SERMON VII.

THE EFFICACY OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

2 Corinthians v. 14, 15.

The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him, which died for them, and rose again.

MY BRETHREN,

WE

7E have great designs to-day on you, and we have great means of executing them. Sometimes we require the most difficult duties of morality of you. At other times we preach the mortification of the senses to you, and, with St. Paul, we tell you, they, that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts, Gal. v. 24. Sometimes we attack your attachment to riches, and, after the example of our great Master, we exhort you to lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal, Matt. vi. 20. At other times we endeavour to prepare you for some violent operation, some severe exercises, with which it may please God to try you, and we repeat the words of the apostle to the Hebrews, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin: Wherefore lift up the hands, which hang down, and the feeble knees, Heb. xii. 4, 12. At other times we summon you to suffer a death more painful than your own; we require you to dissolve the tender ties, that unite your hearts to your relatives, and friends; we adjure you to break the bonds, that constitute all the happiness of your lives, and we utter this language, or, shall I rather say, thunder this terrible gradation in the name of Almighty God, Take now thy son---thine only son

---Isaac

---Isaac---whom thou lovest---and offer him for a burntoffering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of, Gen. xxii. 2. To-day we demand all these. We require more than the sacrifice of your senses, more than that of your riches, more than that of your impatience, more than that of an only son; we demand an universal devotedness of yourselves to the author and finisher of your faith; and, to repeat the emphatical language of my text, which in its extensive compass involves, and includes all these duties, we require you henceforth not to live unto yourselves; but unto him, who died and rose again for you.

As we have great designs on you, so we have great means of executing them. They are not only a few of the attractives of religion. They are not only such efforts as your ministers sometimes make, when, uniting all their studies and all their abilities, they approach you with the power of the word. It is not only an august ceremony, or a solemn festival. They are all these put together. God hath assembled them all in the marvellous transactions of this one day.

Here are all the attractives of religion. Here are all the united efforts of your ministers, who unanimously employ on these occasions all the penetration of their minds, all the tenderness of their hearts, all the power of language to awake your piety, and to incline you to render to Jesus Christ love for love, and life for life. It is an august ceremony, in which, under the most simple symbols, that Nature affords, God represents the most sublime objects of religion to you. This is a solemn festival, the most solemn festival, that christians observe, this occasions them to express in songs of the highest joy their gratitude and praise to their deliverer, these are their sentiments, and thus they exult, The right hand of the Lord doth valiantly! Psal. cxviii. 15. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, Eph. i. 3. Blessed be God, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Pet. i. 3.

And on what days, is it natural to suppose, should the preaching of the gospel perform those miracles, which are promised to it, if not on such days as these? When, if not on such days as these, should the sword of the spirit, divide asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow, Eph. vi. 17. Heb. iv. 12. and cut in twain every bond of self-love and sin?

Το

To all these means add the supernatural assistance, that God communicates in a double portion in these circumstances to all those, whom a desire of reconciliation with heaven conducts to this assembly. We have prayed for this assistance at the dawning of this blessed day; we prayed for it as we ascended this pulpit, and again before we began this exercise; with prayer for divine assistance we began this discourse, and now we are going to pray for it again. My dear brethren, unite your prayers with ours, and let us mutually say to God:

O thou rock of ages! Thou author of those great mysteries, with which the whole christian world resounds to-day! make thy work perfect, Deut. xxxii. 4. Let the end of all these mysteries be the salvation of this people. Yea Lord! the incarnation of thy word; the sufferings, to which thou didst expose him; the vials of thy wrath, poured on this victim, innocent indeed in himself, but criminal as he was charged with all our sins; the cross, to which thou didst deliver him; the power, that thou didst display in raising him from the tomb conqueror over death and hell; all these mysteries were designed for the salvation of thofe believers, whom the devotion of this day hath assembled in this sacred place. Save them, O Lord! God of peace! who didst bring again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make them perfect in every good work to do thy will; work in them that, which is well-pleasing in thy sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Heb. xiii. 20. 21,

The love of Christ constraineth us. This is our text. Almost every expression in it is equivocal: but its ambiguity does not diminish its beauty. Every path of explication is strewed with flowers, and we meet with only great and interesting objects, even conformable to the mysteries of this day, and to the ceremony, that assembles us in this holy place. If there be a passage in the explication of which we have ever felt an inclination to adopt that maxim, which hath been productive of so many bad comments, that is, that expositors ought to give to every passage of scripture all the different senses, which it will bear, it is this passage, which we have chosen for our text. Judge of it yourselves.

