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fions, thirfting, fainting, bleeding, dying, in Pity to Us; and can we fuffer our felves to be familiar with, and fond of, thofe very Lufts, which injured, difgraced, tormented, and flew our beft Friend, and most generous Benefactor? Surely, if Men have any Gratitude, if any Bowels; this Profpect, lively reprefented to their Minds, muft needs check their wildest Career, and damp the hotteft Flames of vitious Inclinations. Surely this Thought would be a Prefervative, fufficient against thofe evil Practices, which, we are told, do even now grieve this Saviour; And Men must be afhamed to do defpight to fuch a Friend, and crucify the Son of God afresh, by enflaving themselves to thofe corrupt Affections, from whofe Tyranny he died to deliver them. He hath told us, that the Proof he expects of our loving him, is to keep his CommandJohn xiv. 15. ments; And these are fuch Commandments, as it would be our Duty and Intereft to keep, tho' he had never fuffered for us. And, fhall We fhew lefs Cheerfulness in seeking our own Happinefs, than He did, in taking upon himself our Mifery and Punishment? Did He moft willingly die for Us, and shall not We be content to live to Him? To Him did Isay? Nay to our felves: Since it is not His, but Our Advantage that he feeks, in ordering Us to be Holy and Good Men. It may be, We fhall find our Duty incumbred with fome Difficulties; but What are our sharpest Tryels, in comparison of His? Or how can any Submiffion -deferve to be named, with that moft condefcending Refignation, whereby Chrift offered himfelf freely to that Sorrow, and Shame, and Pain, which he had no Obligation to endure? He would not decline Death, in its moft deformed and frightful Shape; He would not spare himself one Agony, that might conduce to the perfecting Our Salvation: He expofed his Innocence to the Punishments he never deferved; And fhall We grudge the Obedience, which the Condition of Servants and Crea

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Creatures lays upon us? Shall We refift the Will of God concerning us, and murmur at the due Reward, nay much less than the due Reward, of our evil Deeds? He does indeed require, that we forfake all and follow him, that we lay down our Lives for his fake: But it is very feldom, that he calls Men to this last Experiment of their Sincerity and Conftancy. And yet, if it were frequent, if it were fure to be the Cafe of every common Chriftian, Is not even this a reasonable Cafe? Is it not a very poor return, to what He hath done before us, and for us? We cannot fay with Him, We have Power to lay down our Lives; For thefe Lives are not our own: They are God's Gift, and always in his Difpofal. But He had a Right to difpofe of His. He could not have been Mortal, had he not chofen to be fo. His Happiness was perfect before, and received no Addition by all the Miseries he endured for loft Man; And, when He chofe a Death for Our Advantage, which he was not liable to Originally; fhall not We fubmit to the manner of Dying, which God fees fittest, when die in fome manner we unavoidably muft? Shall we not be fatisfied to exchange a Worse Life for a Better, when otherwife, bad as it is, we must part with it for a Worfe? So highly reafonable are even the hardeft Conditions of a Chriftian's Obedience. So prevalent would a ferious Confideration of our Lord's Love and Sufferings prove, to reconcile us to thofe Difficulties, which Flesh and Blood are moft apt to start and give back at. And therefore, The proper Ufe of This Week's Devotions is, to enflame our Affections, to quicken our Endeavours, to arm us with Patience, to encourage our Perfeverance to the End: To put us in mind, that We, like Him, can only then lay down our Heads with Comfort, when we can fay, It is finished: When we measure our Life, not by the Length and Number of our Days, but by the Bufinefs and Defign of it. No Death can be hafty or unfeafonable, which

comes,

comes, when a Man hath fatisfied the Ends he lived for. No Life is long, which determines, before the Purpofes of living are made good, and its Work done. But Happy, Happy They, who, after the moft diftreffed, the moft laborious, the moft defpifed Inftances of their Virtue, can fing this Song of Triumph to themfelves; that they have been faithful in their Charge, and done what it was their Duty to do. If fuch partake in the Afflictions, and Reproaches, and Death of their Saviour; they fhall affuredly be recompenfed, by partaking in his Refurrection. And, when they give up the Ghoft, fhall immediately enter into the Joy of this their crucified Lord.

Rom. vi. 3, 4, 5,
II, 12.

Gal. ii. 20.

vi. 14.
Colof. ii. 11, 12.

G

Eafter Even.

The COLLECTS.

Rant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the Death of thy bleffed Son our Saviour Jefus Chrift, fo by continual mortifying our corrupt Affections, we may be buried with him; and that, through the grave and gate of death, we may pafs to our joyful Refurrection, for his Merits, who died, and was buried, and rofe again for us, thy Son Jes fus Chrift our Lord. Amen.

