ty of grace turn the scale in their favour, no blefsing can be granted to them, or enjoyed by them. So much is comprehended in the highest boldness, afsurance, and confidence of faith, that was ever exercised, by any heir of promise, in his dealings with God. But our Lord, even in the days of his flesh, sometimes pled in a strain very different; in a strain unprecedented, inimitable, and peculiar. "Father, I will (faid he) that they alfo whom " thou haft given me, be with me," John xvii. 24. Strange! I will! and not, If thou wilt! Yes; our Lord, having the Father's everlasting obligation to him, for that purpose, in his hand, makes a demand on the promifer, for the accomplishment of his promife; there is an immediate requifition in this cafe. Nay more, the Redeemer speaks in strains of his divinity; and speaks his purpose into being; speaks as co-equal with the Father, respecting the crowning mercy he intended to perform toward all his fpiritual feed.

SECT. IV.

What beauty, fimplicity, and grandeur, appear in the Redeemer's character, as represented? What an amiable, fignificant, and important picture does it fet before us? Never was the exercise of patience fcrewed up to fuch an amazing pitch; never did the grace of patience shine with equal splendor, advantage and glory. Never did that divine virtue receive such honour, or appear with fuch magnificence, as in the humiliation of Jesus Chrift, his people's Lord. Compared with this, the patience of Job, what is it? to what fum total does it amount? Compared with this, even the patience of Job is as a twinkling taper, to the fun in his brightness; weighed in the scales of the fcripture, lighter

than nothing, absolute vanity. Here is patience without without a spurn, beauty without a blot, and perfection without the smallest flaw. What, but Divine Wisdom, could have formed such a grand design? what, but Divine Love, could have execute fuch a costly plan? God manifested! manifested in the flesh ! manifested in the likeness of finful flesh! manifested in the character of a subject; under authority as a fon; in waiting as a servant ! However low this grace of our Lord Jesus Chrift in the view of naughty mortals, it is celebrated in the highest strains of angelic praise, heavenly wonder, and seraphic joy. Though small and defpifed, without form and comeliness, in the eyes of unbelievers, and partly too in the eyes of militant saints themselves; the Jerufalem above is filled with ceaseless hosannahs unto this fon of David; as once humbled, though now exalted; once obedient, though now obeyed; wounded, though now healed; dead, though now alive; entombed, though now enthroned. As the circumstance of his former humiliation gives peculiar life to the whole confort within the vale; it should excite the wonder, as well as command the attention, of the churches below, and encourage the travellers of hope to essay the exercise of humble patient waiting for God. What a diftinguishing grace does it give to this path of the faints, that it was trode before them by the King of faints? In the exercise of believing patience, holy obedience, may they not trade the prints of their Redeemer's feet, as the Divine Forerunner? may they not fee the way all along paved by himself? And what encouragement is afforded to the enemies of Jesus Christ, to fall in with the gospel design of saving finners; since, in order to win, gather and ransom their fouls, he humbled himself; and to them sends this word

word of falvation, for their improvement; in the way, for the ends, to the praise of Divine Grace ?

Did Jefus Christ, the New Testament Jacob, cry? then all the true Israel of God will be praying and wrestling persons. Wherever the same spirit directs, wherever the same motives prevail, wherever the fame practice appears, though mixed with numberless, nameless, imperfections and discouragements, there is reason to conclude, you belong to. Christ's family, make a part of his little flock. Do ye find it a relief, under pressures, afflictions, and temptations, to retire from society, and pour out your hearts to God? without fuch opportunity of retirement, for that purpose, are your hearts as bottles like to burst, and your feelings too big for mortality to endure? Is any place a palace to you, where liberty to draw near to the Lord's feat, and to fill your mouths with arguments, is commanded and enjoyed? have you secret, sensible, unutterable uneasiness, when your closed lips are not opened, your languid hearts not enlarged; but when lifelessness and formality are written upon all your praying seasons? Is it your ambition to have your chains broken, your fetters knocked off, and your fouls taken out of prison, that you may glorify the name of the Lord? or, is the felt or feared want of fuch concern, matter of exercise and bitterness to you? Then it would feem you were animated with the Spirit of Christ. And therefore, whatever arguings against yourselves prevail, you are furely Galileans, your speech bewrayeth you.

Nor are your privileges less distinguishing, than is your character; fince our Lord cried, and cried for you, in the days of his humiliation. Had he not cried, our crying would have been in vain, our prayers ineffectual, and all our expectations as the giving up of the ghost. But did the Redeemer cry? cry? were fuch petitions offered up by the blefssed Immanuel? and did the hearer of prayer himself become a fupplicant? Then all hail, my praying friends! it is the surest earnest, your cry is heard, and your tears are come up before God. Nor is this all, for our dear Lord continues to act in the capacity of an Interceffor within the vail, until all the ends of his cries and groans are fully reached, in the final salvation of your fouls. However distant in respect of comfortable enjoyment from the Lord as your God, the Redeemer abides in the divine Presence, and abides for your behoof. Put honour therefore upon him, by presenting his cry to the Father, as your plea for access and acceptance. Put honour upon him, by committing your wants, weaknesses and requests, into his hand, who has fo much to say with the hearer of prayer; nay, who in his Divine Nature, is the hearer of prayer himself. Nor give place to discouragement, fince you have fuch a noble, generous, and prevalent friend at the court of heaven.

Prayerless perfons, however, have no pretenfions to the character and privileges of Chriftians. You who can be whole days and nights, without bow'ing a knee at the throne of grace; who can ly down, and rise up, without praying to the God of your life, the length of your days, and the rock of your falvation; who can find and take time for every thing else but devotion; who prefer any employment to that of prayer, any fociety to that of folitude, any enjoyment to that of fecret intercourse with heaven; who can make public, or at most family prayer fuffice, without studying closet devotion; who can enter your families, your shops, your barns, your folds, and even your churches, day after day, as prayerless as the grovelling little animals that follow you; and who, whatever fashion

i

fashion you may make of prayer, enter not at all into the fpirit of it, know nothing beyond the external performance, skim on the furface of that important duty: What are you? are you young and gay? are you rich and wealthy ? are you wife and penetrating? are you admired and esteemed? It matters not, though you had all the beauties, the grandeurs, and the advantages, the creation itself can give; you are prayerless wretches, gracelefs perfons, Christless souls; you have no interest in the Redeemer's cry, no part in his intercession, and, for any thing appears, shall have no lot in the inheritance of the faints in light. Rouse, awake, up, O fleepers! arise, shake off these guilty, these deadly, these accurfsed slumbers; cry, now cry unto God, as a God in Christ, that ye perish not: if not interested in the merit of Immanuel's cry, if not followers of him in his prayerful character, you shall not only cry and not be heard, but shall roar under the load of unmendabie, unbearable despair, in that place where horror, everlasting horror and anguish, reign and dwell.

CHAP. II.

Of the Meffiah's passive obedience, or his being in "the horrible pit and miry clay."

A

S

a

PRELIMINARY.

common person, our Lord lived, died, and rose again; as representing others, he humbled himself; and in the same capacity he was exalted by the Father; fo that believers may look