The Liberty of Believers, opened and stated. John viii. 36. " If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye The Saints coming Home to God, by Reconciliation, and Glorification, opened and applied. 1 Pet. iii. 18. " For Chrift hath once fuffered for fins, the just The great usefulness of the Law or Word of God, in or- der to the Application of Christ. Rom. vii. 9. "For I was alive without the law once; but when ceffity. The Teachings of God opened, in their Nature and Ne- John vi. 45. " It is written in the Prophets, And they shall be "all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, " and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me," John vi. 45. "It is written in the Prophets," &c. us, by the Spirit which he hath given us," Of the Nature and Neceffity of the New Creature. 2 Cor. v. 17. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new Wherein four weighty Ends of CHRIST'S Humiliation are opened, and particularly applied. Isa. liii. 2. He shall fee the travail of his foul, and be fatisfied. Wed E are now arrived at the last particular which we designto speak to in Christ's state of humiliation, namely, the designs and blessed ends for which he was so deeply abased. It is inconsistent with the prudence of a common agent, to be at vast expences of time, pains, and cost, and not to propound to himfelf a design worthy of all those expences. And it is much less imaginable, that Christ should so stupendously abase himself, by stooping from the bosom of his Father to the state of the dead, where our last disconrse left him, if there had not been some excellent, and glorious thing in his eye, the attainment whereof, might give him a content and fatisfaction, equivalent to all the forrows, and abasements, he endured for it. And so much is plainly held forth in this scripture, " He shall " see the travail of his foul, and be satisfied." In which words three things fall under our confideration. First, The travailing pangs of Christ. So the agonies of his foul, and torments of his body are fitly called, not only because of the sharpness and acuteness of them, being in that respect, like birth-pangs of a travailing woman, for so this * word signifies, but also because they fore-run, and make way for the birth, which abundantly recompences all those labours. I shall not here infift upon the pangs and agonies endured by Christ in the garden, or upon the cross, which the prophet stiles " the travail of his foul," having, in the former fermons, opened it largely in its particulars, but pass to the *צמל,, This word signifies both the birth and pain attend. ing it. Strigel. VOL. II. 1 4 Second Thing confiderable in these words; and that is the affured fruits and effects of this his travail; he shall fee the travail of his foul. By feeing, understand the fruition, obtainment, or enjoyment of the end of his fufferings. He shall not shed his blood upon an hazard: his design shall not mifcarry; but he shall certainly fee the ends he aimed at accomplished. And Thirdly, This shall yield him great fatisfaction: as a woman forgets her forrow, for joy that a man is born into "the world," John xvi. 21. he shall fee it, and be fatisfied. As God, when he had finished the work of creation, viewed that his work with pleasure and fatisfaction; so doth our exalted Redeemer, with great contentment, behold the happy issues ⚫of his hard fufferings. It affords pleasure to a man to fee great affairs, by orderly conduct, brought to happy issues. Much more doth it yield delight to Jesus Christ, to see the refults of *that most profound wisdom and love, wherein he carried on redemption-work. All runs into this doctrine. 5 Doct. That all the blessed designs and ends for which the Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself to the death of the cross, Shall certainly be attained, to his full content and fatisfaction. MY present business is not to prove, that Christ shall certainly obtain what he died for; nor to open the great fatisfaction and pleasure which will arise to him out of those issues of his death, but to point at the principal ends of his death; making fome brief improvements as we pass along. First, Then let us enquire into the designs and ends of Christ's humiliation, at least the main and principal ones; and we shall find, that as the sprinkling of the typical blood in the Old Testament was done for four weighty ends or uses, anfwerably, the precious and invaluable blood of the Teftator and furety of the New Testament is shed for four weighty ends alfo. First, That blood was shed and applied to deliver from danger; Exod. xii. 13. " And the blood shall be to you for a 66 + token upon the houses where you are; and when I fee "the blood, I will pass over you and the plague shall not be " upon you, to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt." + The Jews implicitly acknowledged by this ceremony, that they were to be liberated from eternal death by the blood of the Meffial Vatab. Secondly, That blood was shed to make an atonement betwixt God and the people; Lev. iv. 20. "And he thall do with the " bullock as he did with the bullock for a fin-offering; so shall " he do with this; and the priest shall make an atonement for "them, and it shall be forgiven them." Thirdly, That blood was shed to purify persons from their ceremonial pollutions, Lev. xiv. 6. 