hatred for my love :)—their rejecting him sition and demeanour toward his enemies (The stone which the builders refused is be- and persecutors (But as for me, when they come the head stone of the corner:)—their in- were sick (when they did trouble me,* say sidious and calumnious proceedings against the LXX.) my clothing was sackcloth: I him (Without cause have they hid for me humbled myself with fusting, and my prayer their net in a pit, which without cause they returned unto my own bosom. I behaved have digged for my soul. And, False wit- | myself as though it had been my friend or nesses did rise up; they laid to my charge brother: I bowed down heavily as one that things that I knew not. And, The mouth mourneth for his mother.") Which passages, of the wicked and the mouth of the deceit and the like, how patly and punctually they ful are opened against me; they have spoken do square to respective passages in the gosagainst me with a lying tongue:* their pels, I need not to show; we do, I presume, bitter insulting over him in his affliction all of us well enough remember that both (But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and most doleful and comfortable history, to be gathered themselves together; yea, the ab- able ourselves to make the application. jects gathered themselves together against me:) They persecute him whom thou hast smitten, and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded: za ii rò ayos τῶν τραυμάτων μου προσέθηκαν, and to the smart of my wounds they have added (say the LXX.) their scornful reviling, flouting, and mocking him (All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighteth in him. And, I became a reproach unto them; when they looked upon me, they shaked their heads: They opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it. ̓Επείρασών με, ἐξεμυκτήρισαν με μυκτηρισμόν. ἔ. βρυξαν ἐπ' ἐμὲ τοὺς ὀδόντας αὐτῶν· They tempted me, they extremely mocked me, they gnashed their teeth upon me:")—their cruel and contemptuous usage of him (Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones; they look and stare upon me :') · their abusive dealing with him, when he in his distress called for some refreshment (They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink :")-their disposal of his garments upon his suffering (They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture:*) -his being deserted of his friends and followers, and thence destitute of all consolation (I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children; - I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none:) the sense of God's withholding his favour and help (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so fur from helping me?)— his charitable dispo But there further are not only such oblique intimations, or significations of this matter, shrouded under the coverture of other persons and names; but very direct and immediate predictions concerning the Messiah's being to suffer, most clearly expressed: that whole famous chapter (the 53d) of Isaiah doth most evidently and fully declare it, wherein the kind, manner, causes, ends, and consequences of his sufferings, together with his behaviour under them, are graphically represented: his appearing meanness (He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him:) — the disgrace, contempt, repulses, and rejection he underwent (He is despised and rejected of men we hid our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not :) -his afflicted state (He is a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted:)—the bitter and painful manner of his affliction (He was stricken; he bare stripes; he was wounded and bruised :)his being accused, adjudged, and condemned as a malefactor (He was taken from prison and from judgment—he was numbered among the transgressors:)—his death consequent (He poured out his soul unto death; he was cut out of the land of the living:)—the design and end of his sufferings; they were appointed and inflicted by Divine Providence for our sake, and in our stead; for the expiation of our sins, and our salvation (It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin—he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed-surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows-for the transgression of my people he was stricken* Ἐν τῷ αὐτοὺς παρενοχλεῖν μοι. Psal. xxxv. 13, 14. b Isa. liii. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12. the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of | of us all :)—his sustaining all this with a willing, quiet, humble patience, and perfect meekness (He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth :) — his charitable praying for his persecutors, and designing their welfare (He made intercession for the transgressors:)-the blessed consequences and happy success of his sufferings, in the conversion and justification of men; in performing God's will and work; in being satisfied, rewarded, and exalted himself (He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his know ledge shall my righteous servant justify many: — I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong:) which passages, as they do most exactly suit unto Jesus, and might in a sort constitute a true historical narration of what he did endure, together with the doctrines delivered in the gospel concerning the intents and effects of his sufferings, so that they did, according to the intention of the divine Spirit, relate to the Messias, may from several considerations be made apparent; the context and coherence of all this passage with the matters precedent and subsequent, the which plainly do respect the Messias and his times, do argue it; How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings! and, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, &c. are