wherein the comelinefs and elegancy of the world much confifts, (for to this the apoftle's word here alludes) then do we walk fuitably to the Lord of glory.

Inf. 7. What delight fhould Chriftians take in their daily converfe with Jefus Chrift in the way of duty? * Your converfes in prayer, hearing, and meditation, are with the Lord of glory: The greatest peers in the kingdom account it more honour to be in the prefence of a king, bare-headed, or upon the knee at court, than to have thousands ftanding bare to them in the country. When you are called to the duties of communion with Chrift, you are called to the greatest honour, dignified with the nobleft privilege creatures are capable of in this world: Had you but a fenfe of that honour God puts upon you by this means, you would not need fo much preffing and ftriving, to bring a dead and backward heart into the fpecial prefence of Jefus Chrift. When he faith, Seek ye my face, your hearts would echo to his calls; Thy face, Lord, will we feek. But alas! the glory of Chrift is much hid and veiled by ignorance and unbelief, from the eyes of his own people; it is but feldom the beft of faints, by the eye of faith, do fee the King in his glory.

Inf. 8. If Chrift be fo glorious, how fhould believers long to be with him, and behold him in his glory above? Moft men need patience to die, a believer should need patience to live. Paul thought it well worth enduring the pangs of death, to get a fight of Jefus Chrift in his glory, Phil. i. 23. "The Lord direct your hearts into "the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ," (faith the apostle) 2 Theff. iii. 5. intimating that the faints have great need of patience, to enable them to endure the state of distance and feparation from Chrift, fo long as they must endure it in this world. The fpirit and the bride fay, come, and let him that heareth fay, come, and let him that is a-thirst come: even fo, come Lord Jefus, and be thou as a fwift roe upon the mountains of feparation.

Bleffed be God for Jefus Chrift, the Lord of glory.

Suppofe (faith Mr Rutherford) there were no letter of command, yet there is a fuitablenefs betwixt the law engraven on the heart, and the fpiritual matter commanded. There is an heaven in the bofom of prayer, though there were not a granting of the fuit. Rutherford's Treatife of the Covenant, p. 71.

SERMON XV.

Opening the fixth Motive to come to CHRIST, contained in the fixth and laft Title of CHRIST.

LUKE ii. 25.

Waiting for the [Confolation] of Ifrael.

EVERAL glorious titles of Chrift have been already spoken to,

SEVE

out of each of which much comfort flows to believers: It is comfortable to a wounded foul to eye him as a Phyfician; comfortable to a condemned and unworthy foul to look upon him under the notion of mercy: The loveliness, the defirableness, and the glory of Christ, are all fo many fprings of confolation. But now I am to fhew you, from this fcripture, that the faints have not only much confolation from Chrift, but that Chrift himself is the very confolation of believers: He is pure comfort wrapped up in flesh and blood.

In this context, you have an account of Simeon's prophecy concerning Chrift; and in this text, a description of the perfon and quality of Simeon himself, who is described two ways.

1. By his practice.

2. By his principle.

His practice was heavenly and holy; he was a juft and devout man: The principle from which his righteousness and holiness did flow, was his faith in Chrift; "he waited for the confolation of "Ifrael." In which words, by way of periphrafis, we have,

1. A defcription of Chrift, the confolation of Ifrael.

2. The description of a believer, one that waited for Chrift. Firft, That the confolation of Ifrael is a phrase descriptive of Jefus Chrift, is beyond all doubt, if you confult ver. 26. where he, i. e. Simeon is fatisfied by receiving Chrift into his arms, the confolation for which he had fo long waited.

Secondly, And that waiting for Chrift is a phrafe defcribing the believers of those times that preceded the incarnation of Chrift is paft doubt; they all waited for that bleffed day: But it was Simeon's lot to fall just upon that happy point of time, wherein the prophecies and promifes of his incarnation were fulfilled. Simeon and others that waited with him, were fenfible that the time of the promise was come, which could not but raife (as indeed it did) a general expectation of him, John ix. 19. But Simeon's faith was

It was a phrafe common and well known among the Jews at that time, by which the coming of Chrift was fignified. Ludov. Capell.

confirmed by a particular revelation, ver. 26. That he should fee Chrift before he faw death, which could not but greatly encourage and raise his expectation to look out for him, whofe coming would be the greatest confolation to the whole Ifrael of God. The confolation παράκλησις. The Spirit is frequently called in fcripture, παρακλητης, the Comforter : But Chrift in this place is called παράκλησις, comfort, or confolation itself: The reafon of both is given in John xvi. 14. "He fhall take of mine and fhew it unto you :" Where Chrift is faid to be the matter, and the Spirit, the applier of true comfort to the people of God. Now this confolation is here expreffed both with a fingular emphafis [the confolation] intimating that there is nothing of confolation in any thing befides him; all other comforts compared with this, are not worth naming. And as it is emphatically expreffed, fo it is alfo limited and bounded within the compafs of God's Ifrael, i. e. true believers, ftiled the Ifrael of God, whether Jews or Gentiles, Gal. vi. 16. From whence the point of doctrine is,

Doct. That Jefus Chrift is the only confolation of believers, and of none befides them.

So fpeaks the apostle, Phil. iii. 3. «For we are the circumci"fion, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Je"fus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Thofe that worship God in the Spirit are fincere believers; to fuch fincere believers, Chrift is confolation, our rejoicing is in Chrift Jefus: And they have no confolation in any thing befide him; nothing in the world can give them comfort without Chrift, We have no confidence in the flefb. The gofpel is glad tidings of great joy; but that which makes it to be fo is Jefus Chrift, whom it imparts and reveals to us, Luke ii. 10, 11. In the opening of this comfortable point, four things must be spoken to, for the right ftating the method of our difcourfe, viz.

