afflictions, fears, doubts, conflicts, and disputes, be persuaded to keep a fixed eye upon crucified Jesus ; and remember that all he did he did for you, and that all he sufifered he suffered for you ; and this will be a strong cordial to keep you from fainting under all your inward and outward distresses, according to that saying of one of the ancients, Turbabor, sed non perturbabor, quia vulnerum Christi recordabor, I may be troubled, but I shall not be overwhelmed, because I remember the print of the nails and of the spear in the hands and side of Jesus Christ, [Augustine.] Oh that Christians would labour, under all their soul-troubles, to keep a fixed eye upon a bleeding Christ ; for there is nothing that will ease them, quiet them, settle them, and satisfy them like this. Many, may I not say most, Christians are more apt to eye their sins, their sorrows, their prayers, their tears, their resolves, their complaints, than they are to eye a suffering Christ ; and from hence springs their greatest woes, wounds, miseries, and dejection of spirit. Oh that a crucified Christ might be for ever in your eye, and always upon your hearts I But,
7. Seventhly and lastly. Hath Jesus Christ suffered such great and grievous things ? Then this truth holes sadly and sourly upon the papists. In this red glass of Christ's blood, you may see how vain and wicked, how ridiculous and superstitious the devices of the papists are, who for pacifying of God's wrath, and for the allaying of his anger, and for satisfying his justice, and for the obtaining of pardon, &c., have appointed penances and pilgrimages, and self-scourgings and soul-masses, and purgatory, and several other suchlike abominations, which the Scripture nowhere commands, but everywhere forbids ; which inventions and abominations of theirs tend only to derogate from the dignity and sufficiency of Christ's sufferings, and to reflect dishonour and disgrace upon that full and perfect price that Christ hath paid for our ransom, and to set up other saviours in the room of our blessed Redeemer.! Certainly all Popish pardons, penances, pilgrimages, masses, whippings, scourgings, &c., they unavoidably fall before the sufierings of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Dagon fell before the ark, Goliath before David, Haman before Mordecai, and as the darkness falls before the morning light ; and as for their purgatory, they do not know certainly where it is, nor how long it will last, nor what sort of fire is there ; neither can they shew us how corporeal fire should work upon the souls in purgatory, they being spiritual and incorporeal ; they cannot tell us whether the pains of purgatory be at all times alike, neither can they tell us whether the good or evil angels are the tormentors of the souls in purgatory ; and as for the whipping, scald- ing, freezing of souls in purgatory, they are but * old wives' fables,' and the brain-sick fancies of some deceitful persons, to cheat poor ignorant people of their money, under a blind pretence of praying their souls out of purgatory. Christ off'ered himself * once for all,' Heb. x. 10, but the Eomish priests offer him up daily in the mass, an unbloody sacrifice ; and so they do what lies in them to ' tread under foot the
* Surely that religion that loves to lap blood, and that ia propagated and maintained by blood, and that prefers their own inventions and abominations before the blood and Bufferings of Christ, that religion ia not of God but such is the Komish religion — o-go their reUgion ia not of God.
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blood of God, the blood of the covenant,' Acts xx. 28 ; Heb. x. 29. To be short, Popery in eftect is nothing else but an underhand, close witness-bearing against Christ in all his offices, and against all that he hath done and suffered for the redemption and salvation of sinners, as might be made abundantly evident, but that I may not now launch out into that ocean. I only give this brief touch by the way, that I might raise up in all your hearts a greater detestation of Popery, in this day wherein many are so warm for it, as if it were their only Diana. And let thus much suffice concerning the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and' the improvement that we should make of them.
Thus you may clearly see, by what I have said concerning the active and passive obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ, that whatsoever we are bound to do or suffer by the law of God, all that did Christ do and suffer for us, as being our surety and mediator, ^ Now the law of God hath a double challenge or demand upon us ; one is of active obedience, in ful- filling what it requires ; the other is of passive obedience, in suffering that punishment which is due to us for the transgression of it, in doing what it forbids : for as we were created by God, we did owe unto him all obedience which he required ; and as we sinned against God, we did owe unto him a suffering of all that punishment which he threatened ; and we being fallen by transgression, can neither pay the one debt, nor yet the other. Of ourselves we can do nothing that the law requires; neither can we so suffer as to satisfy God in his justice wronged by us, or to recover ourselves into life and favour again. And therefore Jesus Christ, who was God-man, did become our surety, and stood in our stead or room, and he did perform what we should but could not perform, and he did bear our sins and our sorrows, he did suffer and bear for us what we ourselves should have borne and suffered, whereby he did fully satisfy the justice of God, and made our peace, and purchased pardon and life for us. Christ did fully answer to all the demands of the law, he did come up to perfect and universal conformity to it. He did whatever the law enjoins, and he suffered whatever the law threatens. Christ, by his active and passive obedi- ence, hath fulfilled the law most exactly and completely. Gal. iii. 13. As he was perfectly holy, he did what the law commanded, and as he was made a curse, he underwent what the law threatened ; and all this he did and suffered in our steads and as our surety. Whatever Christ did as our surety, he made it good to the full ; so that neither the righteous God, nor yet the righteous law, could ever tax him with the least defect. And this must be our great plea, our choice, our sweet, our safe, our comfortable, our acceptable plea, both in the day of our particular accounts when we die, and in the great day of our account, when a crucified Saviour shall judge the world. Although sin, as an act, be transient, yet in the guilt of it, it lies in the Lord's high court of justice, filed upon record against the sinner, and calling aloud for deserved punishment, saying, Man hath sinned, and man must suffer for sin ! But now Christ has suffered, that plea is taken off. Lo here, saith the Lord, the same nature that sinned, suffereth ; mine own