passages immediately going before; to which this chapter is knit in way of continuation; and immediately after it doth follow, Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, &c. being a no less perspicuous than elegant description of the church, enlarged by accession of the Gentiles, which was to be brought to pass by the Messias. The general scope of this whole prophecy enforceth the same conclusion; and the incongruity of this particular prediction to any other person imaginable beside the Messias doth further evince it; so high are the things ascribed to the suffering person; as that he should bear the sins of all God's people, and heal them; that he should by his knowledge justify many (or the multitude;) that the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand to these grand purposes; that God would divide him a portion with the great, and that he Isa. liii. 10, 6, 4, 8. 6, 12. d Isa. liii. 7, 12. Hiii. 10, 11, 12. f Isa. lii. 7, 13. f Isa. Isa. liv. 1, &c. should divide the spoil with the strong: the magnificency and importance of which sayings (rightly understood and weighed) do well agree with the Messias, but not to any other person or simple man: whence if the ancient Jews had reason to believe a Messias was to come (as they with general consent did suppose they had), they had as much reason to apply this place, as any other, to him, and thence to acknowledge that he was designed to be an eminent sufferer. And indeed divers of the ancient Targumists and most learned Rabbins did expound this place of the one Messias, which was to come; as the Pugio fidei, and other learned writers, do by several express testimonies declare. This place also discovereth the vanity of that figment devised by some later Jews; who, to evade it, and to oppose Jesus, have affirmed there was to be a double Messias; one, who should be much afflicted; another, who should greatly prosper; since we may observe, that here both great afflictions and glorious performances concurrently are ascribed to the same person. The same things are by parts also clearly foretold in other places of this prophet, and in other prophetical Scriptures; by Isaiah again in the chapter immediately preceding, Behold (saith God there), my servant shall deal prudently: he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high: there is God's servant (he, who in way of excellency is such, that is, in the style of this prophet, the Messias) in his real glorious capacity. It followeth concerning his external appearance; His visage was so marred more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of men. And again, in the 49th chapter; Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship. What can be more express and clear, than that it is signified here that the Messias, who should subject the world, with its sovereign powers, to the acknowledgment and veneration of himself, was to be despised by men, to be detested by the Jewish people, to appear in a servile and base condition? The same prophet doth again, in the 50th chapter, bring him in speaking thus: I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shume and spitting. His offending the Jews, so as thereby to aggravate their sins and accelerate their punishment, is also thus exIsa. lii, 13, 14. Isa, xlix. 7. J Isa. 1. 6. pressed by the same prophet: And he shall | be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The prophet Zechariah doth also in several places very roundly express his sufferings, his low condition, in those words: Behold, thy king cometh unto thee; lowly, and riding upon an ass1 (that is, pauper, mean and sorry to appearance.) His manner of death in those words: Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. And again, I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn, &c." The prophet Daniel also, in that place from which probably the name Messias was taken, and which most expressly mentioneth him, saith, that after sixty-two weeks the Messias shall be cut off, but not for himself. Now, from all these passages of scripture (beside divers others to the same purpose, observable by those whose industry is assisted by divine illumination) we may well conclude with our Lord, Οτι εὕτω γέγραπται, καὶ οὕτως ἔδει πα buv Tòv Xgisòv That thus it was written, and thus (according to the prophet's foreshewing) it was to happen, that the Christ should suffer; suffer in a life of penury and disgrace, in a death of sorrow and shame. That it was to fall out thus, might also be well inferred by reasons grounded upon the qualities of the Messiah's person, and upon the nature of his performances, such as they are described in prophetical scripture he was to be really, and plainly to appear, a person of most admirable virtue and goodness; but never (as even pagan philosophers have observed) was, or can there be any such without undergoing the trial of great affliction.