SERM. XVII. affairs and business, is the true and ready way to their fuccefs and profperity. If all depend upon his pleafure, then fure it is your wisdom to take him along with you to every action and business; it is no loft time that is spent in prayer, wherein we afk his leave, and beg his prefence with us: and, take it for a clear truth, that which is not prefaced with prayer, will be followed with trouble. How eafily can Jefus Chrift dash all your defigns, when they are at the very birth and article of execution, and break off, in a moment, all the purposes of your hearts? It is a proverb among the Papifts, that Mafs and meat hinder no man. The Turks will pray five times a day, how urgent foever their bufinefs be. Blufh you that enterprise your affairs without God: I reckon that business as good as done, to which we have gotten Chrift's leave, and engaged his prefence to accompany us.

Inference 5. Laftly, Eye Chrift in all the events of providence ; fee his hand in all that befals you, whether it be evil or good. "The works of the Lord are great, fought out of all them that "have pleasure therein," Pfal. cxi. 2.

How much good might we get, by obfervation of the good or evil that befals us throughout our courfe!

1. In all the evils of trouble and afflictions that befal you, eye Jefus Chrift; and fet your hearts to the study of these four things in affliction.

(1.) Study his fovereignty and dominion; for he creates and forms them they rife not out of the duft, nor do they befal you cafually; but he raises them up, and gives them their commiffion, Jer. xviii. 11. "Behold, I create evil, and devife a de"vice against you." He elects the inftrument of your trouble; he makes the rod as afflictive as he pleaseth; he orders the continuance and end of your troubles; and they will not cease to be afflictive to you, till Chrift fay, Leave off, it is enough. The Centurion wifely confidered this, when he told him, Luke vii. 8. "I have foldiers under me, and I fay to one, Go, and he goeth; "to another, Come, and he cometh:" meaning, that as his foldiers were at his beck and command, fo diseases were at Chrift's beck, to come and go as he ordered them.

(2.) Study the wisdom of Chrift in the contrivance of your troubles. And his wifdom fhines out many ways in them: it is evident in chufing fuch kinds of trouble for you; this, and not that, because this is more apt to work upon, and purge out the corruption that moft predominates in you: In the degrees of your troubles, fuffering them to work to fuch a height, elfe not reach their end; but no higher, left they overwhelm you.

(3) Study the tenderness and compassions of Christ over his afflicted. O think if the Devil had but the mixing of my cup, how much more bitter would he make it! There would not be one drop of mercy, no, not of fparing mercy in it, which is the lowest of all forts of mercy: but here is much mercy mixed with my troubles; there is mercy in this, that it is no worse. Am I afflicted?" It is of the Lord's mercy I am not confumed," Lam. iii. 2. It might have been hell as well as this; there is mercy in his fupports under it. Others have, and I might have been left to fink and perish under my burdens. Mercy, in de liverance out of it; this might have been everlasting darkness, that should never have had a morning. O the tenderness of

Christ over his afflicted!

(4) Study the love of Chrift to thy foul, in affliction. Did he not love thee, he would not fanctify a rod to humble or reduce thee, but let thee alone to perish in thy fin. Rev. iii. 19. "Whom "I love, I rebuke and chaften." This is the device of love, to recover thee to thy God, and prevent thy ruin. O what an advantage would it be thus to ftudy Christ, in all your evils that befal you!

2. Eye and Audy Chrift in all the good you receive from the hand of providence. Turn both fides of your mercies, and view them in all their lovely circumftances.

(1.) Eye them in their fuitableness; how conveniently providence hath ordered all things for thee. Thou haft a narrow heart, and a small eftate fuitable to it: Hadft thou more of the world, it would be like a large fail to a little boat, which would quickly pull thee under water: thou haft that which is moft fuitable to thee of all conditions.

(2.) Eye the feafonableness of thy mercies, how they are timed to an hour. Providence brings forth all its fruits in due feafon.

(3) Eye the peculiar nature of thy mercies. Others have common, thou special ones; others have but a fingle, thou a double fweetness in thy enjoyments, one natural from the matter of it, another fpiritual from the way in which, and end for which it comes.

(4.) Obferve the order in which providence fends your mercies. See how one is linked ftrangely to another, and is a door to let in many. Sometimes one mercy is introductive to a thoufand.

(5) And lastly, Obferve the conftancy of them, "they are new every morning," Lam. iii. 23. How affiduoufly doth God vifit thy foul and body! Think with thy felf, if there be but a

fufpenfion of the care of Chrift for one hour, that hour would be thy ruin. Thousands of evils ftand round about thee, watching when Chrift will but remove his eye from thee, that they may rush in and devour thee.

Could we thus fudy the providence of Chrift in all the good and evil that befals us in the world, then in every ftate we fhould be content, Phil. iv. 11. Then we fhould never be ftopt, but furthered in our way by all that falls out; then would our experiences fwell to great volumes, which we might carry to heaven with us; and then should we answer all Chrift's ends in every state he brings us into. Do this, and fay, Thanks be to God for Jefus Christ.

SERMON XVIII.

