John xiv. 15.

sions, thirsting, fainting, bleeding, dying, in Pity to Us; and can we fuffer our selves to be familiar with, and fond of, those very Lufts, which injured, disgraced, tormented, and flew our best Friend, and most generous Benefactor? Surely, if Men have any Gratitude, if any Bowels; this Prospect, lively represented to their Minds, must needs check their wildest Career, and damp the hottest Flames of vitious Inclinations. Surely this Thought would be a Preservative, sufficient againft those evil Practices, which, we are told, do even now grieve this Saviour; And Men must be ashamed to do despight to fuch a Friend, and crucify the Son of God afresh, by enflaving themselves to those corrupt Affections, from whose Tyranny he died to deliver them. He hath told us, that the Proof he expects of our loving him, is to keep his Commandments; And these are such Commandments, as it would be our Duty and Interest to keep, tho' he had never fuffered for us. And, shall We shew lefs Cheerfulness in seeking our own Happiness, than He did, in taking upon himself our Misery and Punishment? Did He most willingly die for Us, and shall not We be content to live to Him? To Him did Ifay? Nay to our selves: Since it is not His, but Our Advantage that he seeks, in ordering Us to be Holy and Good Men. It may be, We shall find our Duty incumbred with some Difficulties; but What are our sharpest Tryals, in comparison of His? Or how can any Submifsion deferve to be named, with that most condescending Refignation, whereby Chrift offered himself freely to that Sorrow, and Shame, and Pain, which he had no Obligation to endure? He would not decline Death, in its most deformed and frightful Shape; He would not spare himself one Agony, that might conduce to the perfecting Our Salvation: Heexposed his Innocence to the Punishments he never deserved; And shall We grudge the Obedience, which the Condition of Servants and Crea

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Creatures lays upon us? Shall We resist the Will of God concerning us, and murmur at the due Reward, nay much less than the due Reward, of our evil Deeds? He does indeed require, that we forsake all and follow him, that we lay down our Lives for his fake: But it is very feldom, that he calls Men to this last Experiment of their Sincerity and Constancy. And yet, if it were frequent, if it were fure to be the Case of every common Christian, Is not even this a reasonable Cafe? Is it not a very poor return, to what He hath done before us, and for us? We cannot say with Him, We have Power to lay down our Lives; For these Lives are not our own: They are God's Gift, and always in his Difposal. But He had a Right to dispose of His. He could not have been Mortal, had he not chosen to be fo. His Happiness was perfect before, and received no Addition by all the Miseries he endured for lost Man; And, when He chose a Death for Our Advantage, which he was not liable to Originally; shall not We submit to the manner of Dying, which God fees fittest, when die in fome manner we unavoidably must? Shall we not be fatisfied to exchange a Worse Life for a Better, when otherwise, bad as it is, we must part with it for a Worse? So highly reasonable are even the hardest Conditions of a Christian's Obedience. So prevalent would a ferious Confideration of our Lord's Love and Sufferings prove, to reconcile us to those Difficulties, which Flesh and Blood are most apt to start and give back at. And therefore, The proper Ufe of This Week's Devotions is, to enflame our Affections, to quicken our Endeavours, to arm us with Patience, to encourage our Perfeverance to the End: To put us in mind, that We, like Him, can only then lay down our Heads with Comfort, when we can say, It is finished: When we measure our Life, not by the Length and Number of our Days, but by the Business and Design of it. No Death can be hafty or unseasonable, which comes, when a Man hath fatisfied the Ends he lived for. No Life is long, which determines, before the Purpofes of living are made good, and its Work done. But Happy, Happy They, who, after the most distressed, the most laborious, the most despised Instances of their Virtue, can fing this Song of Triumph to themselves; that they have been faithful in their Charge, and done what it was their Duty to do. If fuch partake in the Afflictions, and Reproaches, and Death of their Saviour; they shall assuredly be recompenfed, by partaking in his Refurrection. And, when they give up the Ghost, shall inımediately enter into the Joy of this their crucified Lord.

