Isa. liii. 6. And was not that a mighty load? Sense of sin is the greatest discouragement to believers. But never was there a man out of hell, or in it, that had such a load of sin on him as Christ had. His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, 1 Pet. ii. 24. Law and justice charged Christ severely; and exacted more of him, than ever they did of any other person. None but Christ was made sin, 2 Cor. v. 21. Men are sinners by nature, and increase their sinfulness by their life; and an inexhaustible fountain of sin is in their heart, Eccl. ix. 3. But none of them is, or can be made sin. He only that knew no sin, was made sin. And because he was made sin for us, he was also made a curse for us, Gal. iii. 13. The law curseth the sinner, but cannot make a sinner a curse for others; it can, and doth make him accursed, and a curse for himself. Here is heaven's art: all the righteousness we are made, flows from Christ's being made sin for us; all the blessings we get, spring out of Christ's being made a curse for us. Believers, learn where to seek and find true righteousness, and the true blessing. In vain are they sought any where but in Christ, and in his being thus made sin, and a curse for us. The Lord Jehovah charged Christ with the debt of his people's sins, and he could not deny the debt. Though he contracted none of it, yet he undertook as surety to answer for it, and to discharge and pay it. Therefore the law and justice exacted it of him, abated him nothing. Because the law will have blood and life for sin, Christ offers, and gives his. Our Lord Jesus had no challenges in, nor burden upon his conscience; yet he had a heavy burden upon his soul; therefore he had a troubled soul, John xii. 27, though a quiet conscience. For trouble of conscience properly flows from the sight and sense of

committed sin; but Christ's trouble of soul was from the sense of wrath, for the charged and imputed sins of others.

Object. But, may a poor believer say, Christ knew not what a body of sin and death was, he knew not what a bad heart is; and these I feel, and am discouraged by.

2.

Answ. Christ did not know these things indeed by feeling and experience, as you do; but he knew them better than you do, or can. 1. Christ knew them by the wrath due to them. He that paid the debt, knew best the debt that was contracted, though he himself did not contract it. He knew how dear the expiation was for the sin of your heart and nature. Christ knew it by temptation. Temptation brought sin as near to Christ, as it was possible it could be brought to a sinless man. Some saints know some sins only this way. There are several acts of wickedness that the Lord restrains his people from, before their conversion sometimes, and usually after it. Those sins they know not by the committing of them, nor it may be by any special inclination to them; yet they may know them to be dreadful evils, by an external temptation to them, and by the sight of their sin and misery that wallow in them.

2dly. As our Lord Jesus Christ had many errands to the throne of grace, so he did ply that throne. Our Saviour was a praying Saviour. He spent whole nights in prayer to God his father. As he was, so should we be in the world, 1 John iv. 17. Are we afflicted, and should we pray? So afflicted Jesus prays. Is our soul troubled, and do we pray? So Christ did, John xii. 27. Are we deserted, and pray? So did our Lord. But here is a depth too deep for us to wade in; how our elder brother, how God's own Son in man's nature, did plead at the throne of grace. This throne he plied, was

not the same we come to. To us he sits on the throne himself, and therefore it is a throne of grace to us. We approach to God in Christ, and in Christ's name. Christ came in his own name, and needed no mediator. We find he came to his Father frequently, earnestly, and confidently. The church of Christ owe him eternal praise for that prayer, John xvii. which is only properly Christ's prayer. That in Matth. vi. 9-13, is a pattern of our prayer taught us by Christ: but this is the prayer made by Christ; and therefore truly the Lord's prayer. Of Christ's praying the apostle speaks, Heb. v. 7. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard, in that he feared. This is a great word. When a poor believer is hanging over hell, and a spirit of prayer working in him, how mightily doth he cry to be saved from that death? "O let me not fall in; if ever thou hadst mercy on a sinking soul, save me." But never did a distressed believer cry so mightily to be saved from hell, as Christ did to be saved from death. But that death Christ prayed against, was another sort of death than we know, or can fully apprehend. Christ prayed with great fervency, and with great confidence. We rarely have them joined in our prayers. If we have confidence of a good issue, we are apt to grow cold in asking. Christ knew the blessed issue of all his distress, and believed it confidently, Isa. 1. 7, 8, 9, yet prayed earnestly. He was heard, and knew it; John xi. 41, 42. Father, I thank thee, that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always. Christians take encouragement and direction to pray, and how to pray, by Christ's practice when he was on earth.

