Now the ground of this is, God that hath raised up Jesus, will by Jesus do this. He considers of God as serveth his puqjose. It is an act of a Christian, of a discreet and wise soul, to single out of God those attributes and those actions that suit to his present distress or present condition ; as if a man be in perplexity, think of him as a God strong and wise ; if a man be in any trouble, think of him as a good and powerful God ; if a man be wronged, think of him as a God of vengeance. Thou God of vengeance, shew thyself! And when we be in any trouble and cast down, and dead, as troubled by others' deaths, then can God raise Christ out of the grave, who is our head. And out of the love that he loveth both mystical Christ and natural Christ, the Lord is gracious to all for his sake. He that loveth Christ as his own natural son loveth Christ mystical, all that be Christ's, with the same love that he loved Christ. As Christ himself prayeth he will embrace all such with the same love he loved himself withal, John xvii. 24, so God is well pleased and rests in his love, not only in his natural Son, but all that be his ; and therefore out of love to his own Son, as he hath raised up him and set him in heavenly places, he will raise up all them that be his, and are engrafted into him. He that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also. What is the consequence ? Because he hath raised up Jesus, therefore by Jesus he will raise us out of trouble. The ground is, Christ is a public person, and so in heaven is a public person, a second Adam, and raised up as a second Adam ; and therefore be raised up as [a] public person, and as a second Adam, and a root of all believers. He hath taken heaven in our place as our husband, and we sit in heavenly places with him ; and therefore God that raised up him will raise us up also. ' If Christ be risen, we shall rise.' There is no question of it, as he proveth at large, ' because I live ye shall live also,' John xiv. 19. I cannot follow the point, but it is a point you are acquainted with all, being an article of faith. Therefore see the gi'ound of this comfort. God will raise up us and bring us together, because he hath raised Jesus. He is the first-fruits of them that slept. Now all the harvest is blessed in the first-fruits. Our first-fruits is Christ now. And therefore we shall be here raised out of little deaths, and at the resurrection out of the great death, and be for ever with the Lord, which may teach us this comfortable observa- tion ; to see all our comforts in Christ first ; to see all we look for from God, first in Christ and then in ourselves. If we look for love from God, see his love on Christ first : ' He loveth us because he loveth him first,' and he loveth us in him. If we look to resurrection, ascension, or glory, see it in Christ first. If we look for the performance of any promise, see that promise in Christ first, for all are made for his sake, and made good in him, to Christ first and then to us. If we want any grace, see it in Christ first, for he hath fulness of the Spirit for our sakes : ' And of his fulness we have received, and grace for grace,' John i. 16. So that iu both
* Qu. ' with ' ?— Ed.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. IV, VER. 14. 4G3
estates of humiliation and exaltation severally, see all first in Christ and then in ourselves. Look on Christ in state of humiliation, and see our- selves there. ' Christ was a curse for us,' died for us. All this is for us. And see all the evil that bclongeth to us taken away by him in his state of humiliation. He humbled himself to death, and became a curse for us. And so in his state of exaltation in several degrees. See our resurrection in his resurrection, our ascension in his ascension, our sitting in heavenly places by his sitting in heavenly places. The ground is, the union I spake of before. And then God hath decreed that we shall be made conformable to his Son. * We must be conformable to Christ our elder brother.' We are chosen to be conformable to him. And therefore whatsoever was in him, there will be a conformableness in us thereunto. And we must be content to go to heaven as Christ went. ' He first suffered and then entered into glory,' 1 Peter i. 10, 11, he rose again, but he died first. We must be content to go to heaven by that way that our blessed head and Saviour hath gone before us. And if we do so, surely that God that raised him will raise us up too.
I beseech you, therefore, when we are to consider of any comfort, see it in Christ first, not only as a pattern to whom we must be conformed, but see it in Christ as a cause, because Christ will raise us up. We shall not only be raised because he is raised, and ascend because he is ascended, but God will raise us up with Jesus. Between God and us cometh Jesus, for all that comes from God comes from Jesus. So all that cometh from us to God must go through the mediation of Jesus. ' He that raised up Jesus will by Jesus raise us up.' Christ is not only a pattern of conformity, but likewise a cause. And it is an improvement of the favour, that God doth us favour through such a one that standeth between him and us ; that there should be so excellent a person as Christ to do all, to be a pattern of all, and cause of all. For can there be a better than he to raise us out of trouble here, and to heaven hereafter ? Then he that is our own head, will he suffer his members to perish ? And he that is so favourable with God, and one with God, that as a man layeth hold on us, and as God layeth hold on God, as a friend to him, being between both as a friend of both. As God, so we must trust him wath all, with our rising again, with our ascension, with our glory in heaven. He is the Joseph between God and us. As he conveyed all favour to the patriarchs, froin Egypt through Pharaoh,* so Christ is the high steward of all, that hath the dispensing of all his comforts by our sweet head, that is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, to make us for ever one with him. So that there is comfort in the deriving of comfort by so sweet, so loving, so gracious a head as Jesus is.