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

15. lxxii. 14.

5. But more immediately the quality and condition of our Saviour's perfon do most commend to us, and advance Pfal. cxvi. the worth of his death: if, as the Pfalmist saith, precious in the fight of the Lord is the death of his faints; if the 1 Pet. i. 19. spotless candour and unblemished integrity of a lamb do 1 Pet. ii. 22. make its blood precious, and qualify it for an acceptable 1 John iii. 5. facrifice; how valuable to God shall be the death of a Heb. vii.

2 Cor. v. 21.

Isa. liii. 9.

26, 27.

3. xxi. 17.

person so perfectly holy and innocent; who did not fo much as know fin; in whose 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; whose 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 most enormous 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 Prince of life! Ye denied the holy and the just One; ye flew 1 Cor. ii. 8. the Prince of life: They crucified the Lord of glory: fo the Apostles do aggravate the business. 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 Christ, the Son of God, which Acts 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

Rev. i. 5,6.

blood; it is the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, 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 Most High should be debased to so 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 indeed might fuch a condescension 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 so much for the peculiar adjuncts and respects of our Lord's death.

Pf. xl. 7, 9.

3. Let us now consider the causes and principles whence it proceeded; which moved God to determine it, and our Lord to undertake it; they were in both acts most voluntary and free: of the Father it is said, It pleased Ifa. liii. 10. the Lord to bruise him; and, Behold, faith our Lord in Heb. x. 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 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? so on the Father's 11. part, and on our Saviour's likewise, it was no less volun

tary; 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 absolute choice and freedom ;) I have power to lay it down, and I John vi. 51. have power to refume 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 ransom for Tit. ii. 14. many. The yielding his flesh to death, the paying his life a ransom, 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 present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: so this death issued 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 some impulfive cause moving to them, so 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 disposing God's goodness; the other externally in

viting man's distress. The case stood thus: mankind lying in a fad and forlorn estate, oppressed by Satan, enslaved to fin, fubject to a rigorous law, exposed to the severity of justice, tormented by the sense of guilt, fearful of divine wrath and due vengeance; in short, by the sentence of heaven and by the fuffrage of confcience within, condemned to punishment unavoidable, and to intolerable misery; man, I say, lying in so defperately uncomfortable

a condition, God's infinite goodness regarded his poor Διὰ σπλάγ- creature, his bowels of compassion yearned toward him, a χνα ἐλέους. defire of relieving sprang up in his will; thence was he

Luke i. 78.

moved to provide such a remedy, fuitable and fufficient for his delivery; for the removing all those mischiefs and curing all those distempers: the main fource of all this wonderful performance, (as of all other providential difpensations and works, ad extra,) was that most excellent perfection of God, which, in regard to this matter, is Tit. iii. 4. sometime termed χρηςότης, 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 dispensing it, without any design of profit to himself, or 2 Cor. viii. any defert on our part, (By the grace of God he tasted Eph. ii. 8, death for every man;) sometimes mercy, denoting our bad 5. i. 7. deferts, or obnoxiousness to justice and punishment; fomeLuke i. 78. times pity, fignifying the great need we had thereof, by Heb. ii. 17. reason of our extreme distress and misery. Commonly

Eph. ii. 7.

Rom. iii.

24.

9.

Tit. iii. 5.

Eph. ii. 4.

also it is, by the most obliging and endearing name styled love, and philanthropy, intimating the earnest regard and

benevolence God had to us as his creatures, and as ca

1 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

Rom. v. 8.

1 John iv.

9, 10.

St. John, loved us, and fent his Son to be a propitiation for John iii. 16, us; and, God, faith our Lord himself, so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son-that the world might be saved by him.

17.

By the way it is worth observing, that there is diftinguishable a threefold love of God toward men, intimated SERM. in Scripture. 1. A general love to mankind, antecedent XXVII. to the sending our Lord, and his performances, being the ground of God's designing them; which may be called a love of pity, or mercy toward poor man lying under condemnation and distress; this is that φιλανθρωπία τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Θεοῦ, philanthropy of God our Saviour, Tit. iii. 4. which appeared in faving 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 desireth 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 iv. 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, Acts. 33. whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven; the Rom. xi.32. which may be called a love of reconciliation and favour; 1 Tim. ii. 4. or the grace of God, which came by Jesus Christ.

Rom. v. 10.

John i. 17.

Luke ii. 14.

3. A peculiar love of friendship and complacence, which God beareth toward all those who do fincerely turn and steadfastly adhere to him, repenting of their fins and embracing the Gofpel, and perfisting in obedience to his laws; fuch God is every where represented to affect with tenderest 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 under- 10. standing the passages of scripture concerning this matter; in which God is sometime represented as bearing a general love to all men, sometime as more especially loving the faithful and good men.

The like principles and impulfive causes are said to

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,

25. Rev. i. 5.

1 John iii.

16.

(John xv. 13.)

Gal. ii. 20.

thereto: Christ, saith St. Paul, loved us, and delivered up himself for us, an offering and facrifice to God: He loved 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.

Such were the principles disposing, 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 transgressions, he was bruised for

Ifa. liii. 5,

6.
2 Cor. v. 15.

8, 10.
1 Pet. iii.

18.

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 sufficient cause, or just reason for his death; God would not have been angry, justice could have had no pretence, or hold; we should not have been liable to fuffer ourselves, nor could he have fuffered for

Rom.vi. 23. us.

4, 11.

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 astray; 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 causes of our death, had he not undertaken for us, so were they the like causes of

2 Cor. v.

his death, who died for us, and in our stead; who was 1 Tim. ii. 6. made fin (that is, a sinner, or a facrifice) for us; who gave himself ἀντίλυτρον, a ransom instead of us all; paying his 1 Cor. vi. blood a price for us, and redeeming us thereby from all Heb. ix. 12. the penalties and inconveniencies we were liable to; buying Gal. iii. 13. us from the curse, by becoming a curse for us; who had