Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

who is the very fountain of life; and liable every moment both to temporal and eternal death. Sirs, death has reigned over all Adam's family; and what a clean sweep has death made of all the generations before us? It has just hurled one generation after another to the grave, and hurled the souls of innumerable multitudes into hell; and that same besom of death, that swept away the generation before us, will just sweep us away in a short time. Sirs, where will you and I be in a little time? Alas! the great reason why people do not consider this, is because they are sleeping, and do not consider whether their landing shall be with glorified angels, or reprobate devils, and damned spirits, where the worm of conscience never dies, and the fire is not quenched. Death is executing his office on every one of us; soul-death has seized us, in separating us from God: and bodily death will shortly separate betwixt soul and body,

2. Christ being the resurrection and the life plainly implies, that the Son of God was sent into this lower world, to give life to the dead. He got his commission as Mediator from the Father, to quicken the dead; he said to the Son from eternity, Go and give life to these dead sinners. Accordingly, the Son of God, having got his commission, pays them a visit, and says to them, Life; he had power to do it, "Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him," John xvii. 2. And I conceive it was with a view to this, that Christ says, John v. 26: "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." There is a twofold life the Son of God has; there is his essential life, considered as God, for he has this essentially from eternity: but then he has a mediatorial life, gifted and bestowed upon him as a second Adam; and that life he has a commission to give to dead sinners of Adam's family; he has "received gifts for men, even for the rebellious:" and this was the leading gift he was to bestow, even everlasting life, and all the appurtenances of it. But again,

3. I am the resurrection, and the life, I think plainly implies, that our Lord Jesus Christ has abrogated the sentence of the law, by which we were to die; "The wages of sin is death;" there was the hand-writing that was against us, and was contrary to us. Well, Christ came, and, as it were, by nailing it to his cross, he tears this hand-writing, that it might not stand against us before the tribunal of God. Again,

4. I think it likewise implies, that our Lord Jesus Christ has recovered all that was lost by the first Adam. The first Adam, by his sin and apostacy, became the fountain of wo, death, and misery, to all his posterity, that he is the heritage

we have by our first father Adam; but Christ came and recovered all that we lost in the first Adam: hence there is a comparison made, Rom. v., between the first Adam and his natural seed, and Christ, the second Adam, and his spiritual seed, by whom they are made alive. Again,

5. I think it implies, that Christ himself is risen from the dead, and has carried the keys of hell and of death away with him, by which he is become victorious over hell and death: Rev. i. 17, 18: "I was dead, but now I am alive :-therefore fear not: and I am alive for evermore: and have the keys of hell and of death." And then,

66

6. In the last place, I think it plainly implies, that the life of the whole mystical body is in Christ. Sirs, matters are quite otherwise laid in the second covenant than they were in the first. In the first covenant man's life was in his hand, but now his life is in his Head: man got his life in his hand, and so came of it; he was a mutable creature, though perfectly holy. But blessed be God, that matters are otherwise in the new covenant; God will not give it into our hand, but he has laid it up in the hand of Christ, and there lies the life of the whole mystical body. It may be there are some here complaining and saying, O, I am dead, I am a dry withered tree, my life is gone, and there is no sap nor life in me; I cannot win to that liveliness in duty I had in some months past. O beware lest in this complaint there be not something of a tang of the covenant of works, beware that there be not a legal spirit here: you are dissatisfied, perhaps, that your life is not in your own hand, as in Adam's before he fell; but you would do well to remember, that, since the fall, God puts no trust in man, no, not in his dearest saints, he will not trust them with their own life, but has assured us, by a solemn record, that "this life is in his Son;" and the believer, when himself, will acquiesce in it, that his life is laid up in the hand of Christ, and say, Lord, I am content that my life be "hid with Christ in God," although I should have nothing of it in mine own hand. Sirs, it is a weighty truth, and it is a truth attested by the most famous witnesses, the "three that bear record in heaven," 1 John v. 7, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; therefore we are to set to our seal to what they say, that it is true, or else we "make him a liar." What is the record of God? "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life," to us that were lost, ruined, and condemned; "given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." If you would have life, you must be content with what life he lets out to you; he is the great Steward, and all the bairns [children] of the family must depend upon him, great and small, Is. xxii. 24: "They shall hang upon him all the glory

of his Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of smaller and greater quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons ;" they just hang their happiness where God has hung it. And if this be your way this night, and at a communion-table, you will make a noble hand of it; but if you are discontented that Christ is the Steward, unless you get according to your will, depend upon it, you will get a rebuke. Go to him who has your life in his hand, go ask him whatever he has promised in his word. Beware of limiting him; he will give the children of the family what he sees they need; he will not embezzle the goods or bread of the children; no, no, he gives them all their bread in due season; and it well becomes all the younger children to depend upon their Elder Brother. So much for the first thing.

