grace of God their Saviour. You fee the price of your redemption, the value Jefus Chrift put upon your falvation, paying fo much for it; the wrath you were fubjected unto, are now delivered from; together with the vaftness of that mercy, by which you are fecured from fuch vaft wrath. Since you were naturally the children of this wrath; fince you would ftill have been exposed to it, if not actually groaning under it, had not the Mediator feasonably interpofed; fince being under no obligation, arifing from finners themfelves, 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 diftinguifhed by his grace; does it not follow, by the moft natural and neceffary confequence, that you. are bound to view thefe things, into which angels themselves defire to look, with wonder, joy and gratitude? to aim at expreffing your high thoughts of redeeming love, by the exercise of humble praife, firm, believing and ftedfaft obedience; and at expreffing them, by a generous concern for the fouls of others, expofed to wrath, and yet infenfible of their danger, and unaffected with it. Help them therefore, by your prayers, advice and example; do every thing with in your fphere, 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 ceafe to pray for thofe, whofe province it is to labour in word and doctrine, that they may be endowed with holy fkill, divine fagacity, and bleffed fuccefs, in their minifterial endeayours, after the recovery of loft finners.

From what was the fituation of the Man Chrift Jefus, when acting in the room of finners, the pre

fent

fent fituation 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, fwelling, and, for what you know, renting cloud of divine wrath. In fuch wretched ftate, there is no curfe, threatening, or word of terror, in the whole book of God, but what are all pointed as arrows fettled in the bended bow of jehovah's juftice, against your guilty, your devoted heads. As in this cloud, under which you now ly, there is nothing but wrath without mercy; fo that wrath is daily dropping upon you, though you know it not, while in the pit of a natural ftate. It falls on your food and raiment, on your prosperity and adverfity; 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 difpenfed, in that untendernefs, unfruitfulness and unholiness, in your lives, which without remorfe, at least without reformation, is your habitual difgrace and reproach and, if not delivered out of the horrible pit of an unregenerate ftate, this cloud will break, this wrath will fall, and, in falling, crufh you foul and body, down, down, down, to the more horrible pit of anguifh and defpair. Did Jehovah, the Father, not fo much as fpare his own Son, when acting as a common perfon, but pour out his wrath to the uttermoft on him; and can it be ima gined, 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 fhut as

to

to the views of your ftate, guilt and danger? fo far from being a promifing fymptom, you may confider that one circumftance as a pregnant evidence, the cloud of wrath is dropping, and dropping faft, 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 poffibility 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.

SECT. I.

HE Father's inclining unto the Man Christ

Tfeems, at firft fight, to be an expreffion of

his love to him, and of his loving him with a love, in kind and degree, infinitely furpaffing 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 de"light, rejoicing always before him," Prov. viii. 30. "Thou loveft me (faid he to the Father him"felf) 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 Jefus Chrift was his beloved Son, Matth. iii. 17.-xvii. 5. As the Father loved, fo, of courfe, he honoured him, and honoured him by bearing fuch witness to him, as procured him honour and efteem, worship and veneration, from faints, and fometimes from finners themselves. As the evidence of his Father's prefence, countenance and approbation, always accompanied his perfon, miniftry and miracles; fo they contributed much toward his authority being established, his report believed, and his caufe efpoused. "If I honour myself (faid he to the Pharifees) my honour is nothing, it is my Father "that honoureth me, of whom ye fay that he is your God," John viii. 54. and faid the apoftle, "He received from God the Father, honour and "glory; when there came fuch a voice from the "excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in "whom I am well pleafed," 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 (faid 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 conftant 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 fteps 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 fo, as a faith

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ful God, even when, in refpect of comfortable prefence, he was far from the words of his roaring, and forfook him. "The eyes of the Lord (fays "the pfalmift) are upon the righteous," Pfal. xxxiv. 15. where it is more than probable the Meffiah was in the prophet's view; because, in the 20th verfe of that pfalm, it is faid of the fame righteous perfon, "He keepeth all his bones, not one "of them is broken;" evidently alluding to the pafchal lamb, an eminent type of Christ, concerning which the Lord faid to Mofes, “Ye shall not "break a bone thereof," Exod. xii. 46. which was literally accomplished in the Meffiah, when "the "foldiers brake the legs of the firft, 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 thefe Old Teftament paffages, to this New Teftament occurrence; for the evangelift exprefsly informs us, "These things were done, that the fcripture "fhould be fulfilled, A bone of him fhall not be "broken," John xix. 36. The Father not only kept his eye upon the Meffiah, but kept his hands about him, charged his providence with his prefervation, employed angelic minifters to wait upon him; and, in that way, fecured his harmlefs, holy, human nature, from every accident, evil and inconvenience, not included in his mediatory obligations to endure; and fecured him, even from fuch fufferings as were incumbent on him to bear, until the particular time fixed for that particular purpose, fo as it was impoffible for devils or men, to precipitate his death a moment before the period agreed unto in the council from eternity. "He

fhall give his angels charge over thee, (faid the pfalmift) to keep thee in all thy ways; they shall "bear thee up in their hands, left thou dash thy foot

"against