[3.] Christ's death is the best glass wherein to view the deadly nature of sin. It was so great and heinous an evil in the sight of God, that nothing but the blood of the Son of God could expiate it : Rom. viii. 3, ' For what the law cOuld not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.' Jesus Christ must come and suffer a shameful death ; this painful, shameful, accursed death of the Son of God showeth God's displeasure against sin, and what it will cost us if we allow it, and indulge it in our hearts and lives ; for if this be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?
[4.] It showeth us also what a great benefit mortification is. This among others was intended by him, and moved him to bear our sins in his body on the tree : 1 Peter ii. 24, ' Who his own self bare our
VeR. 6.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI, 199
sins in his body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness.' To remember a good turn done by a friend, and not to prize and vahie it as we ought, is rather to forget than to remember his friendhness. So here, if we do not prize Christ's benefits, we undervalue his death, and a lessening of the benefits is a lessening the price. Kow one of the chief of them is to take away sin, and to break the reign of it in the heart of his renewed ones. This argument seemeth to be urged, 1 Peter i. ]8, 19, 'Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversations, but with the precious blood of Christ,' &c. If there be a liberty purchased and bought at so dear a rate, and then proclaimed, and we will not accept it, it is a plain slighting the benefit we have by Christ.
[5.] The sins of christians, who profess a communion with his death, are more criminal and scandalous than the sins of heathens. They never heard of the Son of God, that came to redeem them from their vain conversations at so high a rate as his own precious blood. They never were called solemnly to vow integrity of life and conversa- tion, as a service due to that Kedeemer, as is done by christians in baptism. All this we believe, and this some have done, and yet dis- obeyed our master's will. Heathens had no expectation of any gracious immortal reward, feared no dreadful doom nor sentence after death. We are hedged in within the compass of our duty both on the right hand and the left : on the right hand with the hopes of a most blessed everlasting estate ; on the left, with the fears of an endless and never-dying death : all which are included in our baptism, and so, if nil be not mockery, our old man is crucified with Christ.
[6.] A christian's living in sin is a greater injury to Christ than the persecution of the Jews that crucified him, because we daily and hourly do that which is more against his holy will. The rule for measuring the greatness of our personal injury and wrong is the opposition which the act includelh to the will and liking of the party who is displeased and wronged. Well, then, which is most displeasing to Christ, his dying for sin, or our living in sin ? Surely his dying for sin, as an act of obedience to his father, or love to us, was very pleasing to Christ : Ps. xl. 8, ' I delight to do thy will, 0 my God, yea, thy law is within my heart.' He is more willing to suffer death for us than to suffer us to live and die in our sins. You will say, That is not the case we speak of, not the submission of Christ, but the Jews' act. But this will not lessen the argument, if we compare the Jews' act with our disobedience ; that was against his human life, this is against his office. Now, as Christ preferred his office above his human and natural life, so those that neglect his office or contradict his office are more offensive to him than those who did wrong to his natural life. Therefore those that profess Christianity, and yet live in their sins, do more wrong to him than Judas, or Annas and Caiaphas, or any that had a hand in his death merely as such. They did wrong to Christ indeed, as Cain did to Abel when he took away the life of his innocent biother ; and these personal wrongs are more unpleasing to his holy will as the Son of God than unto the afl'ections of his human nature as the son of David, as sins against God more
200 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. [SeR. V.
than as injuries against a man. But for us, who pretend to adore and worship him, our crime is the more horrid, because we buikl those things again wliich he came to destroy, and so evacuate the fruit of his sufferings, and make his office of no effect, and thereby take part with the devil, the world, and the flesh against him.