I should now proceed to the second thing I proposed to speak to; but I do not think it proper to detain you from private and secret work betwixt God and you upon a preparation-evening before our Christian passover. You may remember that the Lord's servants, in the former part of the day, were exhorting you to the duty of self-examination; well, I second the exhortation; and one special thing you are to examine, is, Whether you were ever partakers of the first resurrection? whether Christ be the resurrection and the life to you? I shall not multiply particulars, only I shall say, if ever he was the resurrection and the life to your souls, there will be a sweet similitude betwixt Christ's resurrection and your resurrection: and no wonder there be a similitude between them, for Christ rose as the mystical head; for when he revived, we revived. The prophet Hosea, when speaking of the resurrection of the head and members, says chap. vi. 2: "After two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight;" not he, but we; all the mystical members of Christ rose representatively with him. If ye be really risen with him, there will be a similitude between your resurrection and his resurrec ́tion on the third day. I shall only clear this in a few particulars.

1. You know Christ rose by his own power, by the power of his own divine nature; he was "declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead." Just so, if ever you were quickened spiritually by him, if you be partakers of his resurrection, if he be the resurrection and the life to you, I am sure you have felt something of "the power of his resurrec tion;" for it is that very power that must raise you, and make you believe that God raised Christ from the dead, Eph. i. 19. I doubt not of it, yea, I am persuaded, whenever a man is

partaker of Christ, the resurrection and the life, he is cured of Arminianism; he will not say, I have a power to repent and to believe, he will acknowledge it is not owing to the power of his own will, but to the power of free, sovereign grace, that has brought him from death to life. Then,

2. Christ, by his resurrection, was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness." God the Father, speaking of his resurrection from the dead, says, in Acts xiii. 33: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee:" not as if the generation of the Son commenced at his resurrection; no, no: "Who can declare his generation?" it was from all eternity: an everlasting Father must have an everlasting Son, it is meant of his essential Deity: but his resurrection from the dead "declared him to be the Son of God with power." If ever you have been raised from the dead, your sonship has, in some measure, been declared to you. That moment the new creature is formed, and the babe of grace begins to live, it endeavours to cry, "Abba, Father," to "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ;" and, however it is suppressed and smothered with prevailing unbelief, yet whenever faith begins to lift up its head, the language of the new creature is that, Is. lxiii. 16: "Doubtless thou art our Father-thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, and this thy name is from everlasting." Again,

3. You know when Christ rose from the dead, he entered into his rest, he rested from the toilsome work of man's redemption; the Sabbath is a day of rest, because Christ rested from his great work of redemption. So, sirs, if ever you have been partakers of his resurrection, you have been made to rest in Christ; rest your wearied, burdened souls in him, upon "the foundation God hath laid in Zion." You have been "wearying yourselves in the greatness of your way," to find rest in the works of the law, and other lying refuges, and could never find it; but whenever God's rest was discovered to you, you said, "This is my rest, here will I stay, for I do like it well." Again,

4. You know when Christ rose from the dead, he left his grave-clothes behind him. Christ, when he came out of the grave, left his grave-clothes there, because he was never to die again: Lazarus, when he was raised from the dead, and came out of the grave, he brought his grave-clothes with him, v because he was to die again. So, if you be partakers of Christ's resurrection, you have been raised out of the grave of sin, and of a natural state, and you have put off the dead garments, and the vile clothing of sin, you have been made to "deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." "What have I to

do any more with idols?" is the language of the soul that has the life of Christ in it. Again,

5. When Christ rose from the dead, he conversed no more with the graceless Jews; he spent his life with them, and he never owned them after. But perhaps some may ask me, Why Christ did not show himself to the Jewish sanhedrim after his resurrection? Why, he had given them a sufficient evidence of his divine mission in his life; but they rejected him, calling him "a devil, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners," and then crucified him as an impostor; and therefore, when he rose again, he appeared only to his friends, "he was seen of five hundred of them at once, 1 Cor. xv. 6. So those that are partakers of Christ's resurrection, will not frequent the society of the enemies of Christ, a wicked world, but will keep company with the saints, these "excellent ones of the earth." They that are living, do not desire to converse with the dead; so they that are spiritually alive do not love to converse with them that are spiritually dead, unless it be to tell them their hazard and danger, to flee from the wrath to come. You that love the company of swearers and cursers, and cabals of wicked and profane persons, and take pleasure in them, you are dead, otherwise you could not stay in such company; for the society of the dead is a nuisance to the living. Then,

Lastly, Christ, when he rose from the dead, was, I say, on the wing to ascend to heaven; so he says to Mary, John xx. 17, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." So, "if ye be risen with Christ," you will not be going down the wilderness, but going upward; you will be "setting your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth."

I conclude with a word of exhortation to dead sinners. 0 dead sinners! will you come to Christ, the resurrection and the life! If we be dead, you may say, to what purpose do you speak to us? can the dead raise themselves to life? I answer, There is a difference between a person's being morally and naturally dead; if ye were naturally dead, our commission were done with you; we do not preach the gospel to those who are naturally dead. It is true, the sinner, dead in sin, is as much unfit for spiritual action, as the man that is naturally dead is incapable of action with the living. But I have a commission to you from God, to cry to the dead to "hear that their souls may live," and upon hearing they shall live, Is. lv. 3. "The hour is coming, and now is," says Christ, "when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall live." And therefore I cast in this name of Christ among you; I proclaim that he is the resurrection and

« ZurückWeiter »