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Rom. vi. 3, 4, 5,

11, 12. Gal. ii. 20. vi. 14.

Colof. ii. 11, 12.

G

Easter Even.

The COLLECTS.

Rant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the Death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt Affections, we may be buried with him; and that, through the grave and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful Refurrection, for his Merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Je fus Chrift our Lord. Amen.

PARAPHRASE.

The EPISTLE.

1 Pet. iii. 17.

17. IT is better, if the will of God be so, that ye fuffer
for well-doing, than for evil-doing.

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21. The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now fave us, (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good confcience towards God) by the refurrection of Jesus Christ.

21. And his Family, faved by the Ark fwiming on the Water, was a Type of the Church of Chrift, faved by the

Sacrament of Baptifm. But, as there, it was not the Water, or the Ark, but the Righteousness and Obedience of Noab that preserved him; So neither here is it the Water which cleanses the Flesh, but the Covenant on this occasion solemnly stipulated, and the faithful observance of it, that saves us in Baptifm. The efficacy of which Sacrament for our Justification is assured to us, by our Lord's rifing again.

22. Who, from and

for his Sufferings and Humiliation here below, is now with his

22. Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God, Angels, and Authorities, and Powers being made fubject unto him.

Human Body vested with Supreme Authority in Heaven, and Ruler of the whole Intellectual World. For of what degree or dignity foever the Spirits that compose it be, all of them are entirely subject to his Government.

COMMENT.

T

HE Epistle

for the Day, like the Day it felf, pre

The

sents to our Minds Two differing Views. One, a Retrofpect upon our dying, The Other, A most comfortable Profpect upon our Rifen, Lord. With regard to the Former, We are, by his Example, excited to Patience in our Sufferings, even when those Sufferings are extreme and unjust. With regard to the Latter, we are informed, that our Lord return'd to Life, by virtue of that Eternal Spirit; which, long before his Incarnation, strove with finful Men, by seasonable Instructions and Warnings, to prevent the dismal Consequences of a God provoked to Anger. The Inefficacy of which good Office brought Deftruction upon all the old World, except one Obedient Family, by the fweeping of a Deluge, dreadful and general, as the Impieties that had let it in upon them.

That Deliverance we likewife learn from hence, to have been a Figure of the Sacrament of Baptifm; as the Ark, containing Noah and his Family, was a Figure of the Church. None were then preferved, whom that Ark did not bear upon the Water; In like manner, it is by Baptifm, and in the Church, only, that Men can now be (orderly) saved, from their Sins here, and everlasting Death hereafter. The Efficacy of this Sacrament is however afcribed, not to the outward Element applied to the Body, but to the inward Difpofition of the Mind, in Them, who are received by it into this fpiritual Ark. This Disposition is to be expressed, by declarations of the Party's willingness, to enter into Covenant with God, and to expect Salvation upon the Terms of the Gospel. A part of Baptifm so neceffary, that it does not appear, that it antiently was, or that it ever ought to be, adminiftred without fuch Declaration. And therefore fuch Consent is rightly demanded of all Baptized Persons: Expected from all of Years and Difcretion to be given by themselves: Accepted for Infants by the Charity of the Church, from Sureties in Their Name; But required to be perfonally ratified by These too, in the too much neglected Rite of Confirmation; at a time, when they are capable of contracting for Their part of this Co

venant.

The Salvation, attained by thus entring into Covenant with God, is most rightfully afcribed here to our Lord's Refurrection. That being the Evidence, that the Sins he died for were fully expiated, and, that Immortality was restored to the Nature, in which he died. The Release of our Surety was, in all reasonable construction, an acknowledgment, that our Debt was fully fatisfied: And a fufficient foundation for the firmeft Faith, in the Merits of Him, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us.

But Faith alone, we know, is not fufficient. Every important Article of the Christian Religion ought to have a powerful Influence upon our Practice. And therefore neither do we confider, nor believe, our Lord's Burial aright, unless That also be imitated, and drawn into Example. 'Tis a pious Observation, frequent a