PARAPHRASE.

18. Of which Suffering Chrift hath left us a Pattern, who died for the establishing an Ac

The EPISTLE.

1 Pet. iii. 17.

17. TT is better, if the will of God be fo, that ye juffer
I
for well-doing, than for evil-doing.

18. For Chrift alfo bath once fuffered for fins, the juft for the unjuft, (that he might bring us to God) being put to death in the flesh, but quickned by the fpirit.

cefs to, and Friendship with God, for finful Men; and, being perfectly Innocent, took the Punishment of our Sins upon him: But that Body of his, which thus died, was raised again by that Divine Spirit.

20. Which was always urging wicked Men to Repentance, and by the impulfe whereof Noab preached Repentance to

19. By which also be went and preached unto the Spirits in prifon.

20. Which femetime were disobedient, when once the long-fuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, subile the Ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight Souls were faved by water.

the old World, and by building the Ark warned them of the Judgment of God

in the approaching Deluge.

21. Zba

21. The like figure whereunto even Baptifm doth alfo now fave us, (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good confcience towards God) by the refurrection of Jefus Chrift.

21. And his Family,

faved by the Ark fwiming on the Water, was a Type of the Church of Chrift, faved by the Sacrament of Baptifm. But, as there, it was not the Water, or the Ark, but the Righteoufnefs and Obedience of Noab that preferved him; So neither here is it the Water which cleanses the Flesh, but the Covenant on this occasion folemnly ftipulated, and the faithful obfervance of it, that faves us in Baptifm. The efficacy of which Sacrament for our Juftification is affured to us, by our Lord's rifing again.

22. Who, from and for his Sufferings and Humiliation here below, is now with his

22. Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God, Angels, and Authorities, and Powers being made fubject unto him.

Human Body vefted with Supreme Authority in Heaven, and Ruler of the whole Intellectual World. For of what degree or dignity foever the Spirits that compofe it be, all of them are entirely fubject to his Government.

TH

COMMENT.

HE Epiftle for the Day, like the Day it self, prefents to our Minds Two differing Views. The One, a Retrospect upon our dying, The Other, A most comfortable Profpect upon our Rifen, Lord. With regard to the Former, We are, by his Example, excited to Patience in our Sufferings, even when thofe Sufferings are extreme and unjuft. With regard to the Latter, we are informed, that our Lord return'd to Life, 'by virtue of that Eternal Spirit; which, long before his Incarnation, ftrove with finful Men, by seasonable Inftructions and Warnings, to prevent the difmal Confequences of a God provoked to Anger. The Inefficacy of which good Office brought Destruction upon all the old World, except one Obedient Family, by the fweeping of a Deluge, dreadful and general, as the Impieties that had let it in upon them.

That Deliverance we likewife learn from hence, to have been a Figure of the Sacrament of Baptifm; as the Ark, containing Noah and his Family, was a Figure of the Church. None were then preferved, whom that Ark did not bear upon the Water; In like man

ner, it is by Baptifm, and in the Church, only, that Men can now be (orderly) faved, from their Sins here, and everlasting Death hereafter. The Efficacy of this Sacrament is however afcribed, not to the outward Element applied to the Body, but to the inward Difpofition of the Mind, in Them, who are received by it into this fpiritual Ark. This Difpofition is to be expreffed, by declarations of the Party's willingnefs, to enter into Covenant with God, and to expect Salvation upon the Terms of the Gofpel. A part of Baptifm fo neceffary, that it does not appear, that it antiently was, or that it ever ought to be, adminiftred without fuch Declaration. And therefore fuch Confent is rightly demanded of all Baptized Perfons: Expected from all of Years and Difcretion to be given by themfelves: Accepted for Infants by the Charity of the Church, from Sureties in Their Name; But required to be perfonally ratified by These too, in the too much neglected Rite of Confirmation; at a time, when they are capable of contracting for Their part of this Co

venant.

The Salvation, attained by thus entring into Covenant with God, is moft rightfully afcribed here to our Lord's Refurrection. That being the Evidence, that the Sins he died for were fully expiated, and, that Immortality was restored to the Nature, in which he died. The Release of our Surety was, in all reasonable conftruction, an acknowledgment, that our Debt was fully fatisfied: And a fufficient foundation for the firmest Faith, in the Merits of Him, who died, and was buried, and rofe again for us.

And

But Faith alone, we know, is not fufficient. Every important Article of the Chriftian Religion ought to have a powerful Influence upon our Practice. therefore neither do we confider, nor believe, our Lord's Burial aright, unless That alfo be imitated, and drawn into Example. 'Tis a pious Obfervation, frequent a

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