suffering things, by the perverseness of men on all hands, to turn to a universal confusion and disorder, yet still, you that know the Lord and His dealing, pray, and believe, and wait, and be assured your prayer shall be answered in due time.

Thus for your personal condition. You that desire the light of God's countenance above all things, though He seem to deny and hide His face from you for a time, yet wait on Him, leave Him not, for if ye do, you are sure to perish; but if ye wait on Him, ye may say, It may be He will be gracious, but if He will not, I know no other to go to; I will still wait and try Him. What think ye of Job's purpose? Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him: though I saw Him ready to throw me into hell, yet I will look for mercy. Faith cannot be nonplussed. There is in it a pious obstinacy that will not yield to the greatest opposition, nor give over so long as there is any possibility of prevailing. I said, says Jonah, I am cast out from Thy presence, yet for all that, I cannot give the matter up for desperate; I must have leave to look towards thee: Yet, I will look towards Thy holy Temple. Jon. ii. 4. Invincible faith, as here, I will wait-I will look. His doubling the word is meant to express his resolvedness, in the beginning of the verse, and in the end of it. And so, faith conquers the difficulty that makes against it. And this is the purest acting of faith, when there is nothing of sense to support it, and yet it holds out, and, as Abraham did, against hope believes in hope. When the soul is at the hardest pinch, faith will say, I will lie at the footstool of the Throne of grace until I be thrown from it. I will not away from it. I will wait on till the last moment.

456

A SERMON

PREACHED TO THE CLERGY.

2 COR. v. 20.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto

God.

IT is appointed unto all men once to die, and after that to come to judgment, saith the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Two sad necessities to sinful man. This last, nature's light discovers not; but the other, though it be seldom deep in our thoughts, is almost always before our eyes; and though few seriously remember it, yet none can be ignorant of it. Against this known and universal evil, the chief of heathen moralists, the stoics, have much endeavoured to arm themselves. And others have bent the strength of their wits to master the fear of death, and have made themselves, and some of their hearers, conquerors in imagination: but when the king of terrors really appeared, he dashed their stout resolutions, and turned all their big words and looks into appalment.

And the truth is, there are no reasonings in the world, able to argue a man into a willingness to part with a present being, without some hopes at least of one more happy; nor will any contentedly dislodge, though they dwell never so meanly, except upon terms of changing for the better.

The Christian, then, (not the nominal Christian, but he who is truly such,) is the only man that can look death immediately in the face; for he knows assuredly that he shall remove to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,

The discourse beginning this chapter, occasioned by the end of the former, continues to the 12th verse, where the Apostle subjoins an apology for his high and confident manner of speaking; which apology serves likewise for a very pertinent re-entry to the main discourse of the former chapter, concerning the worth and work of the ministry. But because of the Apostle's frequent, yet seasonable digressions, proleptic and exegetic, divers may model the analysis after divers manners.

To take, then, the discourse as it lies here together, abstract from precedent and consequent, I think, (with submission,) it may be divided into these two heads: First, the Apostle's resolution for death. Secondly, His course and manner of life. Each is supported with its proper grounds or reasons: the former to verse 9, the other to the end of the chapter.

The resolution is so strong, that he expresses it by the words of earnest desiring and groaning. And this resolution for death, springs from his assurance of life after death: We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He speaks in his own and his colleagues' names. And the whole matter of both is set forth by an elegant continued metaphor. Both the desire, and the assurance causing it, are illustrated, First, by their chief cause, verse 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God; who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Both in his gracious purpose for this, hath He made us, and in a pledge of performance He hath given us earnest, even His Spirit. Then they are illustrated by their subordinate cause, faith, verse 7. For we walk by faith, not by sight.

His course and purpose,-for he both signifieth what he doth, and how he intends to continue to do,-His course and purpose of life is, in general, to walk acceptably in this absence from the Lord, (ver. 9). And in particular, walking diligently and faithfully in the ministry. Ver. 11. 18.

One reason of this course and purpose, is implied in that

illative [A] which knits this part with the former. And indeed, a good frame of life hath a most necessary connexion with a strong resolution for death, and assurance of life eternal; and they mutually cause one another. That a pious life gives strength against death, and hope of eternal life, none will deny; nor is it less true, that that assurance animates and stirs up to obedience: so far is it from causing sloth, that it is the only spur to acceptable walking. We are confident, saith he, (ver. 8,) WHEREFORE, we labour to be accepted, ver. 9.

This purpose is farther backed with a double reason, viz., of two pious affections; the one of fear, ver. 11. the other of love, ver. 14: that of fear, arising from the consideration of the judgment-seat of Christ; that of love from the thoughts of his death. Ver. 14. For that love of God constrained us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead. And he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again. These are the reasons that stir up this eminent Apostle to a study of acceptable walking in all things, particularly in his especial calling, the ministry of reconciliation;-approving himself therein to his God, and as much as may be to the consciences of the people; saying and doing all things with intention of His glory, and their good; free from vain glory; not speaking for himself, nor living to himself, but to Him who died for him, and rose again; not possessed with carnal respects touching himself or others; no, nor entertaining carnal considerations of Christ himself, as being ascended, and therefore to be considered and conversed with after a new manner (spiritually) by all those that are new creatures in him, and reconciled to God by him, through the ministry of the word of reconciliation. Which reconciliation God himself hath thus effected; (ver. 21,) He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Who knew no sin practically, knew none; was altogether free from sin, not only from commission and consent, but from the very first and least

motions of sin. And indeed no one was thus fit to be made sin, but one who knew none, an immaculate Lamb. Made him to be sin, not by constraint, not beside his knowledge and consent. The heathens observed, that their sacrifices were successless and unhappy, when the beasts came unwillingly to the altar. We need not fear in this point: our blessed Sacrifice, who was also Priest and Altar, offered himself up cheerfully Then saith he, Lo, I come to do thy will, Heb. x. 7. And I lay down my life for the sheep, saith the good Shepherd, John x. 15. To be sin; not only to take the similitude of sinful flesh, becoming man for man's sake, and to be numbered with transgressors, as the prophet speaks, Isa. liii. 12, and to bear the sin of many, but the imputed guilt and inflicted punishment of sin. And these sins of many made him imputatively an exceedingly great sinner, and therefore he is said to have been made sin, by reason of this imputation; whereupon followed his suffering as a sacrifice. And I conceive, that the reason why the word which in the first language signifies sin, is sometimes taken for the sacrifice, is, because the confessed sins were, in a manner, transferred and laid upon the heads of the legal sacrifices. And so saith the prophet, He hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isa. liii. 6.

He was then made sin primarily, by imputation of and consequently, by suffering for, our sins, as our expiatory sacrifice. He made him sin for us, in our stead, and for our good; to wit, our redemption; as follows. That we might be made, or become [o] the righteousness of God in him;-but be it made [usa], it is no otherwise than Christ was made sin imputatively; and if this inference need help, each word that follows, will confirm it. Righteousness, not righteous; to shew the perfection of it, not to urge its unity. Righteousness, not righteousnesses; as intimating that it is but one righteousness, whereby we are all justified of God. Not our own, but in him, not in ourselves. All