Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

amination, whether we are dead unto sin, and whether we are buried with Christ, and made alive to God.The old man must be forever put off; the sins, which Christ once buried in his grave, are never more to be brought to light again. If we have already done this, let us with a godly sorrow again enter into the fellowship of Christ's death and burial. Let us mortify our members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness; in a word, let us put off the old man with his deed,' (Col. iii. 5-9.) Let us, as those who are dead to the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life, adhere to the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his cross. Let us be willing to be hid with Christ in God, so that when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we may also appear with him in glory,' (Col. v. 3, 4.) To this end, may the living God, for the sake of Jesus Christ his beloved Son, richly bless to us this and all the preceding Considerations, that they may bring forth in us the fruits of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

THE PRAYER.

O BLESSED Jesus, who didst submit unto death,. and descend into the dark mansions of the dead for our sake, praised be thy name for these demonstrations of thy love. O make us the happy partakers of all the fruits of thy meritorious sufferings, thy death, and thy burial! Ever praised be thy name for the grace which thou hast bestowed upon me in the Con-sideration of thy manifold sufferings, from thy internal agony in the garden at the Mount of Olives, to thy. descent into the silent chambers of the grave. Set thy seal to all the good thoughts, which these Considerations have stirred in our hearts; and may we in life and death, in the hours of suffering and intervals of joy, from thy PASSION derive health, strength, comfort, and blessing! Grant this for the sake of thine everlasting love to mankind. Amen.

APPENDIX.

THE

Prince of Life,

CONDEMNED TO DEATH,
A FAST SERMON,

PREACHED

AT JENA, IN LENT, 1721.
By J. Rambach, S. T. P.

MAY the crucified Jesus, for his passion's sake, at this time impart to us divine strength and divine wisdom; and may he give us such a salutary knowledge of the mystery of his condemnation, as may awaken us to faith and repentance! Amen.

In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,' (Gen. ii. 17.) This, my beloved brethren, was God's just and solemn menace to our first parents, in order to deter them from eating of the forbidden tree. This prohibition was not given on account of any noxious quality in the fruit, as some have vainly imagined. It was rather from a paternal care, that God interdicted the use of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil to the representatives of mankind. These words are therefore to be considered as a judicial sentence, in which God declares to man that, on transgressing this his solemn command by disobedience, he would not only render himself obnoxious to spiritual death, and forfeit the divine life; but also would incur the whole penalty threatened in these words, and infallibly draw on himself both temporal and eternal death, as a just punishment for his sins.

How dreadfully this judicial threatening has been fulfilled, we are taught by sad experience. For we all enter into this world dead in sin, and deprived of that life which is from God; and we are by a painful temporal death to be removed out of it. Death rules and tyrannizes over all the descendants of fallen Adam, and spares neither age, sex, nor rank; and if no gracious covenant had intervened, this sentence of the Supreme Law-giver, Thou shalt surely die,' would have been executed on the whole human race in its utmost extent; and all of us would have been consigned to the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

[ocr errors]

But the compassionate love and tenderness of our Creator, who has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, with pity saw man, as it were, lying in death, and graciously said, 'Thou shalt live.' For God, immediately after the fall, promised to send his Son into the world, who should bruise the serpent's head, destroy sin and death, and recover for us a right to the spiritual and eternal life.

<

But by what arduous steps, by what amazing means, has this redemption been accomplished. It was necessary that this sentence, Thou shalt surely die,' should be first denounced against our Mediator, before that gracious promise, Thou shalt live,' could be made to man. It was necessary, that He should appear in our stead, as the representative of sinners and transgressors, and submit to the sentence of death; that we might appear before the Divine tribunal in his stead, and hear the sentence or promise of life from the mouth of his reconciled Father. In this amazing instance, the delinquent is forgiven, and the surety suffers; and He, who one day will call the dead to life, was himself sentenced to die.

The end of our meeting here on this fast-day being, as the present season of Lent requires, to consider with seriousness and attention this important part of our blessed Saviour's sufferings, let us, with united

fervours of devotion, call on the living God, that he will be pleased to bless the consideration of this interesting subject to our souls, so that all of us may be richly edified thereby ; and to this end let us call upon him saying, Our Father which art in heaven, &c.'

The part of the history of the passion, which is to be the subject of our present discourse, is thus related in the harmonized account of the three Evangelists, (Matt. xxvi. Mark xiv. Luke xxii.)

THE TEXT.

'Now the chief priests and elders, and all the couneil, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; but found none. Yea, though many bare false witness against him, their testimony agreed not together. At the last came two false witnesses and bare false testimony against him, saying, We heard him say, I am able to [I will] destroy this temple of God that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. But neither so did their witness agree, together. Then the High Priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it that these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace, and answered nothing.

'Again the High Priest asked Jesus, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us, whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God: Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said; I am. Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

"Then the High Priest rent his clothes, saying, He has spoken blasphemy, what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They all condemned him, and answered and said, He is guilty of death.

Then some began to spit on him, and they did spit in his face. And the servants, and the men who Fff

VOL. II.

held Jesus, mocked him, smote him, and buffeted him. And they blind-folded him, and struck him on the face; and asked him, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, who is it that smote thee? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.

And straightway in the morning, as soon as it was day, the chief priests, the elders of the people, and the scribes, came together, and led him into their council. And they said, Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all Art thou then the Son of God? and he said unto them, Ye say that I am. And they said, What need we any further witnesses? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.'

[ocr errors]

Beloved in the Lord! Among other glorious titles attributed to our blessed Saviour, that of PRINCE OF LIFE, which is given to him by St. Peter, (Acts iii. 15.) is a very remarkable one, Ye have crucified the Prince of Life,' says the apostle to the Jews. Our Saviour was, not only by his Divine nature, the source of life in the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of grace, and the kingdom of glory; but, likewise in his human nature, wherein the Father had given to him life in himself, (John v. 26.) Thus death had no claim on this glorious, this divine person, had he not by the grace of God voluntarily determined, to taste death for every man,' (Heb. ii. 9.) In order to hear the sentence of death pronounced on him, he freely submitted to be brought before the tribunal of man. Of the several circumstances relating to this wonderful event, we have a melancholy account in the harmonised text of the evangelists citied above, which shows us how the Prince of Life was condemned to death by the rulers of the Jews.

In explaining these words, we shall

First, Consider what preceded the sentence of death passed on our blessed Saviour.

« AnteriorContinuar »