Christ calls off your eyes and thoughts from all other objects to himself; Isa. Ixv. 11. ' I said. Behold me ! behold me !' JFix the eye of faith here, and you will feel a pang quickly coming upon your hearts like that. Cant. ii. 5. " Stay me with flaggons, comfort me with apples; I am sick with love."" Your eyes will affect your hearts; whilst you behold, your hearts will melt within you.
He tJuit spared not his ozcn Son, but delivered him np for us all ; hozi' shall he not with him freely give us all things,
X HIS scripture contains a most weighty argument to encourage and confirm the faith of Christians in the expectation of all spiritual and temporal mercies. It proceeds from the greater to the less af- firmatively : he that delivered his Son for us, what can he deny us after such a gift ? Every word hath its weight.
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Did not God spare (i. e. abate) any thing which his justice could in- flict upon his Son, his own Son, opposed here to his adopted sons, as being infinitely more excellent than they, and most dear to him above and beyond all others ? but, on the contrary, delivered him up, how dear soever he was unto him, to humiliation, contradiction of sinners, to all sorrows and temptations, yea, to death, and that of the cross, and all this^or us, for us sinners, for us enemies to God, for us imlovely wretches ; " How shall he not with him freely give us all things?'' How is it imaginable that God should withhold, after this, spirituals or temporals, from his people ? How shall he not call them effectually, justify them freely, sanctify them thoroughly, and glorify them eternally ? How shall he not clothe them, feed them, protect and deliver them ?
Surely if he would not spare or abate to his own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from hi$ people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any com- forts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them, and needful to them. So that in the words we find, 1. A proposition. S. An inference from it.
The proposition opens the severity of God's justice to Christ ; the inference declares the riches of his mercy to us in Christ.
1. We have here before us a proposition, containing the severity of divine justice towards Christ; and this is expressed two ways, viz.
1^'^, Negatively, he spared him not.
^dli/, Affirmatively, he delivered him up for us.
1^^, Negatively ; He spared not his ozon Son. There is a threefold mercy of God, viz. Preventing mercy, which steps betwixt us and trouble : delivering mercy, which takes us out of the hand of trouble : and sparing mercy, which though it do not prevent nor deliver, yet it mitigates, allays, and graciously moderates our troubles ; and though sparing mercy be desirable and sweet, yet it is the least and lowest sort of mercy that God exercises towards any. Though it be mercy to have the time of sufferings shortened,or one degree of suffering abated, yet these are the lowest and least effects of mercy ; and yet these were denied Jesus Christ, when he stood in our room to satisfy for us : God spared not one drop, he abated not one degree of that wrath which Christ was to suffer for us.
2d!t/, Affirmatively ; but on the contrary. He delivered him up for us all.
He delivered him, as a judge by sentence of law delivers up the prisoner to be executed. It is true Pilate delivered him up to be cru- cified, and he also gave himself for us : but betwixt God's dehvering, Pilate's delivering, and his own, there is this difference to be observed; in God it was an act of highest justice ; in Pilate an act of greatest wickedness ; in himself, an act of wonderful obedience.
God, as by an act of highest justice, delivered him upj^r us. For
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ft^, notes the viccgerency of his sufferings, not only for our good, as the final cause ; nor only for our $ins, as the meritorious cause ; but for us, (i. e.) in our room, place, or stead according to 1 Pet. iii. 18. and a Cor. v. 14.
2. We have also here before us a most sweet and comfortable in- ference and conclusion from this proposition : If God have so delivered him, how shall he not with him freely give us all things ? For Christ comprehends all other mercies in himself; therefore in giving him Jbr us, all other mercies are necessarily with him given to us.
And these mercies the poorest, weakest believer in the world may warrantably expect from God ; for as God delivered him^r us all, so the treasures of all spiritual and temporal mercies are thereby freely opened to us all, to the weak, as well as to the strong.
He saith not, Christ was delivered for all absolutely, but^r us all ; i. e. all that believe, all that are elected and (tailed ; in whose person it is manifest the apostle here speaks, as Parasus on the place well observes. Hence these two doctrinal conclusions fairly offer themselves.
Doct. 1. That the rigour and severity of divine justice was exe- cuted upon Jesus Christ, when he siifferedfor us.
Doct. 2. That believers may strongly infer the greatest of mercies to themselves, from the severity of God! s justice to Jesus Christ.
I would willingly speak to both these points at this time, each af- fording such proper matter of meditation to us in such a season as this. To begin therefore with the first observation. Doct. 1. That the rigour and severity of divine justice was executed
upon Jesus Christ, when he siifferedfor us ; God did not spare him.
In Zech. xiii. 7- you have God's commission given to the sword of justice, to smite his own Son, and that without pity ; " Awake, O sword, agaiast my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow; smite the Shepherd," &c. And when this commission came to be ex- cuted upon Christ, the text tells us, God did not spare him ; all the vials of his wrath were poured out to the last drop.
Two things require our attention in this point : 1. Wherein the se- verity of justice to Christ appeared. 2. Why must justice be executed on him in such rigour and severity ? Why there could be no abate- ment, mitigation, or sparing mercy shewn him in that day ?
1. Wherein the severity of divine justice to Christ appeared ? And this will manifest itself in the consideration of the following particu- lars.
First, Let us consider what Jesus Christ suffered, and we shall see the severity of justice in his sufferings, for he suffered all kinds of miseries, and that in the most intense degree of them : His sufferings were from all hands, from heaven, earth, and hell ; from his enemies, who con- demned him, buffeted him, reviled him, scourged, and crucified him; from his own disciples and followers, one of whom perfidiously be*
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trayed bim, another openly denied him, and all in the hour of his greatest trouble forsook and abandoned him.