tranfgreffion and difobedience receiv"ed a just recompence of reward; how fhall we escape, if we "neglect so great a falvation, which at first began to be spo"ken to us by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by them that "heard him, God alfo bearing them witnefs?" Heb. ii. 2, 3, 4. But if they be certain, yet they are not near: it will be a long time before they come. Poor foul! how doft thou cheat thyfelf? It may be not by twenty parts fo long a time as thy own fancy draws it forth for thee; thou art not certain of the next moment. And fuppofe what thou imagineft: What are twenty or forty years when they are paft? yea, what are a thousand years to vaft eternity? Go trifle away a few days more, fleep out a few nights more, and then lie down in the duft; it will not be long K 2 trumpet of God shall awaken the dead; how many buyers would be there? God fend me no more happiness but that which the blind world (to their eternal woe) letteth flip through their fingers. ere the trump of God fhall awaken thee, and thine eyes fhall behold Jefus coming in the clouds of heaven, and then you will know the price of this fin. Oh! therefore, if there be any fense of eternity upon you, any pity or love for yourselves in you; if you have any concernments more than the beasts that perifh, defpife not your own offered mercies, flight not the richest gift that ever was yet opened to the world; and a sweeter cannot be opened to all eternity. SERMON V. Treats of CHRIST's WONDERFUL PERSON. JOHN i. 14. And the Word was made Flefb, and dwelt among us, &c. YOU have heard the covenant of redemption opened. The work therein propounded by the Father, and confented to by the Son, is fuch as infinitely exceeds the power of any meer creature to perform. He that undertakes to fatisfy God, by obedience, for man's fin, muft himself be God; and he that performs fuch a perfect obedience, by doing, and suffering all that the law required, in our room, must be man. These two natures must be united in one perfon, elfe there could not be a concourse or co-operation of either nature in his mediatory works. How these natures are united, in the wonderful perfon of our Immanuel, is the firft part of the great mystery of godlinefs: A fubject studied and adored by angels! and the myftery thereof is wrapped up in this text. Wherein we have, First, The incarnation of the Son of God plainly afferted. Secondly, That affertion strongly confirmed. (1.) In the affertion we have three parts. 1. The Perfon affuming, Ayos, the Word †, (i. e.) the fe The incarnation is the miracle of miracles; a teftimony againft unbelievers, Ifa. vii. 14. and a document to believers. None can declare his generation, Ifa. liii. 8. Neither can any declare his incarnation, his name is fecret, Judges xiii. 18. Wonderful, Ifa. ix. 6. A name that no man knoweth, viz. perfectly, but himself. The Trinity is the greateft, the incarnation the next mystery, Norton's Orthodox Evangelift, p. 38. Word, a real fubftance, or perfon; and not a word, spoken or uttered. Fulgent. Book I. cond Perfon or Subsistent in the moft glorious Godhead, called the Word, either because he is the fcope and principal matter, both of the prophetical and promiffory word; or because he expounds and reveals the mind and will of God to men, as verse 18. The only-begotten Son which is in the bofom of the Father, he hath declared or expounded him. 2. The Nature affumed, cap, Fieh, (i. e.) the intire human nature; confifting of a true human foul and body. For fo this word rap, in Rom. iii. 20. and the Hebrew word T which answers to it, by an ufual Metonomy of a part for the whole, is ufed, Gen. vi. 12. And the word Flefb is rather ufed here, than Man, on purpofe to enhance the admirable condefcenfion and abafement of Chrift; there being more of vileness, weakness, and oppofition to spirit in this word, than in that, as is pertinently noted by fome. Hence the whole nature is denominated by that part, and called flesh. 3. The affumption itself, iyivero, he was made; not fuit, he was, (as Socinus would render it, defigning thereby to overthrow the existence of Chrift's glorified body now in heaven) but factus eft, it was made (i. e.) he took or affumed the true human nature (called flesh ‡, for the reafon before rendered) into the unity of his divine perfon, with all its integral parts and effential properties; and fo was made, or became a true and real man, by that affumption. The apostle speaking of the fame act, Heb. ii. 16. ufes another word, He took on him, iwiraμßávera, fitly rendered he took on him, or he affumed: which affuming, though inchoative, it was the work of the whole Trinity, God the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit, forming or creating that nature; as if three fifters fhould make a garment betwixt them, which only one of them wears: yet, terminative, it was the act of the Son only; it was he only that was made flesh. And when it is faid, he was made flesh, misconceive not, as if there were a mutation of the Godhead into flesh; for this was performed, "not by changing what "he was, but by affuming what he was not," as Auguftine well expreffeth it. As when the fcripture, in a like expreffion, faith, "He was made fin," 2 Cor. v. xxi.; and made a curfe, Gal. iii. 13. the meaning is not, that he was turned into fin, or The Evangelift chose to use the word, Flefh, instead of Man, that it might the more appear how far the Word that was God, humbled himself, when he was made Flesh. For there is manifeftly more of Vilenefs, and greater oppofition to Spirit implied in the word Flesh than in the word Man. Maccovius's Common Places. || Non mutando quod erat, fed affumendo quod non erat. Aug, |