it was I that fhould have been fmitten. When he groaned and fweat blood, I fhould have howled and roared in hell. Harder than the rock is my heart, if I can fee my dear Saviour smitten and pierced, and not mourn. O can I fee his fide and heart ftreaming out blood, and mine eyes not pour out tears! Can Ï behold the Rock fmitten for the fins of men, and not adore the holiness and juftice of God manifested therein? Can I see my innocent Saviour wounded and flain for my fins, and my foul not hate them; yea, fhall I not be filled with horror and trembling at temptations to fin?

Let me, at my Saviour's call, approach to his table, and come near to the Rock of my falvation, and hearken to the raging billows of infinite wrath, dashing against the Rock for my fins, and even making the Rock to groan, fweat, and tremble under the preffure. O what a dreadful hurricane of wrath did he endure, to keep the fwelling ocean of divine wrath from overflowing guilty men! Surely my glorious Emmanuel's groaning and fweating blood under the ftrokes of God's vengeance, is a greater evidence of the implacable wrath and indignation of God against fin, than if he had hurled all the rocks of the creation into the midst of the fea, yea or a thousand worlds of men and angels into hell. O that while I am beholding this fight I may tremble at fin, come by faith under the fhadow of this Rock, and run into the clefts of it for fafety. Here I would be out of the reach of the law's curfes, and threate enings of wrath; and though I hear the roarings and dafhings of the fea upon the Rock, yet a drop of it could not touch me.

O that I could imitate Mofes, when I am at the ta ble, and fmite the Rock by the rod of faith, that the ftreams of Chrift's blood and spirit may flow out to me. What was his error will be my wildom, to fmite the Rock oftener than once, to put forth many acts of faith on Jefus Chrift, fuch as the difcerning, affenting, approving, deriving, receiving, clofing, embracing, trust

ing, pleading, applying, and appropriating acts of true faith. May I, like Ifrael of old, Deut. xxxii. 13. be helped by faith to fuck honey out of the Rock, and oil out of the flinty Rock: Honey and oil, fweetness and fatnefs, quickening and comfort. How fhall I come at this honey and oil? Only by fucking: And how fhall I fuck, but by the mouth of faith? There is no fucking without it. Neither can I fuck by faith unlefs God make me do it: for it is faid, Deut. xxxii. He made them to fuck honey out of the rock. It is God that must give me both a mouth and ftrength to fuck, faith in the habit, and faith in exercife. It is only the blowings of the north and fouth winds on the garden, that make the fpices to flow out. Awake, O north wind, come theu fouth, blow upon my garden; bring faith to life, that I may fuck honey from Chrift in the facrament. Chrift's breafts are now full; O let not faith be wanting, for if it be wanting, I can fuck nothing: Bleffed be God, Jefus Chrift, my Redeemer, is the author of faith. Lord, increase my faith, that I may fuck honey from the Rock. But what honey may I expect from it? Ans. The honey of pardon of fin. O how fweet is this honey! The honey of peace and reconciliation with God; the honey of a law biding righteoufnefs; the honey of access to, and communion with God; the honey of enlargement of heart, and loofing of bands, &c. O let me ever fuck from this Rock, the Rock that answers all my needs, and richly fupplies all my wants. Let me alfo, under all my ftraits, fupport myfelf with the Pfalmift's cordial, Pfal. xviii. 46. The Lord liveth, and blessed be my Rock. Why fhould believers in Chrift droop in any condition, or look like dead men, while their Lord liveth, and their Rock ftandeth? Bleffed be God, my Rock is a living and lafting Rock; my hopes may die, my comforts die, my frames die, my gifts, my wealth, and my relations, they may all die; but I rejoice in the news, that my Lord will not die, nor my Rock fall. He once died for me, but he is rifen again; good news! Now he is alive, and will die no more.

MEDITATION VII.

From ZECH. xii. 10. They shall look upon me rubom they bave pierced

and mourn.

THIS promife hath a refpect, not only to the Jews when converted, but to all finners when brought to repentance. We have all pierced Chrift, in as much as our fins were the cause of his death; He was wounded for our tranfgreffions. Now a believing fight of a pierced Saviour, is the beft fpring of forrow for fin; it is faith's look to a crucified Chrift, that will fet us a mourning after a godly fort. O that this promise may be made good to me at this time, that I may be helped to look believingly upon Chrift as pierced for my fins, my pride, my paffion, my unbelief, my carnality, my difobedience, my impenitence, my fins of the heart, of the tongue, and of the life, that I may confefs and bewail them, mourn and weep over them before the Lord. Oh! when fhall I mourn and weep if not now, when I am called to look upon my dear Lord and furety at his table, all red with blood for my red and fearlet coloured fins? I will not now stand afar off, and look to my Saviour on the cross, as these women who followed him from Galilee, Luke xxiii. 49. No, I will come clofe to him, take a near look, and a narrow view of his wounds and piercings by my fins, that I may fee how wide and deep they are, that my eye may affect my heart with godly forrow for fin.

