466 SERMON UPON JOHN III. 14, 15.
Now he is evidently set forth to you, your business is to behold him. And that this look may be serious, remember —
1. This is supposed, that you come hither as stun<jj with sin, and that your hearts are deeply affected with your malady. Alas ! other- wise here is no work to do. If men are not sensible of their malady, why should they look after a remedy : Mat. ix. 12, 13, ' They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' None but the bur- dened will look out for ease, or the self-condemned for pardon. If sin be not sin indeed, grace will not be grace indeed. Christ was anointed 'to heal the broken-hearted,' Luke iv. 18.
2. Your sight of Christ must not merely be historical and literal, the work of the understanding and memory, but of faith. A few cold thoughts raised upon this occasion do not warm and comfort the heart. You are to look to him so as that the heart be affected with mourning, desire, and trust.
[1.] Mourning for sin. If you are sensible of your case you will do so. A slight glance of the thoughts leaveth no impression. Look, as the three Marys, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen, they were affected when they saw Christ dying, John xix. 25, 26 ; of one of them it is said, Luke ii. 35, ' Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also ; ' so do you : Acts ii. 37, ' When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.'
[2.] Desire. Would not the stung Israelite desire a cure? So must you : Mat. v. 6, ' Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.' Saith the church. Lam. iii. 51, ' Mine eye affecteth my heart.'
[3.] Trust. You see nothing by the eye of sense but his memorials, which God hath instituted as helps of faith, yet to appearance as despicable and as unlikely to produce any great effect as a figure of brass to cure a raging wound. But things under an institution are under a blessing : 1 Cor. i. 21, ' It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.' You may think a crucifix a more lively representation. No ; that is not under the blessing of an institution, as bread broken and wine poured forth is ; that is too much a matter of sense, and begetteth bare thoughts, which stirreth up fond pity and gross and wrong thoughts. This conveyeth a blessing : You are to behold not only a dying man put to a cruel death, but the Son of God in his deep exinanition ; not carnally to pity him, but to see his love and the wrath of God and the desert of sin, that you may abhor it ; to see the great price paid for our ransom, the necessity of having the virtue of his cross, and finally our thankful subjection to God. Behold him that you may bless and praise God for your redeemer. The type had its effect, and shall not Christ? Oh! labour to feel the comfortable effects of his death.
3. Beg of God the Spirit to open your eyes. Christ crucified is only seen in the light and evidence of the Spirit : 1 Cor. ii. 4, ' My speech and my preaching was not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.' The eyes of our minds are opened by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, for our light is but darkness.
SERMON UPON JOHN III. 14, 15. 467
4. See him so as to expect not only comfort, but healing : Isa. liii. 5, ' With his stripes we are healed.' That heart is to be suspected that looks to comfort more than duty. Look to him that you may live by him : Gal. ii. 20, ' I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.' Look to him that you may be like him : 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' For we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' Look to him that you may loathe sin : Ezek. xxxvi. 31, ' Then shall you remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abomi- nations.'
SERMONS UPON 1 THESSALOMANS V. 16.
SERMON L
Bejoice eoermore. — 1 Thes. v. 16.
The words are brief and short, and therefore they may be easily car- ried away. They are independent on the context, and therefore will need no long deduction. They press you not to a painful, but pleasant duty ; therefore you should be readily induced to practise it. But yet, when we look more intrinsically into the nature of it, it is not so easy as we first imagined. Every one cannot receive this saying ; it is hard to keep the heart in such an exact frame as to ' rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything to give thanks ; ' as Christ saith in another case, ' He that is able to receive it, let him receive it,' Mat. xix. 12. But what if we prove it to be a duty incumbent on all chris- tians, and that at all times ? The text seemeth to enforce it, ' Eejoice evermore.'