There is an ambiguity in the principal subject, of which our apostle speaks, The love of Christ. This phrase may signify either the love of Christ to us, or our love to him.

There

There is an ambiguity in the persons, who are animated with this love. The love of Christ constraineth us; St. Paul means either the ministers of the gospel, of whom he speaks in the preceding and following verses; or all believers, to the instruction of whom he consecrated all his writings.

There is also an ambiguity in the effects, which the apostle attributes to this love. He says, The love of Christ constraineth us, the love of Christ uniteth, or presseth us. The love of Christ constraineth us, may either signify, our love to Jesus Christ uniteth us to one another, because it collects and unites all our desires in one point, that is, in Jesus Christ the centre. In this sense St. Paul says, Love is the bond of perfectness, Col. iii. 14. that is to say, the most perfect friendships, that can be formed, are those, which have love for their principle. Thus if my text were rendered love uniteth us together, it would express a sentiment very conformable to the scope of St. Paul in this epistle. He proposeth in this epistle in general, and in this chapter in particular, to discourage those scandalous divisions which tore out the vitals of the church at Corinth, where party was against party, one part of the congregation against another part of the congregation, and one pastor was against another pastor.

The love of Christ constraineth us may also signify, the love of Christ transporteth us, and carries us, as it were, out of ourselves. In this case, the apostle must be supposed to allude to those inspirations, which the Pagan priests pretended to receive from their gods, with which, they said, they were filled, and to those, with which the prophets of the true God were really animated. The original word is used in this sense in Acts, where it is said, Paul was pressed in spirit, and testified to the Jews, that Jesus was Christ, chap. xviii. 5. This explication approaches still nearer to the scope of St. Paul, and to the circumstances of the apostles. They had ecstacies. St. Peter in the city of Joppa was in an ecstacy. St. Paul also was caught up to the third heaven, chap. x. 10. not knowing whether he was in the body, or out of the body, 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3. These ecstacies, these transports, these close communions with God, with which the inspired men were honoured, made them sometimes pass for idiots. This is the sense, which some give to these words, We are fools for Christ's sake, 1 Cor. iv. 10. This meaning of our text well comports with the words, which immediately precede, Whether we be besides ourselves, it is to God; or

whether

whether we be sober it is for your cause; that is to say, If we be sometimes at such an immense distance from all sensible objects, if our minds be sometimes so absent from all the things, that occupy and agitate the minds of other men, that we seem to be entirely besides ourselves, it is because we are all concentred in God; it is because our capacity, all absorbed in this great object, cannot attend to any thing, that is not divine, or which doth not proceed immediately from God. The love of Christ constraineth us. This expression may (my brethren, it is not my usual method to fill my sermons with an enumeration of the different senses, that interpreters have given of passages of scripture: but all these explications, which I repeat, and with which perhaps I may overcharge my discourse to-day, appear to me so just and beautiful, that I cannot reconcile myself to the passing of them over in silence. When I adopt one, I seem to myself to regret the loss of another.) This, I say, may also signify, that the love of Jesus Christ to us surrounds us on every side; or that our love to him pervades, and possesses all the powers of our souls.

mean,

.....

The first sense of the original term is found in this saying of Jesus Christ concerning Jerusalem, The day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, Luke xix. 43. The latter is a still more beautiful sense of the term, and perfectly agrees with the preceding words, already quoted, If we be besides ourselves, it is to God. A prevalent passion deprives us at times of the liberty of reasoning justly, and of conversing accurately. Some take these famous words of St. Paul in this sense, I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, Rom. ix. 3. and these of Moses, Forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book, Exod. xxxii. 32. Not that a believer in Christ can ever coolly consent to be separated from Christ, or blotted out of the catalogue of those blessed souls, for whom God reserves eternal happiness: but these expressions flow from transports of love in holy men. They were besides themselves, transported beyond their judgment. It is the state of a soul occupied with one great interest, animated with only one great passion.

Finally, these words also are equivocal, If one died for all, that is to say, if Jesus Christ hath satisfied divine justice by his death for all men, then, all they, who have recourse to it, are accounted to have satisfied it in his person. VOL. III.

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