When I look on him, I'll confider the dignity of the perfon pierced by and for me; ne is the Almighty Creator, the glorious Emmanuel, the Plant of renown, the Prince of the kings of the earth, that is pierced and nailed to a crofs. Jeremiah laments in the captivity, that princes were hanged up by the hands, Lam. v. 12. But what were the princes of Ifrael to the Prince of Peace, the King of Glory, whom I fee hanging nailed through the hands on the crofs, and his blood poured out like water upon the earth! O it is royal blood, the blood

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of God, that I fee running down to fatisfy juftice for my fins; and will not fuch a fight cause me to mourn for them? Can I look on my lovely Redeemer, stript naked, mounted up, and fixed with nails to a tormenting crofs? Can I fee his head pierced with thorns, his back pierced with fcourgings, his hands and feet pierced with big nails, his fide pierced with a fpear, and his heart pierced with forrows for my fins, and my heart not mourn for them? Yet all the piercings and wounds of his facred body were but fmall, to the piernings and agonies of his foul, when he drank the cup of his Father's wrath for me, which made him cry out, My foul is exceeding forrowful, even unto death; my God, my God, why haft thou forfaken me? Can I behold this loving Jefus, ftanding in my room, bearing the wrath of a Deity for me, and my heart not bleed? Can I see him, when the fword of juftice was drawn to fmite me, opening his breast to receive the ftroke into his heart, and my heart not melt within me? Lord, grant me fuch a fight by faith, of a wounded, bleeding Saviour, as to make me a melting and mourning finner.

How can I leave this fubject until my heart be more affected? Had I been perfonally at mount Calvary, and with my bodily eyes had feen my dear Redeemer racked and nailed to the tree? Had I feen him lifted up between heaven and earth, that the nations might behold hin, with his arins ftretched out to embrace finners? Had I beheld his dying looks, and heard his dying groans? Had I feen his precious blood for many hours run from his wounded hands and feet to the earth? Could I have ftood by with dry eyes, or an unconcerned heart, efpecially when I had thought he was fuffering all this out of love to me, for my fins, and in my room? Why then fhould I not be as much concerned, when I come to his table to celebrate the memorial of that fearful tragedy, and look upon the outward figns which reprefent the fame! Lord, give me faith's eye to behold the things fignified thereby, even the bleeding and dying of the glorious Emmanuel.

And what kind of blood is it I fee running down? It is innocent blood! precious blood! royal blood! heart blood! Nay, the blood of the eternal Son of God, one drop whereof is worth an ocean of our blood, and is of infinite value; and yet behold all this blood is shed for fuch worms as I am? O can I think long upon this subject, and not find my heart pained with love, and be ready with Jofeph, to feek a fecret place to weep in? Had an ordinary man been executed for my crime, it would have affected me all my days; how much should it touch me to fee the Son of God put to death for me! The fun fainted, the heavens mourned in black, the earth quaked, and the rocks rent, when this black tragedy was acted; how much more fhould my heart rend and mourn at the reprefentation of it before my eyes! Surely my mourning fhould be great, deep, and bitter mourning, as in the text, like the mourning of a parent for the death of an only fon; or like the mourning of Haddadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo! O what was the death of king Jofiah to the death of King Jelus, the eternal Son of God! O my dear flain Lamb, shall I not mourn and weep over thee!

Oh! can I fee his blood run down in ftreams, and my eyes not pour out fome drops! Did Chrift fweat blood, and weep blood for my fins, and shall not I weep tears for them! Shall I not give drops of water for ftreams of blood! Alas! I am more sparing of my tears for Chrift, than Chrift was of his blood for me! How faft did the blood trickle down Chrift's cheeks in the day he wore the crown of thorns for me? But how flowly do the tears fall from my eyes whem I commemorate his dying love? Can I fhed tears in plenty for a dead child and have I referved none for a flain Saviour! Yea flain by my fins! How fad is it to fee fo many weeping eyes at a funeral, and fo masy dry eyes at a communion table? Alas! this is a fad fign of few looking by faith to him we have pierced! few fenfible of the evil of their fins, that were the hammers which drove the nails into his body. O for a realizing act of D