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are fufficient to extort lamentation and weep-S ER M. ing from hearts grown foft and tender with a fense of religion and goodness: But here we are to compofe our minds to an awful ferioufnefs, and veneration for what we cannot worthily grieve: Let us then, and especially in this folemn season, (in which the church invites and exhorts us to this purpose) addrefs our fervent prayers to the throne of grace, that we may be enabled effectually to poffefs our minds with such a full conviction of our want of a Saviour, with fuch a serious fenfe of the love of Chrift, as may prepare us to share the benefit, and to celebrate the great mystery of that facrifice of himself, which our Lord and Saviour once offered for the fins of the whole world: And oh! let not our returns of gratitude be the less, but the greater, because the fufferings of our redeemer exceed all imagination: Let us fupply the want of a sensitive forrow, with intense meditation and wonder; and with the humbleft adoration of the unfathomable depth of these myfterious fufferings, which great and unbounded as they are, were all finished on the crofs: And let us comfort ourselves with this firm trust in God's mercy, that for the merits of the known fufferings, and the unconceivable agony of his only begotten Son, our fins fhall be so done away, that we shall be made partakers of thofe joys which he has purchased for all those that truft in, and that love and obey him.

SER

SERMON X

On the agony of Chrift.

SERM.

X.

MATTH. xxvi. 38.

Then faith be unto them, my foul is exceeding forrowful, even unto death.

I

Come now to confider from the words of the text, thofe other parts of our Saviour's agony, which the time would not permit me to enter on in my laft discourse in this place.

II. The fecond part of our Saviour's agony was that unfupportable burden of our fins under which he laboured, and which was the cause of all the reft; and therefore the Scriptures are more plain and pathetick in expreffing the grievoufnefs of this part of his agony : and indeed, though we are utterly unable to conceive the unfupportable weight and extent of it, yet it is very obvious and natural to imagine, that it must be exceeding great, and must far tranfcend the limits of our narrow capacities. If we confider

ift. The

1. The natural vileness, and deformity ofS ER M• fin, which is fo loathsome and abominable to X. the nature of God, that the least degree of it was fufficient to have feparated us eternally from his prefence, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, even in the smallest inftance. Guilt is the diftorting the genuine powers of the foul; it is the corruption of the excellent workmanship of God, and putting the order of the rational part of the creation out of course. It is monftrous and no creature of his; and it is impoffible for us to imagine what the oppofition and contradiction of it is to the divine nature till the day of judgment, when God fhall difown it, and banish it from his prefence for ever. Chrift alone of all the race of Adam could fee all this fectly, and could be truly fenfible what an injury fin is to the purity of God; how near it strikes at the majesty of heaven; and what that foul ingratitude is, which makes fuch returns to infinite mercy and love. And this must have raised an unfpeakable abhorrence and deteftation of it in his unspotted and righteous foul; which must have been at this time rackt between his zeal for the glory of God on the one hand, and the abomination of those fins he took upon himself on the other: And this the rather because, by reafon of that divine spirit of knowledge that was in him, he must have exactly known the number of all the fins of men, together with all their aggravation. He faw all the weakness and inVOL. I. firmities

per

SER M. firmities of mankind; they were all as naked X. to his view as they will be in the last day, w when the fecrets of all hearts fhall be laid open,

and that God fhall bring every work into judgment, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

2. We may confider what that infinite juftice is which was to be atoned for thofe fins; that inviolable inexorable attribute of God, which must have been fatisfied to the utmoft; by reason of which the leaft fin could not go unpunished, and therefore muft receive its punishment in the perfon of Christ, that we might escape the divine vengeance, and be put into a condition of mercy and pardon. Accordingly, now it was that God made him to be fin for us, who knew no fin; now it was that the arrows of the Almighty were within him; and that the terrors of the Lord fet themselves in array against him? now was he made a curfe for us, the wrath of God was let out against the fins of men in him, which it is natural to imagine was as great and violent, as if it were to exert it felf in one act against the wickednefs of all mankind. It is moft certain, that in the greatest pungency of his agony he was moft dear to God; and he could not but love him, at a time when he was discharging the profoundest act of obedience to his father's will: Therefore, fays he, doth my father love me, because I lay down my life, John x. 17. So that it is confeffed, he did not fuftain the anger of God

in the fame fenfe that impenitent finners un-SER M. dergo it.

Men who make this objection confider anger in God, as it is a paffion in man; and then draw their confequences. Nothing is more usual, than for men to make no diftinction between the attributes of Almighty God, and the affections of mortal men ; and then dispute with one another. We know not what anger is in God; nor have we the leaft notion of the manner how our Saviour bore it; it was upon him fo as we cannot explain.

It is plain the fierce anger of God was fo far upon him, as to be the occafion of his fufferings; for otherwife he could not suffer, and the very withdrawing all fenfe of the divine favour, was a great expreffion of his anger. And befides it is exprefsly faid Ifai. liii. 6. that the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all, 10. and that it pleafed the Lord to bruife bim, and that he hath put him to grief, and that it is he that made his foul an offering for fin, which expreffions import nothing less than the anger of God against the fins of men; nor indeed can we conceive how thefe fufferings could be a punishment for the fins of men, in the perfon of Chrift, by way of atonement to the justice of God; without imagining that he muft have fuftained the anger of God against fin, in fome fenfe or other. He could not have made the fins of men his own, without fuftaining the punishment of them; and though

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X.