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SERM. moft heinous act ever committed by men,) is the death of XXVII. our Lord confiderable.

15. lxxii.

14.

2 Cor. v. 21.

Ifa. liii. 9.

26, 27.

5. But more immediately the quality and condition of our Saviour's perfon do moft commend to us, and advance Pfal. cxvi. the worth of his death: if, as the Pfalmift faith, precious in the fight of the Lord is the death of his faints; if the 1 Pet. i. 19. fpotless candour and unblemished integrity of a lamb do 1 Pet. ii. 22. make its blood precious, and qualify it for an acceptable facrifice; how valuable to God fhall be the death of a Heb. vii. perfon fo perfectly holy and innocent; who did not so much as know fin; in whofe mouth no guile was ever found; who was holy, harmless, undefiled, removed (at infinite distance removed) from finners; who needed not to offer facrifices for his own fins; whofe death therefore for others was apt to be more available and acceptable! Again, if the life of a king be (as king David's people 2 Sam.xviii. told him) worth ten thousand lives; if it be a moft enor3. xxi. 17. mous crime and highest treason to imagine his death; how valuable must be the death of a person so incompaActs iii. 15. rably transcendent in dignity, of the Lord of glory, of the

Rev. i. 5, 6.

Prince of life! Ye denied the holy and the juft One; ye flew 1 Cor. ii. 8. the Prince of life: They crucified the Lord of glory: fo the Apostles do aggravate the bufinefs. But a farther height, a perfect immenfity indeed, of worth and efficacy, must needs accrue to the death of our Saviour, from his being the Son of God; from his being God, (one and the fame in nature with his almighty and all-glorious 1 John i. 7. Father:) for it is the blood of Chrift, the Son of God, which Acts xx. 28. purgeth us from all fin; yea, God himself did, as St. Tit. ii. 14. Paul faith in the Acts, purchase the Church with his own blood; it is the great God, and our Saviour Jefus Chrift, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all 1 John iii. iniquity: and, Hereby, faith St. John, perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us. That the immortal God should die, that the Moft High should be debafed to fo low a condition, as it cannot be heard without wonder, so it could not be undertaken without huge reason, nor accomplished without mighty effect: well in

16.

deed might fuch a condefcenfion serve to advance us from SERM. the basest state to any pitch of honour and happiness; XXVII. well might one drop of that royal blood of heaven fuffice to purchase many worlds, to ransom innumerable lives of men, to expiate an infinity of fins, however grievous and foul. But fo much for the peculiar adjuncts and respects of our Lord's death.

3. Let us now confider the caufes and principles whence it proceeded; which moved God to determine it, and our Lord to undertake it; they were in both acts moft voluntary and free: of the Father it is faid, It pleafed Ifa. liii. 10. the Lord to bruife him; and, Behold, faith our Lord in Heb. x. 7. the Pfalm, I come to do thy will, O God; that is, as the Apostle to the Hebrews expoundeth it, to offer, not the blood of beafts in facrifice, but my own body, according

Pf. xl. 7, 9.

11.

28.

&c.

to thy will and appointment: and, This commandment, John x. 18. faith he in St. John, I received of my Father, to lay down my life: and, The cup, faith he again, which my Father John xviii. hath given me, shall I not drink it? fo on the Father's part, and on our Saviour's likewife, it was no lefs voluntary; for, None, faith he, taketh my life from me, (that John x. 18. is, it is not from any neceffity or compulfion that I do part with it,) but I lay it down of myself, (with abfolute choice and freedom;) I have power to lay it down, and I John vi. 51. have power to resume it: and, The bread, faith he, which I Matt. xxi. shall give, is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the Gal. ii. 20, world: The Son of man came to give his life a ranfom for Tit. ii. 14. many. The yielding his flesh to death, the paying his life a ranfom, were deeds of gift, perfectly free: and that both in regard to God the Father and the Son this performance was voluntary, St. Paul together thus expreffeth; Who gave himself for our fins, that he might deliver Gal. i. 4. us from this prefent evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: fo this death iffued from the joint wills of God and his Son. But as the volitions of every intelligent and wife agent do always proceed from fome principle inclining, or are directed according to fome impulfive cause moving to them, fo divers principles and causes of these voluntary acts are declared in Scripture;

SERM. the chief of which are reducible to these two; one interXXVII. nally difpofing God's goodness; the other externally in

χνα ἐλέους.

Luke i. 78.

viting man's distress. The case stood thus: mankind lying in a fad and forlorn eftate, oppreffed by Satan, enflaved to fin, subject to a rigorous law, expofed to the feverity of justice, tormented by the sense of guilt, fearful of divine wrath and due vengeance; in fhort, by the sentence of heaven and by the fuffrage of confcience within, condemned to punishment unavoidable, and to intolerable mifery; man, I fay, lying in fo defperately uncomfortable a condition, God's infinite goodnefs regarded his poor Aià λáy- creature, his bowels of compaffion yearned toward him, a defire of relieving fprang up in his will; thence was he moved to provide fuch a remedy, fuitable and fufficient for his delivery; for the removing all thofe mifchiefs and curing all thofe diftempers: the main fource of all this wonderful performance, (as of all other providential difpenfations and works, ad extra,) was that most excellent perfection of God, which, in regard to this matter, is Tit. iii. 4. fometime termed xensórns, benignity, or bounty; implying Rom the great benefit and advantage we do thence receive; Heb. ii. 9. fometimes grace, or favour, fignifying the pure freeness in difpenfing it, without any design of profit to himself, or 2 Cor. viii. any defert on our part, (By the grace of God he tafted Eph. ii. 8, death for every man;) sometimes mercy, denoting our bad deferts, or obnoxioufnefs to juftice and punishment; fomeLuke i. 78. times pity, fignifying the great need we had thereof, by reason of our extreme diftrefs and mifery. Commonly alfo it is, by the moft obliging and endearing name ftyled love, and philanthropy, intimating the earnest regard and benevolence God had to us as his creatures, and as ca1 Tim. ii. 6. pable of being benefited and bettered by him; Herein, Tit. iii. 4. faith St. Paul, God commended his love toward us, in that Eph. ii. 4. we being yet finners, Chrift died for us; and, God, faith St. John, loved us, and fent his Son to be a propitiation for John iii. 16, us; and, God, faith our Lord himfelf, fo loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son-that the world might be faved by him.