4. Let us consider Christ's death

for encouraging us to confidence in coming to the throne of grace. This is the main ground of boldness in coming: Heb. x. 19. Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. There is precious blood inust be shed, or we cannot enter; we must see it by faith, or we dare not venture. We must come to the blood of sprinkling, Heb. xii. 24. We dare not step one step into God's awful presence, unless we see the way marked, consecrated, and sprinkled with the Mediator's blood. How shall the unholiest of sinners venture to come into the holiest of all, God's presence? Yes, saith the Holy Ghost, such may, by the blood of Jesus. Let us therefore consider what this blood of Christ doth, and speaks, in order to our boldness in approaching to the throne of grace.

1st, This blood satisfies justice, and answers all the claims and charges of the law against us. What mars boldness, like fears of a standing controversy betwixt heaven and us! God is holy, we are all vile sinners; God's law is strict, we have sinfully broke it, and deserve hell most justly. No answer can be given, but by this blood. What would the law have, but Christ gave? Would the law have a sinless man to answer it, as it was first given to sinless Adam? Lo, I come, saith our Lord Jesus, without all sin; a man against whom, for himself, the law hath no charge or challenge. Would the law have perfect sinless obedience? Christ did perform it. Must the law have life and blood for every breach of it? Christ never broke the law; but the burden of millions of breakers and breaches of it lay on him, and his blood was shed for them: and thereby he fulfilled the law, put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, Heb. ix. 26; finished the transgression, made an end of sin, made reconciliation for iniquity, brought in

everlasting righteousness, sealed up the vision and prophecy, and anointed the most holy, Dan. ix. 24. You can never have boldness at the throne of grace, unless by faith you apply this blood. Christ is set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, Rom. iii. 25. The propitiation is in his blood; faith in it makes it our propitiation.

2dly, This blood, as it is satisfying blood, so it is purchasing blood. It is both an atonement and satisfaction, and it is a price. It is redeeming blood for persons, and purchasing blood for blessings. All the blessings we come to the throne of grace for, are all bought by this blood. So that we may say, that though we have nothing, and deserve nothing; yet when we ask all things, we ask nothing but what is well and truly paid for by our Lord Jesus.

3dly, All the blessings purchased and bought by Christ's blood, are bequeathed to us, and left by him that shed it. Christ's blood is a testamentary bequeathing blood: and believers, in their coming to the throne of grace, may come as suers for the execution and fulfil ment of the last will and testament of our Lord Jesus. For Christ by his death turned the gospel and new covenant into a testament, Heb. ix. 15, 16, 17. His death confirms his testament. His last will is, that all the blessings of his blood purchased, might be secured and laid up for, and in due time given forth to them they were purchased for, and bequeathed to. The whole legacy of grace and glory, and all the legatees, are and were well known to the testator and executor, (though not to us particularly); and the testament will be punctually fulfilled.

So much for the assistance to faith that Christ's death affords. Learn to feed on it. He that cannot make a soul-meal, and take a soul-fill of a slain Saviour, is a sor

ry Christian. A true Christian is a poor starving sinner, digging in Christ's grave for eternal life. There it only is, and there he surely finds it.

5. We find further in our Lord Jesus, (and indeed every thing in and of him helps forward our confidence in coming to God), that this great person, the Son of God in our nature, this great officer that lived so holily, and died so virtuously, that he also rose again from the dead. The resurrection of our Lord is also a mighty ground of boldness: 1 Peter, i. 3. Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If Christ had lain still in his grave, our hope had lain there too; but because he rose, our hope also riseth with him. So 1

Pet. iii. 21, where the apostle hath an elegant similitude. He compares Christ to the ark of Noah. All that were in in this ark, were.saved, and they only; the deluge drowned all the world besides. They that were saved in the ark, were saved from drowning in the water, and were saved by water.

If

The like figure whereunto, baptism, now saveth us. (Will bare baptism save? No: Not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As if the Apostle had said, "He that by faith hath sucked in the virtue of Christ's resurrection, and can by that faith plead it before God, is a saved man. all the world perish in the deluge of God's wrath, this man is in the ark, and nothing shall hurt him." But, alas! Christ's resurrection is looked upon by many professors as a part of gospel history and truth, that it is a shame for any to be ignorant or doubt of; and therefore they profess the faith of it. But they consider not, that a

great part of the food of our souls, and of our faith, doth lie in this point of truth. This I would show in three things.

