through all this, the name of Father. He considered, "I can but be rejected at the last, and I am already as low as a rejection can cast me; so I shall lose nothing by returning, for I therefore return because I have nothing: and though I have done enough to be for ever shut out of doors, yet it may be, the word Father may have rhetoric enough in it to beg a reconcilement, and to procure an admittance amongst my father's servants." Thirdly, It will make us give God the glory of his mercy the more, when we have the deeper acquaintance with our own misery. And God most of all delighteth in that work of faith, which, when the soul walketh in darkness and hath no light, yet trusteth in his name, and stayeth upon him. d Fourthly, It will make our comforts and refreshments the sweeter, when they come. The greater the humiliation, the deeper the tranquillity. As fire is hottest in the coldest weather, so comfort is sweetest in the greatest extremities: shaking settles the peace of the heart the more. The Spirit is a comforter,' as well when he convinceth of sin,' as of righteousness and judgment;' because he doth it to make righteousness the more acceptable, and judgment the more beautiful. Lastly, Acquaintance with our foulness and diseases by the law, will make us more careful to keep in Christ's company, and to walk according unto his will, because he is a physician to cure, a refiner to purge, a father and a husband to compassionate our estate. The less beauty or worth there is in us, the more carefully should we study to please him, who loved us for himself, and married us out of pity to our deformities, not out of delight in our beauty. Humility keeps the heart tractable and pliant. As melted wax is easily fashioned, so an humble spirit is easily fashioned unto Christ's image: whereas a stone, a hard and stubborn heart, must be hewed and hammered before it will take any shape. Pride, self-confidence, and conceitedness, are the principles of disobedience; men will hold their wonted courses, till they be humbled by the law. "They are not humbled," saith the Lord, 'unto this day;' and the consequent hereof c Isai. 1. 10. d Multum scriptura factura securum. Aug. Epist. 1. c Jer. xliv. 10. is, “neither have they feared nor walked in my law.”—“ If ye will not hear," that is, if you will still disobey the Lord's messengers, "my soul shall weep in secret for your pride f;"-to note that pride is the principle of disobedience. "They and our fathers," saith Nehemiah in his confession, "dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, and refused to obey." And therefore Hezekiah " used this persuasion to the ten tribes to come up to Jerusalem unto the Lord's passover: "Be ye not stiff-necked as your fathers, but yield yourselves unto the Lord; "-to note, that humiliation is the way unto obedience; when once the heart is humbled, it will be glad to walk with God. "Humble thyself," saith the prophet', "to walk with thy God."-" Receive the engrafted word with meekness," saith the apostle*. When the heart is first made meek and lowly, it will then be ready to receive the word, and the word ready to incorporate in it, as seed in torn and harrowed ground. When Paul was dismounted, and cast down upon the earth, terrified and astonished at the heavenly vision, immediately he is qualified for obedience: "Lord, what wilt thou have me do?" When the soul is convinced by the law, that of itself it comes short of the glory of God, walks in darkness, and can go no way but to Hell, it will then, with joy and thankfulness, "follow the Lamb wheresover he goes;" as being well assured, that though the way of the Lamb be a way of blood, yet the end is a throne of glory, and a crown of life. THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 1 JOH. V. 12. He that hath the Son, hath life. HAVING shewed the insufficiency of the creature to make man happy, as being full of vanity; and the insufficiency of man to make himself happy, as being full of sin; we now proceed, in the last place, to discover, First, the fountain of life and happiness, Christ; and Secondly, the channel by which it is from him unto us conveyed, the instrument whereby we draw it from him, namely, the knowledge of him, and fellowship with him in his resurrection and sufferings. The words, we see, contain a doctrine of the greatest consequence to the soul of man in the whole Scriptures, and that which is, indeed, the sum of them all. They contain the sum of man's desires, life; and the sum of God's mercies, Christ; and the sum of man's duty, faith; Christ, the fountain; life, the derivation; and faith, the conveyance. Whatsoever things are excellent and desirable, are, in the Scripture, comprised under the name of life, as the lesser under the greater; for "Life is better than meat, and the body than raiment." And whatsoever excellencies can be named, we have them all from Christ. 