you, the full harvest will be so much the more ravishing and delightful. If you are aiming at falling in with the Lord's device of faving finners, groaning under unbelief and unholinefs, and afpiring after more acquaintance with the Lord, and conformity to him; you are, doubtlefs, fowing in tears, and fhall therefore reap in joy.

Are you faying, I fee fuch unlikeness in me to Christ, in his waiting for the Father, and crying to him, that my fears are countless and unutterable. Not only do mifgivings of heart fly in my face, but particular blemishes in practice witnefs againft me: my unwatchfulness, untendernefs, and unfruitfulnefs, are fuch, as blaft my confidence, fuck up my comfort, fill me with dread, make me go mourning, and caufe me apprehend I fhall go to the grave forrowing? Your complaints, in themfelves, argue a tenderness of confcience, that is hopeful and promifing. Your cafe has nothing fingular in it. You are bound to blefs God for fuch views of your hearts and ways; which are hid from the eyes of others. Your encouragment lies in the perpetuity and perfection of the Meditator's obedience; and, if that is the only quarter from whence you hope, feek, and wish for relief; there is no fear of a final difappointment.

But, are you ftill faying, May I, a poor prodigal, a chief finner, a notorious rebel, against the crown royal and prerogatives of Jefus Chrift; may I, who have lived long in the neglect of falvation, many years in the contempt of the gospel; who have spent my ftrength, bloom, and vigour, at leaft much of it, in the flavery of fin, and crying after things of nought may the like of me entertain any hope from the Redeemer's waiting for the Father, and crying to him; any hope from the Father's inclining to the Mediator, and hearing his cry? Does

C

your

your enquiry flow from regret for what you have been and done? does it flow from a wishfulness and defire after intereft in the mediation of Christ? then, firs, there is hope in Ifrael concerning this thing. Yes; you, who have not hitherto waited for the Father, nor cried to him, in a fuitable manner; you may, you should, hope in Chrift, as the hope and Saviour of Ifrael. Who knows, but you were amongst thefe, in whofe room he waited, for whofe behoof he cried? who knows, but your prefent concern is the fruit of his cry being anfwered by the Father? You have good reafon now, though never before, to knock at the door of mercy. Our Lord has been knocking many a day at the door of your hearts; and are you now fet a knocking at the door of his grace? are you? then it is a hopeful fign that a mutual bargain is on foot; a promifing fymptom that a reciprocal opening will foon take place.

You who neither know, nor care, for these things, dying in your prefent fituation; the Father, inftead of inclining to you, will abhor you, lothe you, fpue you out of his mouth, and tear you in pieces, when there shall be none to deliver. However neglectful of crying to him now, you shall cry, and not be heard; you fhall make many prayers, and not be regarded; and shall meet with the fame contempt from him, that his calls, offers, and tenders of mercy, now meet with from you. At prefent you have no fecurity, that the wrath of God will be warded off a moment longer; no fecurity, that you shall be another day, or hour, out of hell. Going down to the grave without interest in the Redeemer's cry, you'll meet him as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, ready to devour and deftroy you; you'll meet him with vials of vengeance in both hands; you will meet him, as the executor of

the

the Father's Juftice against them who know not God, and obey not the gofpel; you will meet him, as an implacable, inexorable, enemy. Though you will not meet him now, coming in the Father's name to fave; you cannot fhun that future interview with him, when he shall come in the Father's Name, shall come revealed in flaming fire, to condemn you. Neither rocks nor mountains will then be able to fcreen your guilty heads; nor men nor devils, to deliver you out of his tremenduous hand.

Saints should, upon the whole, be exhorted to admire and adore the grace of God your Saviour, in his waiting and crying; and the grace of God, his Father and your Father, in his inclining to him, and hearing his cry. Study the imitation of him, and dependence on him. Seek communion with him, and conformity to him.-Sinners fhould likewife be exhorted to fly to Jefus Chrift, from the wrath to come. Your duty and intereft confpire for enforcing the exhortation.

CHA P. II.

Of the Father's bringing up the Man Chrift out of the horrible pit and miry clay.

SE C T. I.

HE Father raifed up the Man Chrift from

THE

the state of the dead, and raised him above the poffibility of fuffering or dying any more. He raised him up from the ftate of the dead, reftored him to life again, reunited his once parted foul and body, to be parted no more for ever. The refurrection of Chrift, being a doctrine and event

of the highest importance to finners, is clearly taught in the gospel; and has often been fupported by the most accurate and conclufive chain of argument. It is a topic wherein the moft mafterly pens have been frequently and honourable employed; and a topic, on the belief and improvement of which our whole hope, and all onr comfort, for eternity, hang. "For if Chrift be not rifen (fays the apoftle) then "is our preaching vain, and your faith is alfo vain," Cor. xv. 14. In his fufferings and death, our Lord was only paying the ranfom; and unless he had furvived that gloomy period, there could have been no evidence that the price was accepted, or the difcharge procured. But lo! the paffage under confideration brings good news, news big with the refurrection of Christ, and therefore with the falyation of finners. Did the angel, in the hearing of the eastern fhepherds, upon our Lord's entrance in to the horrible pit and miry clay, did he fay. "Behold "I bring you good tidings of great joy, which fhall "be to all people; for unto you is born, this day, "in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Chrift "the Lord?" Luke ii. io, II. Did the feraphic fongfter thus hymn the birth of Jefus Christ; and fhall we ceafe to celebrate the memory of his refurrection from the dead? Paffing the numberlefs variety of proofs for this glorious event, through the New Taftament; we shall only take notice of the 24th chapter of Luke wherein it is once, again and again, mentioned with evidence. In the 31st verf. Cleophas, and another disciple not named by the hiftorian, are faid to have known him in the village Emmaus, known him to be the very Jefus whom the Jews and Romans, with wicked hands, cruci. fied and flew; the very Jefus who, the other day, bled, groaned, expired, and was fealed up in the heart of the earth. In the 34th verf. the eleven

apofties,

apoftles, and others who waited for the confolation of Ifrael, feem, from the teftimony they had heard, to have been perfuaded of the truth of this event; for they faid, "The Lord is rifen indeed, and hath

appeared unto Simon." And in the 36th verf. they are all reprefented as having feen Christ standing in the midst of them, who, to confirm their faith, and to render their teftimony concerning his relurrection the more valid, fhewed them his hands and his feet, and allowed them to handle and fee, that, with greater certainty, they might judge for themselves, and bear witnefs to others. As this was, doubtless, our Lord's view in being fo particular, in causing them furvey him with fuch fcrutiny and exactnefs, fo the apoftle fhews, that the tranfmiting a proof of his refurrection to posterity, was the end they were chiefly to keep in their eye. For, when about to elect one from amongst the brethren, to fupply Judas's place in the college of the apoftles, the reafon affigned by Peter for this election was, that he night be witnefs with them of the Lord's refurretion, Acts i. 22.

But the Father not only raifed up Chrift from the dead, but raised him above the capacity of fuffering or dying any more. According to the literal import of the figure under view, one might be taken out of fuch a pit and mire, and yet afterwards fall into the fame, or equal danger; or, if a criminal, he might commit fuch after faults, as should justly expole him to the fame punishment: but as to a rifen Chrift, neither of these can poffible have place. With regard to his falling into fuch a place of danger, his prefent abode, in the highest heavens, as Man-Mediator, abfolutely fecures him against it; and with refpect unto a legal fubjection to punishment again, that is equally impoffible; for, "by one offering," he has intirely reached all the ends of