Secondly, Positively.
1. God's desertion of us, or any creature, may be understood with a respect to his communicating himself to us. We have a twofold apprehension of God, as a holy and happy being ; and when he doth communicate himself to any reasonable creature, it is either in a way of holiness or in a way of happiness. He doth now in the kingdom of grace communicate himself more in a way of holiness, but in the king-
2G8 THE NINTH SERMON. [MaT. XXVII. 46.
(lorn of p:lory fully in a way of happiness, both as to the body and the soul. These two have such a respect to one another, that he never gives felicity and glory without holiness, Ileb. xii. 14. And a holy creature can never be utterly and finally miserable. He may some- times give holiness without happines.s, as when for a while he leaveth the sanctified, whom he will try and exercise under the cross, or in a state of sorrow and atUiction ; therefore holiness is the more necessary. In his internal government God doth all by his Spirit ; now the Spirit is more necessarily a sanctifier than a comforter. It was by the Spirit that Christ was with God, and God with Christ ; therefore his deser- tion of Christ, or any creature, must be mainly understood with respect to the Spirit working in any, either as to holiness or comfort. When God \vithdraweth either holiness or happiness, one of them, or both, or any degree of them, from any creature, he is said to desert them. Now ajjply this to Christ. It is blasphemy to say that Christ lost any degree of his holiness, for he was always i)ure and holy, and that most exactly and perfectly ; therefore he was deserted only as to his felicity, and that but for a short time.
2. The felicity of Christ may be considered, either as to his out- ward and bodily estate, or else to his inward man, or the estate of his soul.
[1.] Some say his desertion was nothing else but his being left to the will and power of his enemies to crucify him, and that he was then deserted when his divine nature suspended the exercise of its omnipo- tency so far as to deliver up his body to a reproachful death, so to make way for this oblation and sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. God could many ways have i)rotected Christ, and hindered his passion : Mat. xxvi. 52, 53, ' Thinkest thou that I cannot pray to my Father, and he shall give me more than twelve legions of angels ? But how tlien could the scri[)tures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?' If the Lord had seen it fit to glorify himself by the deliverance, rather than the sufferings of Christ, lie could have found ways and means enough to save him ; but how then could our redemption be accomplished ? Christ himself by his divine power could have protected his bodily life, for he telleth us : John x. 18, ' No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.' But it i)leased God to appoint, and Christ to submit to another course, and theiefore was he so far deserted, and left in the hand of his enemies. He telleth them, Luke xxii. 53, ' This is your hour, and the power of darkness.' This, some say, was all Christ's desertion ; and that he cried out with a loud voice, in the hearing of all, ' My God, my God, why hast thou hjrsaken me ?' to give notice of the price that was to be paid for our ransom. He complained not of the Jews that had accused him, nor of Pilate that con- demned him, nor of Judas that had l)etraye(l him ; but of God that had forsaken him, and left him in the hands of his enemies, as if this were the most grievous thing to the Son of God. But certainly this was not all ; the desertion was not only in his outward estate, and with respect to bodily death, for these reasons : —
(1.) Why should Christ complain of that so bitterly, which he did so readily and willingly undergo, and might so easily have prevented,
]\IaT. XXVII. 46.] THE NINTH SERMON. 269
and which was most obvious, and so clearly foreseen in his sufferings ? He foretold it again and again to his disciples, and spake it to his enemies ; and should he now represent it as a strange thing ? Surely these strong cries were not extorted from him by the mere fear and horror of bodily death. I confess he died not insensibly, but showed the reality of all human passions ; yet there was no reason why he should so bitterly and lamentably complain, if nothing else but bodily death had been in the case, and that brought upon him by his enemies.
(2.) If we look merely to bodily pains and sufferings, certainly others have endured as much if not more, as the thieves that were crucified Avitli him lived longer in their torments, and the good thief did not complain that he was forsaken of God. Peter was crucified, and that with his head downwards, as ecclesiastical history tells us, which, as it was greater cruelty in the adversaries, so also greater pain to him ; and yet he trusted that Grod would sustain him and sup]-)ort him under it. Therefore, certainly, there was something greater and more grievous to the soul of Christ tlian these bodily pains, which drew this lamentable and loud cry from him.