To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
I. HERE we may take a View of the immense Bounty of our Master, to his Church and People. Our Saviour pathetically describes it, Mar. 12. 1.—7. For, according to the different Conditions of his Church, he sent various Servants, to check them, to admonish them, to warn them, to represent to them the Joys and Torments of
another World; and though not a few of these Servants were persecuted, stoned, killed, abused, and some met with cruel Mockings, with Bonds and Imprisonments, yet that did not discourage him; and having therefore yet one Son, his Well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my Son: And this Son he bids us take; and with him, all Things that can make us truly happy. And though it is true, the covetous and sensual Man would have taken it more kindly, if God had bid him take Chests of Gold, and Talents of Silver, rich Houses, and richer Lands; yet had those Gifts been very mean, and unworthy of his Wisdom and Holiness. His Gift, like himself, must be spiritual and great; and in bidding us take his Son, with all the Benefits of his Death, he bids us take the most inestimable Mercy, and that which must make us rich, and great, and glorious, to Eternal Ages. If he had bid us take the World, and the Fulness thereof, there had been no great Self-denial in that Offer: But to offer the Son of his Love, and to bid us take him as our own, whereby we enjoy all his Wealth and Treasures, the Self-denial is so great, that the Sacred Writers know not how to express it, and therefore use such Words as may serve to feed our Admiration; So God loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son: And the Word so, implies so vast an Ocean of Love, that the Understandings both of Angels and Men, may lose themselves in the Contemplation or Survey of it.
II. Here I cannot but reflect on the Rudeness of some that take him indeed, but it is as the Soldiers at his Pas∣sion took him, by Force and Violence. There are Thousands that will take him for their Saviour, whether he will or no: Though he hath protested that he will say to those who would not do the Will of his Father which is in Hea∣ven, I know you not, depart from me, ye Workers of Iniquity; yet these very Persons will lay hold on him, and will be saved by him, in despight of him; and therefore do not only assemble with other Christians, under the Cross, at the holy Table, and there pretend to take him to their
Comfort, as well as the best of them; but on their Death∣beds too, after they have abused him by their carnal and sensual Lives, lived like his Enemies, lean upon him, de∣pend upon him, lay hold on his Merits, support them∣selves with his Sufferings, and stay themselves on him, as if they were resolved he should not shake them off: This is a Rudeness that admits of no Excuse. Not but that he is ready enough to refresh those that lay hold on him as they should do; but where Men's Hearts remain unsan∣ctified, unholy, unresolved to walk in the Light, as he was in the Light, unaffected with the Love of God, un∣touch'd with a Sense of Sin; there to hope, and be confi∣dent they shall be saved by his Merits, is to make Christ a Patron of their Sins, and an Encourager of Hypocri∣sie, and to charge him with a Lye, as if, contrary to what he hath so often affirmed, asserted, repeated and confir∣med by Miracles too, not those that have followed him in the Regeneration, but those whose Hearts and Lives were never changed, shall sit upon Thrones when the Son of Man shall sit upon the Throne of his Glory, Mat. 19. 28.
III. From hence it is evident, that to take Christ for our highest and chiefest Good, a Man must believe there is something to be got by him, which the World cannot give, and beyond all that the World can afford: And this Belief must not be slight or superficial, but a Belief that considers the Consequence and Importance of this Truth; not a Belief of Speculation, but a Belief that rouzes the Soul from her Slumber. A Man that doth not heartily believe that the greatest, the best, the choicest Satisfaction flows from the Possession of this Treasure, will never labour, or toil, or put himself to Trouble to get Possession of it. So that, if ever we take the Lord Jesus according to the Rules laid down in the preceding Discourse, so as to accept of him upon his Terms, to appropriate him to our selves, and to hold him fast, we must sit down, and in cool Blood consider, whether that Bliss and Happiness is to be found in him, which the Scri∣pture speaks of; and to weigh that Happiness, how far
it transcends all other Felicities and Comforts of this World; end not to rest, till we are fully persuaded of the Truth and Reality of it: And this Persuasion will, in a manner, force and compel us to take him so, as, with the Merchant in the Gospel, to sell all we have, for that inestimable Pearl.