* He was to be an universal pattern to men of all sorts (especially to the greatest part of men, that is, to the poor and afflicted) of all righteousness; to exemplify particularly the most difficult pieces of duty (humility, patience, meekness, charity, self-denial, entire resignation to God's will:) this he should not have had opportunity or advantage of doing, should he have been high, wealthy, splendid, and prosperous in secular matters: he was to exercise great pity and sympathy toward all mankind; toward the doing which it was requisite that he should himself taste and feel the inconveniences, troubles, pains, and sorrows incident to us. He was to advance the repute of spiritual goods and eternal blessings, depressing the value of these corporeal and temporal things which men do so fondly adınire and dote on: the most compendious and effectual way of doing which was by an exemplary neglect or rejection of worldly glories and enjoyments;† refusing the honours, profits, and pleasures here adjoined to a high state. He was, by the most kindly, gentle, and peaceable means, to erect a spiritual kingdom; by pure force of reason to subdue the hearts and consciences of men to the love and obedience of God; by wise instruction to raise in us the hopes of future recompenses in heaven: to the accomplishment of which purposes, temporal glory (working on the carnal apprehensions and affections of men) had rather been prejudicial than conducible. He was to accomplish and manage his great designs by means supernatural and divine, the which would surely become more conspicuous by the visible meanness and impotency of his state. He was also most highly to merit from God, for himself and for us (to merit God's high approbation of what he did, God's favour and grace to us ;) this he could not perform so well, as by willingly enduring, for God's sake, and in our behalf, the most hard and grievous things. He was, in fine, designed perfectly to save us, and consequently to appease God's wrath, to satisfy divine justice, to expiate our sins; whereto it was requisite that he should undergo what we had deserved, being punished and afflicted for us. Now that Jesus our Lord did most tho roughly correspond to whatever is in this kind declared by the prophets concerning the Messias, we need not, by minutely relating the known history of his life and death, make out any further, since the whole matter is palpably notorious, and no adversary can deny it: I shall therefore conclude, that it is a clear and certain truth which St. Peter in our text affirmeth, that those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Now, Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Blessing, and honour, and glory, and • Vide Theodoti Orat. in Eph. 1, Concil. p. 997. power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen. SERMON LXXVII. A WHIT-SUNDAY SERMON OF THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. information in that material point of their religion; as doth appear by those words of God, And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover. In compliance with which prudent designs, the Christian church, from her first infancy, hath embraced the opportunity ACTS ii. 38.- And ye shall receive the of recommending to her children the ob gift of the Holy Ghost. AMONG the divers reasonable grounds and ends of the observing festival solemnities (such as are comforting the poor by hospitable relief, refreshing the weary labourer by cessation from ordinary toil, maintaining good-will among neighbours by cheerful and free conversation, quickening our spirits and raising our fancies by extraordinary representations and divertisements, infusing and preserving good humour in people; such as are also the decent conspiring in public expressions of special reverence to God, withdrawing our minds from secular cares, and engaging them to spiritual meditations), the two principal designs of them seem to be these: 1. The affording occasion (or rather imposing a constraint upon us) with a competent frequency to attend unto, to consider upon, to instruct ourselves and others in the mysterious doctrines and institutions of our religion. 2. The engaging us seasonably to practise that great duty of thankfully remembering and praising God for those eminent mercies and favours, which by his great grace and goodness have been vouchsafed to us. For these purposes chiefly did God himself appoint the Jewish festivals; for instance, the passover, the reason of which being instituted is thus expressed: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt, all the days of thy life: which words imply that the observation of that solemnity did serve to preserve the memory, yea the continual remembrance of that so notable a blessing, which otherwise might have been totally forgotten, or seldom considered; the same did also suggest occasion of inquiry concerning the reasons of its appointment, procuring consequently needful ▪ Osoì di oixTtígurtes Tò TÜV ČVORÁTAN ŠTÍTOVOV TEGUZO γένος, ἀναπαύλας τὲ αὐτοῖς τῶν πόνων ἐτάξαντο, τὰς τῶν ἑορτῶν ἀμοιβας τοῖς θεοῖς. Plato 2, de Leg. Legum conditores festos instituerunt dies, ut ad hilaritatem homines publice cogerentur, tanquam necessarium laboribus interponentes temperamentum. -Sen, de trunq. an. 15. servation of her chief holy festivals, continuing the time, and retaining the name, although changing or improving the matter and reason of those anci nt ones; the divine Providence concurring to further such proceeding, by so ordering the events of things that the seasons of dispensing the evangelical blessings should fall in with those wherein the legal benefits most resembling and representing them were commemorated; that so there might be as well a happy coincidence of time, as correspondence in matter, between the ancient and new solemnities; whence as the exhicition of evangelical doctrines and mysteries did meet with minds inore suitably prepared to entertain them, and as less innovation from former usage did appear (a thing observable to be respected in most or all the positive institutions of our religion), so withal Christians were engaged, while they considered the fresh greater mercies by God vouchsafed to them, to reflect also upon the favours, from the same stock of goodness, indulged by him to his ancient people; that as those should chiefly be remembered, so these should not wholly be forgotten: thus did God dispose, that our Saviour should then suffer, when the Pascha Lamb was to be offered; or that the redemption of the world from sin and misery should then be celebrated by us, when the deliverance from the Egyptian slavery was commemorated by them: and so (that we may approach to our purpose) at the time of Pentecost, when the Jews were obliged to rejoice before the Lord, rendering thanks unto him for the harvest newly gathered in, and the earth's good fruits (the main supports and comforts of this life) which were by God's blessing bestowed on them, then did God bountifully impart the first fruits of his holy Spirit, the food of our souls and refreshment of our hearts; then did he cause his labourers to put their sickle into the spiritual harvest; converting souls, and gathering them as mature fruits into the garners of the church. At the very season also (which is re their erroneous principles, and reforming their vicious courses of life, they cheerfully would embrace his merciful overtures, and thereafter conform their lives to his righteous laws; the which, together with all his good intentions concerning them, he, by the same blessed agent, clearly discovered to them; fully by him instructing them in their duty, and strongly encouraging them to the performance thereof by the promise of most bountiful rewards; his certain love and favour, attended with endless joy and bliss. Thus did (as St. Paul expresseth it) the saving grace of God appear unto all men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and markable) that the Law was delivered to the Jews, and the ancient covenant established which did happen at Pentecost, as may be probably collected from the text, and is commonly supposed by the Jewish doctors, who therefore called this feast the joy (or joyful feast) of the Law,' in signification of their joy, using then to crown their heads with garlands, and strew their houses with green herbs; at that very time was the Christian law most signally promulged, and the new covenant's ratification most solemnly declared by the miraculous effusion of the divine Spirit. The benefit, therefore, and blessing, which at this time we are bound especially to con-worldly lusts, we should live soberly, rightsider and commemorate, is in effect the eously, and godly in this present world, expublication and establishment of the cove-pecting that blessed hope. nant evangelical, the foundation of all our hopes, and all our claims to happiness; but more immediately and directly the donation of the Holy Spirit to the Christian church, and to all its me bers; for the better derstanding and more truly valuing of which most excellent benefit, let us briefly declare the nature and design thereof. g But to render this wonderfully gracious design successful, in a way of wisdom and reasonable proceeding accommodated to the capacities of human nature, it was un-requisite that there should be provided convincing arguments to persuade men of the truth and reality of these things (that indeed such an extraordinary agent, with such a message, was come from heaven), effectual means of admonishing and exciting men to a heedful advertency toward them, competent motives to a cordial acceptance of them; a power also sufficient, notwithstanding their natural impotency and instability, to continue them in the belief, to uphold them in the practice of the duties prescribed, in the performance of the conditions required. Almighty God, seeing the generality of mankind alienated from himself by gross ignorance of its duty toward him, and by habitual inclinations to violate his holy laws (originally implanted by him in our nature, or anciently revealed to our first parents), immersed in error, enslaved to vice, and obnoxious to the woful consequences of them, severe punishment and extreme misery; was pleased, in his immense goodness and pity, to design its rescue from that sad condition; and in pursuance of that gracious design, did resolve upon expedients the most admirable and most efficacious that could be: for to redeem men from the tyranny of sin and hell, to reconcile them to himself, to recover them into a happy state, he sent his own only beloved Son out of his bosom into this world, clothed with our nature; by him, as by a Plenipotentiary Commissioner from himself, inviting all men to return unto him; declaring himself, by the meritorious obedience, the expiatory passion, the effectual intercession of his dear Son, abundantly satisfied for, and ready to grant a full pardon of all offences committed against him in their state of error and estrangement; to admit them into a state of present indemnity and peace, yea to settle them in perpetual alliance and friendship with himself, upon most fair and gentle terms; namely, that renouncing * Πεντηκοστὴν ἑορτάζομεν, καὶ πνεύματος ἐπιδημία», καὶ προθεσμίαν ἐπαγγελίας, καὶ ἐλπίδος συμπλήρωσιν, &c.-Naz. Orat. 44. Exod. xix. 1. For if it were not very credible, that God had truly those intentions toward us, or if we did not much regard the overture of them, or if we did not conceive the business highly to concern us; or if, resolving to comply with the gospel, we yet were unable to discharge the conditions thereof, the design would totally be frustrated, and of itself come to nothing. To prevent which disappointment of his merciful intentions, Almighty God did abundantly provide, in a manner and measure suitable to the glorious importance of them; for to the ministry of his eternal Wisdom he adjoined the efficacy of his eternal love, and blessed Spirit; the which not only conducted God our Saviour into his fleshly tabernacle, and with unmeasurable communications of himself did continually reside within him, but also did attend him in the conspicuous performance of numberless miraculous works, implying divine power and goodness, as exceeding not only any natural, but all created power (such as Tit. ii. 11, 12. b John iii. 34. |