Opens the Neceffity of Chrift's Humiliation, in order to the Execution of all thefe his bleffed Offices for us; and particularly of his Humiliation by Incarnation.

PHIL. ii. S. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.

γου have heard how Chrift was invested with the offices of prophet, priest, and king, for the carrying on the bleffed design of our redemption; the execution of thefe offi ces neceffarily required that he should be both deeply abafed, and highly exalted. He cannot, as our Priest, offer up himfelf a facrifice to God for us, except he be humbled, and humbled to death. He cannot, as a King, powerfully apply the virtue of that his facrifice, except he be exalted, yea, highly exalted. Had he not stooped to the low estate of a man, he had not, as a Prieft, had a facrifice of his own to offer; as a Prophet, he had not been fit to teach us the will of God, fo as that we should be able to bear it; as a King, he had not been a fu table head to the church: and, had he not been highly exalted, that facrifice had not been carried within the vail before the Lord. Those discoveries of God could not have been univerfal, effectual and abiding. The government of Christ, could

not have fecured, protected, and defended the subjects of his kingdom.

The infinite wifdom profpecting all this, ordered that Chrift fhould first be deeply humbled, then highly exalted: both which states of Christ are prefented to us by the apostle in this

context.

He that intends to build high, lays the foundation deep and low. Christ must have a distinct glory in heaven, tranfcending that of angels and men, (for the faints will know him from all others by his glory, as the fun is known from the leffer ftars.) And, as he must be exalted infinitely above them, fo he must first, in order thereunto, be humbled and abased as much below them: "His form was marred more than any man's, and

his vifage more than the fons of men." The ground colours are a deep fable, which afterward are laid on with all the fplendor and glory of heaven.

Method requires that we firft fpeak to this ftate of Humili

ation.

And, to that purpofe, I have read this fcripture to you, which presents you the Son under an (almost) total eclipfe. He that was beautiful and glorious, Ifa. iv. 2. yea, glorious as the only begotten of the Father, Johni. 14.; yea, the glory, James ii, 1.; yea, the fplendor and "brightnefs of the Father's "glory," Heb. i. 3. was fo vailed, clouded, and debased, that he looked not like himfelf; a God, no, nor fcarce as a man ; for, with reference to this humbled state, it is said, Pfal. xxii. 6. "I am a worm, and no man;" q. d. rather write me worm, than man: I am become an abject among men †, as that word, Ifa. liii. 3. fignifies. This humiliation of Chrift we have here expreffed, in the nature, degrees, and duration or continuance of it.

1. The nature of it, stawacy eάutov, he humbled himself. The word imports both a real and voluntary abafement ‡. Real; he did not perfonate a humbled man, nor act the part of one, in a debased state, but was really, and indeed humbled;

*The Hebrew words in Ifa. iv. 2. literally, fignify, for beauty or for glory. The words Inc Xpis tus dons, in James ii. 1. fignify, Jefus Chrift, the glory. axavyaouia ons doğns, is, brightness of his glory.

The fcorn of men, an abject among men.

But he fpeaks not of a feigned and counterfeit but of a true and real humiliation. Zanch in loc.

SERM. XVIII. and that not only before men, but God. As man, he was humbled really, as God in refpect of his manifestative glory : and, as it was real, fo alfo voluntary: It is not faid he was humbled, but he humbled himself; he was willing to stoop to this low and abject state for us. And, indeed, the voluntariness of his humiliation made it most acceptable to God, and fingularly commends the love of Chrift to us, that he would chuse to stoop to all this ignominy, fufferings and abasement for us.

2. The degrees of his humiliation; it was not only fo low as to become a man, a man under law; but he humbled himself to become" obedient to death, even the death of the cross Here you see the depth of Chrift's humiliation, both specified, it was unto death, and aggravated, even the death of the cross; not only to become a man but a dead corps, and that too hanging on a tree, dying the death of a malefactor.

:

The duration, or continuance of this his humiliation it 37 continued from the first moment of his incarnation, to the ve ry moment of his vivification and quickning in the grave. So the terms of it are fixed here by the apoftle; from the time he was found in fashion as a man, that is, from his incarnation, únto his death on the crofs, which also comprehends the time of his abode in the grave; fo long his humiliation lafted. Hence the obfervation is,

Doct. That the State of Chrift, from his conception to his re furrection, was a state of deep abasement and humiliati

on.

We are now entering upon Chrift's humbled ftate, which I fhall caft under three general heads, viz. his humiliation, in his incarnation, in his life, and in his death. My prefent work is to open Chrift's humiliation, in his incarnation, imported in thefe words, He was found in fashion as a man. By which you are not to conceive that he only affumed a body, as an affifting form, to appear tranfiently to us in it, and fo lay it down again. $ It is not fuch an apparition of Chrift in the fhape of a man, that is here intended; but his true and real affumption of our nature,

*He was not humbled by another, like the fallen angels who were by God thrown headlong into the infernal pit. Ibil.

In thefe few words he confirms the things he had faid before." of the true nature of man (which he calls the form of a fervant) affumed by the Son of God into unity of perfon, by which he was made like to men in all things, fin excepted. Zanch