8.] LXVI. upon SERM. or our own. By this our lusts may be all subdued, our hearts cleansed, and our whole man sanctified in soul, body and spirit. By this our sins may be all pardoned, our punishment remitted, and our persons justified before God. By this our duty, though imperfect, may be accepted, and our souls eternally saved. In short, by this all we who are here assembled, may as certainly be glorified Saints hereafter in Heaven, as we are now miserable sinners earth. And if any of us be not, the fault will be wholly our own; for we have all the reason and encouragement imaginable to believe and put our whole trust and confidence in our blessed Saviour for all things necessary to make us holy here, and happy for ever. For we have all the miracles that He ever wrought to confirm us in it; we have the examples and experiences of His Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and all the Saints that ever lived, to assure us of it; and above all, we have the Word, the promises, the oath of God, of truth itself for it. So that we have more ground to believe in Christ for grace and pardon, and eternal Salvation, than we have to believe what we see, or hear, or understand; for our senses may deceive us, and so may our reason too: but God is of that infinite wisdom, that He cannot be deceived Himself; and of that infinite goodness, that He cannot deceive us. Nevertheless what saith our blessed Lord? "When the [Luke 18. Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith upon earth?" I fear if He should come now, He would not find much. Nothing, I know, is more common than to talk of faith, and pretend to it; but nothing, I doubt, is more rare than to have such a faith as the Gospel requires, and we have now been speaking of. Such a faith as unites our soul to Christ, and fixes our hearts and minds upon Him. Such a faith as [Gal. 5. 6.] continually derives power and virtue from Him to work by [2 Cor. 4. love. Such a faith whereby "we look not at the things 18.] which are seen, but at the things which are not seen," and so live by faith and not by sight. Such a faith as overcomes the world, purifies our hearts, and adorns our lives with all manner of good works. This is the faith that lays hold upon the merits of Christ's death, and applies them to us for the pardon of our sins and the Salvation of our souls. And [ch. 5. 7.] [1 John 5. 4.] therefore thus it is that we must believe in Christ, as ever we desire to be saved by Him. Which therefore that we may do, we must be sure to make use of those means which God hath appointed for it; we must converse much with the Word of God, the object of our faith; for as St. Paul saith, "Faith comes by hearing, Rom. 10.17. and hearing by the Word of God." We must earnestly pray to Almighty God to give us faith; for as the same Apostle saith, "Faith is the gift of God." We must be very constant and serious both at our public and private devotions, wherein as we exercise our faith in Christ, He ordinarily increaseth and strengtheneth it. We must often receive the Sacrament of our Lord's Supper, instituted on purpose to put us in mind of His death, and to confirm our faith in it. We must keep the blood of Christ always fresh in our minds and memories, and take all occasions we can to ruminate upon it; especially at such times as the Church hath set apart for that purpose: as all the Fridays in the year, except Christmas-day, are to be observed as days of fasting and abstinence only upon that account, because it was upon that day that Christ suffered. And therefore as the very observing of that day should put us in mind of His sufferings; so they that would observe it aright, should spend at least a good part of it in contemplating upon them, and acting their faith in them, for the pardon of those sins for which He suffered. The same should be the subject of our meditations all the Lent, especially this the last week of it; wherein the Church hath ordered the history of our Saviour's Passion to be read every day, that so we may daily exercise our faith in Him. But, above all, this day is consecrated wholly and solely to the memory of Christ's death, that so we may repent of the sins for which He suffered it; and act our faith and trust on Him for the pardon of them. This is the proper work of this day, and therefore let us now set about it in good earnest, thinking thus with ourselves. Eph. 2. 8. 18.] Oh! the breadth, the length, the depth, the height of the [Eph. 3. love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord! Who is able to comprehend it? Who can but admire and adore it? That ever the Almighty Creator of the world, should have so much. SERM. love and pity for us His sinful creatures upon earth, as to LXVI. send His Only-begotten Son, to die, to die upon the Cross, and all for us and for our sins against Himself. Ungrateful wretches that we are, that ever we should commit such sins against Him, which nothing less than the blood of His [Jer. 9. 1.] beloved Son could expiate! "Oh that our heads were waters and our eyes a fountain of tears, that we might weep day and night," and this day especially, that ever we should be the occasion that the Son of God should die! But wherefore did He die? to save sinners! Then He died to save us, the chiefest of all sinners. Why then should we despair of Salvation, who have got such an all-sufficient Saviour as this is? One Who is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by Him. By Him therefore, we will go to God; we will believe in Him, we will put our whole trust and confidence on Him, both to be cleansed from our sins, and justified before God by Him. [Heb. 7. 25.] [Acts 26. 18.] [Phil. 4. 13.] O blessed Jesu! who once, as upon this day, sufferedst death upon the Cross, and art now at the right hand of Thy Father in Heaven interceding for us, our eyes are up to Thee, all our hopes and expectations are from Thee. Send down Thy Holy Spirit, we beseech Thee, into our hearts, to work in us true repentance, to open our eyes, “to turn us from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." Blessed Lord our Saviour, we know Thou hearest us, and believe Thou wilt, according to Thy promise, grant our request; Thou wilt give us Thy Holy Spirit, whereby we shall mortify the deeds of the flesh, and walk for the future in all Thy Commandments blameless. "We can" now "do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us.” And now, what if our former sins were many? What if they were great? God knows they are so. But He knows also that His Own Son hath died for them; for whose sake therefore He is now reconciled to us; why then should we despond? What need we fear? What can men or devils do against us? What evil can befall us? What good things Rom. 8. 31- can be withholden from us? For as it is written, "If God 35, 37-39. be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His Own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather that is risen again, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." To Whom with the Father and Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory. Amen. SERMON LXVII. A GOOD FRIDAY SERMON. SERM. PHIL. ii. 8. And being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. He that reads, and firmly believes what is here written, cannot but fall down and worship God, adoring that infinite wisdom, justice, and mercy, that He manifested in the redemption of fallen man; for here we read, that our Redeemer Jesus Christ, being in the form, subsisting in the [Phil. 2.6.] nature or essence of God, "thought it not robbery to be equal with God." He did not think that He robbed God of any glory, or offered Him any injury or affront, by asserting Himself to be equal to Him, of the same substance, wisdom, power, and all other perfections with Him. Yet nevertheless, this glorious, eternal, infinite, Almighty Person, subsisting thus in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation: He emptied, debased, humbled Himself, by taking upon Him the form of a servant; being made in the likeness of men, a real and perfect man, like to the rest of mankind in all the integral or essential parts of a man. And being thus found in fashion or habit as a man, in such a soul and body as other men have, He humbled Himself lower yet, becoming obedient, or subject to those laws, which He, as Lord of all, had made for others, not only all His life, but even to death itself, and that too, not any ordinary or common death, but the most painful, the most shameful, the |