'In him," saith the apostle", "are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge:" hid, not to the purpose that they may not be found, but to the purpose that they may be sought. And we may note from the expression, that Christ is a treasurer of his Father's wisdom; he hath wisdom, as the king's treasurer hath wealth, as an officer, a depository, a dispenser of it to the friends and servants of his Father. He is made unto us "wisdom "." The apostle saith, That in him there are "unsearchable riches," an inexhausted treasury of grace and wisdom. And there had need to be a treasure of riches in him; for there is a treasure of sin in us: so our Saviour calls it, "the treasure of an evil heart." He was "full of grace and truth." not as a vessel, but as a fountain, and as a sun3, to note that he was not only full of grace, but that the fulness of grace was in him. It pleased the Father, that in him should all fulness dwell "." "God gave not the Spirit in measure unto him." And as there is a fulness in him, so there is a communion in us; "Of his fulness we receive grace for grace," that is, as a child, in generation, receiveth from his parents member for member,-or the paper from the press, letter for letter,-or the glass from the face, image for image; so, in regeneration, "Christ is fully formed" in a man, and he receiveth in some measure and proportion "grace for grace:" there is no grace in Christ appertaining to general sanctification, which is not, in some weak degree, fashioned in him. Thus there is in Christ, a fulness of grace' answerable to a fulness of sin' m which is in us. The prophet calls him" "a prince of peace;" not as Moses only was, 'a man of peace,' but a 'prince of peace.' If Moses had been a prince of peace, how easily might he have instilled peaceable and calm affections into the mutinous and murmuring people! But though he had it in himself, yet he had it not to distribute. But Christ hath peace, as a king hath honours, to dispense and dispose of it to whom he will. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." If I should run over all the particulars of grace, or mercy, we should find them all proceed from him. He is our passover, saith the apostle P: as in Egypt, wheresoever there was the blood of the passover, there was life, and where it was not, there was death 9; so where this our passover is, there is life; and where he is not, there is death. "To me to live is Christ," saith the apostle'. And again," Now I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." e Ephes. iii. 8. h Col. i. 19. m Rom. i. 29. Phil. i. 21. d Mat. xii. 35. e John i. 14. f Zach. xiii. 1. g Mal. iv. 2. 1 Gal. iv. 19. q Exod. xii. 23, 30. s Gal. ii. 20. To consider more particularly this life which we have from Christ; First, it is a life of righteousness: for life and righteousness are in the Scripture taken for the same: because sin doth immediately make a man dead in law; "He that believeth not is condemned already ";" and "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death." And this life, being a resurrection from a preceding death, hath two things belonging unto it. 1. There is a liberty and deliverance, wrought for us from that under which we were before held. 2. There is an inheritance purchased for us, the privilege and honour of being called the Sons of God, conferred upon us. There are three offices or parts of the mediation of Christ. First, his satisfaction, as he is our surety", whereby he paid our debt, underwent the curse of our sins, bare them all in his body upon the tree", became subject to the law for us, in our nature, and, representatively, in our stead, fulfilled all righteousness in the law re quired, both active and passive for us. For we must note, that there are two things in the law intended: One principal, obedience; and another secondary, malediction, upon supposition of disobedience: so that sin being once committed, there must be a double act to justification; the suffering of the curse, and the fulfilling of righteousness anew. Unto a double apprehension of justice in God, there must answer a double act of righteousness in man, or in his surety for him; to God's punishing justice, a righteousness passive, whereby a man is rectus in curia' again; and to God's commanding justice, a righteousness active, whereby he is recouciled and made acceptable to God again:—the one, a satisfaction for the injury we have done unto God as our judge; the other, the performance of a service which we owe unto him as our Maker. Secondly, in Christ as a mediator, there is a merit likewise belonging unto both these acts of obedience in him, by virtue of his infinite person, which was the priest,- and of his Divine nature, which was the altar, that offered up and sanctified all his obedience. By the redundancy of which merit (after satisfaction thereby made unto |