1. What is meant by confolation.

2. That Christ, and he only, is confolation to believers.

3. That believers only have confolation in Christ.

4. How it comes to pafs, that any believer fhould be dejected, fince Chrift is confolation to all believers.

The first thing to be opened, is the nature of confolation, which is nothing else but the cheerfulness of a man's fpirit, whereby he is upheld, and fortified against all evils felt, or feared. Confolation is to the foul what health is to the body after wafting fickness; or the reviving fpring to the earth after a long and hard winter. And there are three forts of confolation, or comfort, fuitable to the difpofition and temper of the mind, viz.

Natural,
Sinful, and

Spiritual,

Natural comfort is the refreshment of our natural fpirits by the good creatures of God, Acts xiv. 17. "Filling their hearts with "food and gladness." Sinful comfort is the fatisfaction and pleafure men take in the fulfilling of their lufts, by the abuse of the creatures of God, James v. 5. "Ye have lived in pleasure upon « earth,” i. e. your life hath been a life of fenfuality and fin.

Spiritual comfort is the refreshment, peace, and joy, gracious fouls have in Chrift, by the exercise of faith, hope, and other graces, Rom. v. 2. And this only deserves the name of true folid confolation: To which four things are required.

Firft, That the matter thereof be fome fpiritual, eminent, and durable good; else our confolation in it will be but as the crackling of thorns under a pot, a fudden blaze, quickly extinct with the failing matter of it. Chrift only gives the matter of folid, durable confolation; the righteoufnefs of Chrift, the pardon of fin, the favour of God, the hopes of glory, are the fubftantial materials of a believers confolation, Rom. v. 2. Mat. ix. 2. Pfal. iv. 6, 7. 2 Pet. i. 8. Things are as their foundations be.

Secondly, Intereft and propriety in thefe comfortable things, are requifite to our confolation by them, Luke i. 47. "My spirit re"joiceth in God my Saviour." It is no confolation to him that is hungry to fee a feaft; to him that is poor to fee a treasure; if the one may not taste, or the other partake thereof.

Thirdly, Knowledge, and evidence of intereft, in fome degree is requifite to actual confolation, though without it a man may be in the ftate of confolation; for that which appears not, is (in point of actual comfort) as if it were not.

Fourthly, In order hereunto, the work of the Spirit upon our hearts is requifite, both to give, and clear our intereft in Christ and the promifes: And both thefe ways he is the Comforter, "The fruit of the Spirit is joy," Gal. v. 22. And thus briefly of the nature of confolation.

Secondly, Next I will fhew you that Chrift, and he only, is matter of confolation to believers: which will demonstratively appear by this argument.

First, He that brings to their fouls all that is comfortable, and removes from their fouls all that is uncomfortable, must needs be the only confolation of believers.

But Jefus Chrift brings to their fouls all that is comfortable, and removes from their fouls all that is uncomfortable.

Therefore Chrift only is the confolation of believers.

Firft, Jefus Chrift brings whatsoever is comfortable to the fouls

of believers. Is pardon comfortable to a person condemned? Nothing can be matter of greater comfort in this world. Why, this Chrift brings to all believers, Jer. xxiii. 6. " And this is the name "whereby he fhall be called, the Lord our righteousness." This cannot but give strong confolation; righteoufnefs is the foundation of peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, Rom. xiv. 17. “The work "of righteousness fhall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, "quietnefs and affurance for ever," Ifa. xxxii. 17. Come to a dejected foul, labouring under the burden of guilt, and fay, cheer up, I bring you good tidings, there is fuch an eftate befallen you, or fuch a troublefome bufinefs comfortably ended for you; alas! this will not reach the heart: If you can bring me (faith he) good news from heaven, that my fins are forgiven, and God reconciled, how foon fhould I be comforted! And therefore (as one well obferves) this was the ufual receipt with which Chrift cured the fouls of men and women, when he was here on earth; Son or daughter, "be of good cheer, thy fins be forgiven thee." And, indeed, it is as easy to separate light and warmth from the beams of the fun, as cheerfulness and comfort from the voice of pardon.

Are the hopes and expectations of heaven and glory comfortable! Yes fure, nothing is comfortable if this be not, Rom. v. 2. "We "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Now, Christ brings to the fouls of men all the folid grounds and foundations upon which they build their expectations of glory, Col. i. 27. "Which is "Christ, in you, the hope of glory." Name any thing else that is folid matter of comfort to the fouls of men, and the grounds thereof will be found in Chrift, and in none but Chrift; as might eafily be demonftrated by the enumeration of multitudes of particular inftances, which I cannot now infift upon.

Secondly, Jefus Christ removes from believers whatever is uncomfortable; therein relieving them against all the matters of their affliction and forrow. As namely,

First, Is fin a burden and matter of trouble to believers? Chrift, and none but Chrift, removes that burden, Rom. vii. 24, 25"O wretched man that I am! (faith fin-burdened Paul) who will "deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through "Jefus Christ our Lord." The fatisfaction of his blood, Eph. v. 2. The fanctification of his Spirit, John i. 5, 6. His perfect deliverance of his people from the very being of fin at laft, Eph. v. 26, 27. This relieves at prefent, and removes at last the matter and ground of all their troubles and forrows for fin.

Secondly, Do the temptations of fatan burden believers? O yes, by reafon of temptations, they go in trouble and heaviness of fpirit. Temptation is an enemy under the walls; temptation greatly endangers, and therefore cannot but greatly afflict the fouls of be