grace of God their Saviour. You fee the price of your redemption, the value Jesus Chrift put upon your falvation, paying so much for it; the wrath you were fubjected unto, are now delivered from; together with the vastness of that mercy, by which you are secured from such vast wrath. Since you were naturally the children of this wrath; since you would still have been exposed to it, if not actually groaning under it, had not the Mediator seasonably interposed; fince being under no obligation, arifing from finners themselves, to undertake this labour of love, he might have left the whole apoftate family to wander and perish for e. ver; and fince, while others are lying under the cloud of wrath, you are diftinguished by his grace; does it not follow, by the most natural and neceffary confequence, that you are bound to view these things, into which angels themselves defire to look, with wonder, joy and gratitude? to aim at expressing your high thoughts of redeeming love, by the exercise of humble praise, firm, believing and stedfast obedience; and at expreffing them, by a generous concern for the fouls of others, expofed to wrath, and yet insensible of their danger, and unaffected with it. Help them therefore, by your prayers, advice and example; do every thing within your sphere, in a dependence on grace, to draw them from beneath the impending cloud of the wrath of God; or, in the words now under confideration, to draw them out of the horrible pit and miry clay. Nor cease to pray for those, whofe province it is to labour in word and doctrine, that they may be endowed with holy skill, divine sagacity, and blefsed success, in their ministerial endeavours, after the recovery of loft finners.

From what was the situation of the Man Chrift Jesus, when acting in the room of finners, the present situation of the unconverted and unholy may, with equal propriety, be inferred. You are in the horrible pit of unregenerate nature, and thence, under the hovering, swelling, and, for what you know, renting cloud of divine wrath. In such wretched state, there is no curse, threatening, or word of terror, in the whole book of God, but what are all pointed as arrows settled in the bended bow of Jehovah's justice, against your guilty, your devoted heads. As in this cloud, under which you now ly, there is nothing but wrath without mercy; so that wrath is daily dropping upon you, though you know it not, while in the pit of a natural state. It falls on your food and raiment, on your profperity and adversity; it falls upon you in your outgoings and incomings: it is particularly difpenfed, in that hardness, unbelief and impenitency of heart, with which you are bound under the means of grace; and dispensed, in that untenderness, unfruitfulness and unholiness, in your lives, which without remorse, at least without reformation, is your habitual disgrace and reproach: and, if not delivered out of the horrible pit of an unregenerate state, this cloud will break, this wrath will fall, and, in falling, crush you foul and body, down, down, down, to the more horrible pit of anguish and defpair. Did Jehovah, the Father, not so much as spare his own Son, when acting as a common perfon, but pour out his wrath to the uttermost on him; and can it be imagined, that living and dying in the practical contempt of the golpel way of recovery, he will spare you? Awake, awake then, O finners; read the nature of fin and wrath in the fufferings of Chrift; and look for freedom from the one, and exemption from the other, through him, in whom only the Father is well pleated. Are your eyes shut as

to

to the views of your state, guilt and danger? so far from being a promising symptom, you may confider that one circumstance as a pregnant evidence, the cloud of wrath is dropping, and dropping fast, upon your fouls. Cry therefore to the Lord, that he may awaken and convince, wound and kill you, in order to your being effectually healed, and made alive; before the decree bring forth, and all possibility of it be cut off.

PART II.

Of the REDEEMER'S Exaltation and Crown.

CHAP. I.

Of the Father's inclining unto him, and hearing his cry.

7

T

SECΤ. Ι.

HE Father's inclining unto the Man Chrift seems, at first sight, to be an expression of his love to him, and of his loving him with a love, in kind and degree, infinitely furpassing what angels or men are partakers of. "Then (faid the " Meffiah, namely, when Jehovah appointed the " foundations of the earth) I was by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him," Prov. viii. 30. "Thou lovest me (said he to the Father himself) before the foundation of the world," John xvii. 24. and to prove that the Father's love to him did

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did not ceafe, upon his being manifested in the flesh; it was, once and again, proclaimed from the excellent glory, That Jesus Christ was his beloved Son, Matth. iii. 17.-xvii. 5. As the Father loved, fo, of course, he honoured him, and honoured him by bearing such witness to him, as procured him honour and esteem, worship and veneration, from faints, and sometimes from finners themselves. As the evidence of his Father's prefence, countenance and approbation, always accompanied his person, ministry and miracles; fo they contributed much toward his authority being established, his report believed, and his cause efpoused. "If I honour myself (faid he to the Pha" risees) my honour is nothing, it is my Father "that honoureth me, of whom ye say that he is

your God," John viii. 54. and faid the apostle, "He received from God the Father, honour and

glory; when there came such a voice from the "excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in " whom I am well pleased," 2 Pet. i. 17. Nor were these words whispered into the Saviour's ear, but spoke in an audible manner, that, by this expreffion of complacency, the Father might put honour upon him. For "this voice (said he) which "came from heaven, we (namely, Peter, James " and John) heard, when we were with him, in "the holy mount," 2 Pet. i. 18. The Father kept a constant eye upon the Man Chrift: from his conception to his birth, from his birth to his death, from his death to his refurrection from the dead, he never loft fight of him; but noticed him with peculiar approbation, attention and care, through all the different steps of his humiliation, in all the different periods of his fufferings; and did so as a loving father, even when laying his awful hand upon him as a tremenduous judge; did so, as a faithful

!

AND CROWN.

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ful God, even when, in respect of comfortable prefence, he was far from the words of his roaring, and forfook him. "The eyes of the Lord (says "the pfalmist) are upon the righteous," Pfal. xxxiv. 15. where it is more than probable the Messiah was in the prophet's view; because, in the 20th verse of that psalm, it is said of the fame righteous person, "He keepeth all his bones, not one " of them is broken;" evidently alluding to the pafchal lamb, an eminent type of Chrift, concerning which the Lord faid to Mofes, "Ye shall not " break a bone thereof," Exod. xii. 46. which was literally accomplished in the Messiah, when "the " foldiers brake the legs of the first, and of the o"ther which was crucified with him, and broke " not his legs," John xix. 32, 33. Nor are we left to mere conjecture, in the application of these Old Testament passages, to this New Testament occurrence; for the evangelist expressly informs us, "These things were done, that the scripture "should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be " broken," John xix. 36. The Father not only kept his eye upon the Messiah, but kept his hands about him, charged his providence with his prefervation, employed angelic ministers to wait upon him; and, in that way, secured his harmless, holy, human nature, from every accident, evil and inconvenience, not included in his mediatory obligations to endure; and secured him, even from fuch fufferings as were incumbent on him to bear, until the particular time fixed for that particular purpose, so as it was impossible for devils or men, to precipitate his death a moment before the period agreed unto in the council from eternity. "He

shall give his angels charge over thee, (faid the pfalmist) to keep thee in all thy ways; they shall

" bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot " against