« profit and advantage of our souls ; inasmuch as Christ, by this " very prayer, hath delivered them into his Father's hand, as a " precious treasure, whenever the time comes that they are to be " loosed from the bodies which they now inhabit *.11 Jesus Christ neither lived nor died for himself, but for believers ; what he did in this very act, refers to them as well as to his own soul : You must look therefore upon Christ, in this last and solemn act of his life, as gathering all the souls of the elect together, and making a solemn tender of them all, with his own soul to God.
Secondly, The depository, or person to whom he commits this precious treasure, and that was to his own Father : " Father, into " thy hands I commend my spirit." Father is a sweet encouraging, assuring title : Well may a son commit any concernment, how dear soever, into the hands of a father, especially such a son into the hands of such a father. " By the hands of the Father into which " he commits his soul, we are not to understand the naked or " mere power, but the fatherly acceptation and protection of
Thirdly, The deposit um, or thing committed into this hand, [my spirit] i. e. my soul, now instantly departing, upon the very point of separation from my body. The soul is the most precious of all treasures, it is called the darling, Psal. xxxv. 17. or, " the " only one J," i. e. that which is most excellent, and therefore most dear and precious : A whole world is but a trifle, if weighed, for the price of one soul, Mat. xvi. 26. This inestimable treasure he now commits into his Father's hands.
Fourthly, The Act by which he puts it into that faithful hand of the Father, KagaOnttofiai, I commend §. We rightly render it in the present tense, though the word be future : For, with these words he breathed out his soul. This word is of the same import with tfvMftfcuj, I present, or tender it into thy hands ; It was in Christ an act of Faith, a most special and excellent act intended as a prece- dent for all his people.
Fifthly, and lastly, The last thing observable is, the manner in which he uttered these words, and that was with a loud voice;
* Hccc Christi commendatioy in animarum nostrarum commodum cedebat. Quippe quas. Me a colore quod inhabit aver ant absolutas, quasi quoddam depositum, in Dei vioentis manu ex orations tradebat. Vict. Antioch. in Mark ix.
f Manus htec patris alias Dei potentiam significant^ hie veto paternum Dei pnssidium^ fyc. Parens.
§ TLaeaQ'/iGOfACti, i. e. ffvvizqfU. Erasmus observes that the word here used, signi^ fies, I will commend, for even in Psal. xxxi. 6. whence these words of Christ are taken, the word Vp^N is read in the future tense. Sex,
444 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SEItM. XXXVT.
he spake it that all might hear it, and that his enemies, who judged him now destitute and forsaken of God, might be convinced that he was not so, but that he was dear to his Father still, and could put his soul confidently into his hands : " Father, into thy " hands I commend my spirit." Taking then these words, not only as spoken by Christ, the head of all believers, and so com- mending their souls to God with his own, but also as a pattern, teaching them what they ought to do themselves, when they come to die. We observe,
Doct. That dying believers are both warranted, and encouraged, by Chrisfs example, believingly to commend their precious souls into the hands of' God.
Thus the apostle directs the faith of Christians, to commit their souls to God's tuition and fatherly protection, when they are either going into prisons, or to the stake for Christ, 1 Pet. iv. 9. " Let them (saith he) that suffer according to the will of God, " commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto " a faithful Creator."
This proposition we will consider in these two main branches of it, viz. what is implied and carried in the soufs commending itself to God by faith, when the time of separation is come. And what warrant or encouragement gracious souls have for so doing.
First, What is implied in this act of a believer, his commending or committing, his soul into the hands of God at death ?
And if it be thoroughly weighed, you will find these six things, at least, carried in it.
First, It implies this evidently in it *, That the soul outlives the body, and fails not, as to its being, when its body fails ; it feels the house in which it dwelt, dropping into ruins, and looks out for a new habitation with God. " Father, into thy hands I commend " my spirit." The soul understands itself a more noble being than that corruptible body, to which it was united, and is now to leave in the dust: it understands its relation to the Father of spirits, and from him it expects protection and provision in its un- bodied state ; and therefore into his hands it puts itself. If it va- nished, or breathed into air, and did not survive the body ; if it were annihilated at death, it were but a mocking of God to say, when we die, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
Secondly, It implies the souVs true rest to be in God. See which
* Whoever believes in Christ, will not at his death, breathe out his soul into the air, but fly to the faithful keeper of souls, who keeps in safety whatever is committed to him. Calv.
SERM. XXXVI. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 445
way its motions and tendencies are, not only in life, but in death also. It bends to its God : It reposes, it even puts itself upon its God and Father ; " Father, into thy hands." God is the centre of all gracious spirits. While they tabernacle here, they have no rest but in the bosom of their God : when they go hence, their expectation and earnest desires are to be with him *. It had been working after God by gracious desires before, it had cast many a longing look heaven-ward before; but when the gracious soul comes near its God (as it doth in a dying hour) " then it even " throws itself into his arms ;" as a river, that after many turn- ings and windings, at last is arrived to the ocean ; it pours itself with a central force into the bosom of the ocean, and there finishes its weary course. " Nothing but God can please it in this " world, and nothing but God can give it content when it goes " hence -J*." It is not the amcenity of the place, whither the gracious soul is going, but the bosom of the blessed God, who dwells there, that it so vehemently pants after ; not the Father's house, but the Father's arms and bosom : " Father, into thy hands I commend " my spirit : Whom have I in heaven but thee ? And on earth there '* is none that I desire in comparison of thee, Psal. lxxiii. 24, 25.