1st, Christ's resurrection was a demonstration of the divine dignity of his person: Rom. i. 4. He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. The glorious rays of his Godhead did appear in his word and works; and some had eyes to behold his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even when he dwelt among men, John i. 14. But his glory was under an eclipse till his resurrection. How stately and how sweetly doth he himself express it! Rev. i. 17, 18. I am the first and the last, (high names of a divine eternal person): I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. They that saw him dead, could hardly believe he should ever live again; and they that saw him alive, had need of faith to believe he had ever been dead. He asserts both, and we should believe both. Since death entered into the world by sin, never was there a man more truly, really, and fully dead, than the man Christ was, who died for our sins; and there is no man on earth more truly alive, than the man Christ is now a living man in heaven. He in his rising gave proof of his divine power. He was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God, 2 Cor. xiii. 4. There was never such an appearance of weakness in the man Jesus, as when he expired, and lay cold dead in his grave. Never did sin reign so unto death, nor the law's power more appear, than in slaying the second Adam. As great, and greater, was the appearance of his divine power in his rising again: John x. 17. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. Christ died

that he might rise again. He went amongst the dead that he might rise from the dead: ver. 18. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. Christ was bid both die and rise again. Blessed be the commander, and blessed be the obeyer; for our everlasting life is in this commandment, John xii. 50. Never any but Christ had this power of his own life. We must yield our life when God calls for it, and till then we must keep it; and when that call comes, we must obey. We die, because we can live no longer, and because our times are in God's hand. And when it shall please the Lord to raise up our bodies at the resurrection, we receive our life again; but have no power to take it up again, till the powerful word of Christ come, Arise from your graves; and that word gives us our life again. None but Christ had power of his own life, both to lay it down, and to take it again. We dare, we can, we should do neither; but only obey, and submit to the sovereign will of our high landlord, at whose pleasure we are tenants in these clay cottages.

2dly, Christ's resurrection was a demonstration of the acceptance of the sacrifice of himself; that the blood he shed, and sacrifice he offered, was savoury, and acceptable with God; that the debt was fully paid, and the payment accepted, when the surety was discharged of his prison. Therefore we find it so often written, that God raised him from the dead, Acts ii. 24. 32, even when it is said, that it was not possible he should be holden of death. Death and the grave are strong and cruel, Song viii. 6. They have taken, or will take all mankind prisoners, and are able to keep them: only they took one prisoner, Jesus Christ, who was too hard, too strong, for

them. Death had dominion over him but for a little while, and by his own consent, Rom. vi. 9; but it hath no more dominion over him. But he hath dominion over it: 1 have the keys of hell and of death, Rev. i. 18. Courage, believers in, and heart-lovers of Jesus Christ! Death and hell are indeed dreadful jails; but as long as Christ keeps the keys, (and that will be till he cast them both into the lake of fire, Rev. xx. 14), no believer shall ever be locked up in them. If hell were searched never so narrowly, amongst all the condemned prisoners there, no man or woman could be found in it, whose heart there was ever one spark of true faith in, or love to, the Lord Jesus, Heb. xiii. 20. God brought again from the dead, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. Christ also is often said to rise by his own power. Christ put forth his divine power in his resurrection: the Father declared his full satisfaction with his undertaking of the work, and payment of the price of redemption, by discharging of him in, and by his resurrection. The angels work was only to roll away the stone; but by his own divine power, his blessed soul did take possession of his dead body; and he did rise up immediately, a truly living man. And this he did by his Father's leave and will; and the angels served only as serjeants and officers, to unlock the prisondoors of the grave: for Christ could easily have removed the stone by his own power, as he did greater things in his resurrection. No wonder the apostle Paul made it one of his great aims in Christianity, to know the power of Christ's resurrection, Phil. iii. 10. It is not to know the history of his resurrection, nor is it to know the mystery of his resurrection; but it is to know the power of it. The same power that Christ raised himself from the dead by, is put forth

(and no less is needful) for the raising of a dead sinner. The same power that raised the Saviour, dead for sin, is needful for raising a sinner dead in sin: Rom. vi. 4. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in newness of life, Eph. i. 19. There is an exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, &c. How loth are men to admit this, that the saving quickening of a sinner requires the same divine power that quickened the dead Saviour? All saving conversions are the fruits of Christ's resurrection, and of almighty power.

3dly, Christ's resurrection is the pledge and earnest of our résurrection, and of eternal life. How great things doth Paul build upon it! 1 Cor. xv. He proves our resurrection from Christ's resurrection. He argues for Christ's resurrection, by enumerating of absurdities that must follow on the contrary: as, ver. 14. If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Ver. 15. We (the apostles) are found false witnesses of God. Ver. 17. Ye are yet in your sins. Ver. 18. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ, are perished. Ver. 19. We are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. Ver. 20. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. The first Adam was made a living soul, ver. 45. But when he became a sinner, he became a killing head to all his posterity, Rom. v. 12. The second Adam is a quickening Spirit, and gives eternal life to all his seed. And he took possession of this eternal life in his human nature, and in our stead,