Eph. ii. 7.

Rom. iii.

24.

9.

5. i. 7.

Tit. iii. 5.

Eph. ii. 4.
Heb. ii. 17.

Rom. v. 8.

1 John iv. 9, 10.

17.

By the way it is worth obferving, that there is diftin

guishable a threefold love of God toward men, intimated SERM. in Scripture. 1. A general love to mankind,.antecedent XXVII. to the fending our Lord, and his performances, being the ground of God's defigning them; which may be called a love of pity, or mercy toward poor man lying under condemnation and diftrefs; this is that pravdgaria TOD σwrйpos nμær Deoũ, philanthropy of God our Saviour, Tit. iii. 4. › which appeared in saving us, (that is, in granting us the capacity and means of falvation,) not by works of righteousness, which we had done, but by his mercy; the love which he commended, in that while we were finners Chrift Rom. v. 8. died for us. 2. A love, immediately confequent upon our Lord's performances and fufferings, and procured by them; whereby God is fo far pleased with men, and reconciled to the world, that he defireth all men's falvation, 1 Tim. ii. 4. and offereth to them terms and means thereof; in regard Tit. ii. 11. to which our Lord is faid to be the Saviour of the world, and Redeemer of all men; of which love St. Paul speaketh, when he faith, that being enemies we were reconciled 1 Tim. ii. 6. to God by the death of his Son; and that God was in Rom. v. 10. Chrift reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing 2 Cor. v. 19. their fins; and that God having made peace by the blood Col. i. 20. of his cross, did reconcile by him all things unto himself, Aas x. 33. whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven; the Rom. xi.32. which be called a love of reconciliation and favour; 1 Tim. ii. 4. may or the grace of God, which came by Jefus Chrift.

iv. 10.

John i. 17.

Afts

Luke ii. 14.

3. A peculiar love of friendship and complacence, which God beareth toward all thofe who do fincerely turn and steadfastly adhere to him, repenting of their fins and embracing the Gofpel, and perfifting in obedience to his laws; fuch God is every where represented to affect with tendereft love, as his faithful fervants, his good friends, and dear children; being especially the Saviour of 1 Tim. iv. them: this distinction is obfervable for our better underftanding the paffages of fcripture concerning this matter; in which God is fometime reprefented as bearing a general love to all men, fometime as more especially loving the faithful and good men.

The like principles and impulfive caufes are faid to

10.

25.

Rev. i. 5.

SERM. move our Lord to undertake and undergo death for us; XXVII. it was goodness and love toward us that inclined him Eph. v. 2, thereto Chrift, faith St. Paul, loved us, and delivered up himfelf for us, an offering and facrifice to God: He loved 1 John iif. the Church, and delivered up himself for it. He loved us, and washed us from our fins in his blood: Hereby we perceive the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: I live, faith St. Paul again, by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

16.

(John xv.

13.)

Gal. ii. 20.

Ifa. liii. 5,

6.

2 Cor. v. 15.

8, 10.

1 Pet. iii. 18.

Such were the principles difpofing, and causes in a fort moving; to which we may add our fins, as the merito1 Cor. xv.3. rious causes of our Saviour's death; He died for our fins; Heb. x. 12. He was wounded for our tranfgreffions, he was bruised for our iniquities. He died for us, not only as for men, not Rom. v. 6, only as for wretched men, but as for unjust and finful men; as for enemies, and strangers to God; fuch as had grievously displeased God, had incurred heinous guilt, had deserved, and were become obnoxious to severest punishment; so standing in need of reconcilement, propitiation, and redemption. Had we been innocent and guiltless, there had wanted fufficient cause, or just reason for his death; God would not have been angry, juftice could have had no pretence, or hold; we should not have been liable to fuffer ourselves, nor could he have suffered for Rom.vi. 23. us. Death is the debt, or wages due to fin; which he therefore paid, because we owed it, and could not difIfa. liii. 6, charge it: All we, as it is faid in the Prophet, have gone aftray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord (therefore) hath laid on him the iniquity of us all: our fins were not only indirect or remote occafions of his death, but did procure it in way of defert: even as they would have been meritorious caufes of our death, had he not undertaken for us, fo were they the like causes of his death, who died for us, and in our stead; who was 1 Tim. ii. 6. made fin (that is, a finner, or a facrifice) for us; who gave Matt. xx. himself artíλurpov, a ransom inftead of us all; paying his 1 Cor. vi. blood a price for us, and redeeming us thereby from all the penalties and inconveniencies we were liable to; buying Gal. iii. 13. us from the curfe, by becoming a curfe for us; who had

4, 11.

2 Cor. v. 21.

28.

20. vii. 23.

Heb. ix. 12.

1 Pet. i. 18.

Rom. iii. 24. 2 Pet. ii. 1. Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14.

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