7. " He shall dip the cedar "wood, and scarlet, and hyffop, with the living bird, in the " blood of the bird that was killed over the running water, and " he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times; and shall pronounce him clean, and " shall let the living bird loose in the open field," Fourthly, That † blood was shed to ratify and confirm the testament or covenant of God with the people, Exod. xxiv. 8. " And Mofes took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people and "faid, behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath " made with you concerning all these words." These were the four main ends for shedding, and sprinkling that typical blood. Suitably, there are four principal ends for hedding and applying Chrift's blood. As that typical blood was shed to deliver from danger, so this was shed to deliver from wrath, even the wrath to come. That was shed to make an atonement, so was this. That was shed to purify persons from uncleanness, fo was this. That was shed to confirm the Testament, so was this. As will appear in the following particulars more at large. First, One principal design and end of thedding the blood of Christ was to deliver his people from danger, the danger of that wrath which burns down to the lowest hell. So you find, 1 Theff. i. 10. "Even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come." Here our misery is both specified and aggravated. Specified, in calling it wrath, a word of deep and dreadful fignification. The damned best understand the importance of that word. And aggravated, in calling it wrath to come, or coming wrath. Wrath to come implies both the futurity and perpetuity of this wrath. It is wrath that shall certainly and inevitably come upon sinners. As sure as the night follows the day. As fure as the winter follows the summer, so shall wrath follow fin, and the pleasures thereof. Yea, it is not only certainly future, but when A 2 * Seven times, Signifies perfect expiation; this number was confecrated to denote perfection. Menoch. + The shedding and sprinkling of blood signifies that the covenant would be fure and stable, even with the hazard of life. Rivet. it comes it will beabiding wrath, or wrath still coming. When millions of years and ages are past and gone, this will still be wrath to come. Ever coming as a river ever flowing. Now, from this wrath to come, hath Jesus delivered his people by his death. For that was the price laid down for their redemption from the wrath of the great and terrible God, Rom. v. 9. "Much more then being justified by his blood, we shall " be saved from wrath through him." The blood of Jefus was the price that ransomed man from this wrath. And it was shed not only to deliver them from wrath to come, but to deliver them freely, fully, distinguishingly, and wonderfully from it. First, Freely, by his own voluntary interposition and susception of the mediatorial office, moved thereunto by his own bowels of compassion; which yearned over his elect in their misery . The faints were once a lost generation, that had fold themselves, and their inheritance also; and had not wherewithal to redeem either: but they had a near kinsman (even their elder brother by the mother's side) to whom the right of redemption did belong; who being a mighty man of wealth, the heir of all things, undertook to be their Goell; and out of his own proper substance to redeem both them and their inheritance. Them to be his own inheritance, Eph. i. 10. And heaven to be theirs, I Pet. i. 4. All this he did most freely, when none made supplication to him. No fighing of the prifoners came before him. He defigned it for us before we had a being. And when the purposes of his grace were come to their parturient fulness, then did he freely lay out the infinite treasures of his blood to purchase our deliverance from wrath. Secondly, Chrift by death hath delivered his people fully. A full deliverance it is, both in respect of time and degrees. A full deliverance in respect of time. It was not a reprieve, but a deliverance. He thought it not worth the shedding of his blood to refpite the execution for a while. Nay, in the procurement of their eternal deliverance from wrath, and in the purchase of their eternal inheritance, he hath but an even bargain, not a jot more than his blood was worth. Therefore is he become "the author of (eternal salvation) to them that obey him," Heb. v. 9. And as it is full in respect of time, so likewise in respect of degrees. He died not to procure a mitigation or abatement of the rigour or severity of the sentence, but to rescue his people fully from all degrees of wrath. So that there * See Mr. Cafe's Mount Pisgah, p. 85. |