Let these things then persuade you to consider whether you are of the number of those whose sins Christ bare in his body.
But you will say, How shall we know whether we be of that number ?
I answer in these propositions : —
1. Your first care must not be to look to God's election. Hidden things belong to God ; man must regard duty : Deut. xxix. 29, ' The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever.' We are overwise when we would pry into the secrets of heaven. God's secret will hatli relation to his own actions, his revealed will to ours. We must not look to what he w^ill do, but what he will have us do.
2. Our duty is to believe till the matter be cleared to us. Beg faith, or act faith. There is a double act : To look upon Christ as bearing the sins of the world, and to see a full satisfaction in Christ, and so at least a possibility for our souls being saved : John i. 29, ' Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.' See him bearing sins upon the cross. Men bear their own sins when they cannot look up : Ps. xl. 12, ' Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up.' Oh, be not always poring upon sin ; a wound always rubbed cannot be cured. See a satis- faction made by Christ, and so you may have comfort in Christ. Secondly, To present Christ to the Father in your own behalf ; show him your surety, lay your hands upon the head of tlie sacrifice before the Lord : when the debt is satisfied, God looketh that you should come to him for an acquittance. Oh, desire it may be sealed up to your souls; say. Lord, was not thy justice satisfied in Christ? Do
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not make particular exceptions where God makes none. This is that God hath required of thee, to believe and fetch out your pardon. Oh, there hangeth a weight of guilt upon you, and he invited the heavy laden to come to him for ease and rest. Thus doing, 3-ou may haply come to know and to determine that you are of the number.
3. This being done, God is many times pleased to clear it up fully to some of his people, that their names were some of those that were given to Christ, whose sins he was to bear and expiate ; thy name is written upon the breast of thy High Priest, and thy sins upon his back. Those that lie in the bosom of Christ, they have the Spirit of Christ, that revealeth the secrets of, heaven to them, the purposes and decrees of love ; the sealed fountain is broke open, and joys flow in upon their spirits. And there are dispositions by which the soul conclndefh her interest in Christ. I shall name two. They are —
[1.] A humble and thankful acknowledgment in the sense] of so great a privilege ; the soul admireth the mercy, and wondereth that he should look after such poor worms as we are, that he should give Christ a charge concerning us, and trust Christ with the care and good of their souls, the expiation of their sins. I say, the sense of all this maketh them humble and thankful : 1 Peter ii. 9, ' That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of dark- ness into his marvellous light.'
[2.] There will be answerable effects to such a privilege in heart and life : 1 Peter ii. 24, ' Who his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteous- ness.' Corruptions are more mortified, and graces more quickened. If Christ bare our sins, we shall feel his Spirit ; he will exchange with us. He felt the wrath of God, and we feel the joys of his Spirit. He took our sins, and he will not leave till he hath communicated to us his grace and glory.
And he made intercession for the transgressors.
These words are the fourth considerable particular in Christ's con- flict, a noted circumstance either at or upon his death. Some make them to be of a more private and restrained sense ; others, of a more public and general. I shall exclude neither, for they are one sub- ordinate to the other. Those that look upon them as words of a private and particular concernment, make them to relate to that prayer of Christ on the cross, Luke xxiii. 34, ' Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ; ' a circumstance that extremely commendeth the love and patience of Christ, when, in the midst of the extremity of his sufferings, he doth not think of revenge and re- taliation, but of mercy, and doing his persecutors good. Others look upon them as if the prophet did aim at some greater matter, namely, as implying the whole mediation and intercession of Christ, which as a high priest he presenteth to the Father, and by virtue of it pleadeth to him in our behalf. I shall exclude neither of these senses ; for the former is but a part and pledge of this, it is a discovery of those bowels that are in Christ to poor sinners.