when be came into the world, but now he ascends : that was an act of his hu- miUation, this of exaltation. The highest created throne that God can sit in is the soul of a believer ; no wonder then that Christ calls all his friends to joy with him at a soul's return to him and reception of him, Luke xv. 9. What joy- is now in heaven upon this occasion we may collect from the joy it drew from Christ when on earth. It was some great good news that could wring a smile then from Christ, or tvme his spirit into a joyful note, who was a man of sorrows, and indeed came into the world to be so ; yet when his disciples, whom he had sent forth to preach the gospel, returned with news of some victorious success of their labours, ' in that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father,' Luke x. 21. Of all the hours of his life, that is the hour wherein Christ would express his joy; Avhich, with the care of the Spirit to record this passage in the history of Christ's life, shews that Christ had an especial design in that expression of his joy at that time ; and what could it be, but to let us know how much his heart was set upon the work of saving souls ? and that when he should be gone to heaven, if we meant to send any joyful news to him thither, it should be of the prosperous and victorious success the gospel hath over our hearts? This, this which could make him rejoice in the midst of his sorrows here on earth, must be more joj'ous to him in heaven, now that he hath no bitterness from his own sufferings, which are all healed, past, and gone, to mingle with the joy of this news ; and, if the kind reception of the gospel be such joyful news to him, you may easily conceive how distasteful the rejecting of it is to him. As he rejoiced in spirit to hear the gospel prevailed, so he cannot but be angry when it meets with a repulse from the unbelieving world. Luke xiv. 21, we find the master of the house, that is Christ, angry when his servants sent to invite his guests, that is, preach the gospel, return with a denial from those that were bidden, for so their mannerly excuses were interpreted by Christ ; yea, so angry, that he claps a fearful doom upon them; ' Not one of those invited shall taste of my supper.' God can least bear any contempt cast upon his grace. The Jews, though they had many grievous calamities befell them for their idolatrous and other sins, yet never any like that which their rejecting Christ brought upon them : under those they relented, but under this they hardened. They would not come when the supper was on the table ; and therefore the cloth was drawn, and they go supperless to bed, and die in tlieir sins : while they shut the door of their hearts against Christ, this padlock, as I may call it, of judiciary impenitence is fastened to it. Christ needs take no other revenge on a soul for its refusing him, to make it miserable to the height, than to condemn such a one to have its own desire : Chi-ist thou wilt not, Christ therefore thou shalt not, have. O unhappy soul ! thou hast offers of Christ, but diest without Christ. Thou goest with thy full lading to damnation : none sink so deep in hell as those that fall into it with stumbling at Christ. That gospel which brings now good news, will, when thou shalt have a repetition sermon of it at the great day, bring the heaviest tidings with it that thy ears ever heard.
Section IV. — Secondly, To you who have entertahied the message of the gospel. First, Rejoice at the news: glad tidings, and sad hearts, do not well together. When we see one heavy and sorrowful, we ask him what ill news he hath heard. Christian, what ill news hath Christ brought from heaven with him that makes thee walk with thy folded arms and pensive countenance ? Psa. cxxxii. 16. To see a wicked man merry and jocund, or a Christian sad and dumpish, is alike uncomely. ' A feast is made for laughter,' saith Solomon, Eccles. X. 19. I am sure God intended his people's joy in the feast of the gospel : mourners were not to sit at God's table, Deut. xxvi. Truly the saint's heaviness reflects unkindly upon God himself: we do not commend his cheer, if it doth not cheer us. Wliat saith the world? The Christian's life is but a melancholy walk. Sure, thinks the carnal wretch, it is a dry feast they sit at, where so little wine of joy is drunk. And wilt thou confirm them in this their opinion, Christian? Shall they have thy example to produce against Christ and his word, which promise peace and joy to all that will come to this feast? O, God forbid that thy conversation, wherein thou art to hold forth the word of life, to live in the eyes of the world, and which ought to be as a comment or gloss upon the word, to clear up the truth and reality of it to others ; that this should
THE GOSPEL OF PEACE. 35 J