This should teach us, first, that whatsoever intercourse we have with God the Father, we should take Christ, take our Benjamin, our Beloved, with us. _ We must not offer sacrifice without the High Priest. Let us offer nothing to God without Christ. There is no intercourse between God and us, till we be reconciled in Christ, in whom we must offer all our sacri- fices and endeavours. Therefore, let us not own an absolute God in our devotions : let us think of God * reconciled ' in Christ, and at peace with us, and a father in covenant in Christ ; and then our persons, and praj'ers, and all, shall be accepted for the sacrifice of Christ, in whom he smells a
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sweet savour. As it is said concerning Noah, lie offered a sacrifice to Grod, ' a sweet smelling sacrifice of rest,' Eph. v. 2. So doth God in Christ. He is the true mercy- seat in Christ, in looking to whom, God frees us from the curse of the law. Jerusalem was the glory of the world, and the temple was the glor}' of Jerusalem ; but the mercy-seat was the glory of the temple, because that pointed to Christ, the Mercy-seat, in whom we have intercourse with God the Father.
We conceive not high enough of the majesty of God, when we go to him immediately. We must go to him in his Son, whom he hath sent, and anointed, and set forth, * as the propitiation for our sins,' Rom, iii. 25, and * him hath God the Father -sealed,' John vi. 27. He cometh with authority. Therefore God will be reconciled in Christ. We may bind God himself, when we offer Christ. He is the foundation of reconciliation and peace, by God's appointment. He is ' the Prince of peace,' of his own anointing. Therefore we may go boldly to God, to the throne of grace in Christ.
And let us often seriously meditate of the sweet favour and reconciliation stablished now between God and us through Christ. It is the sweetest meditation.
First, To think in what ill terms we are with God by nature ; and then think how near we are now to God in Christ, that we are at peace with him. Methinks the word is too short. There is more meant than is spoken. At peace with God in Christ : nay, now we are friends ; nay, we are sons and heirs, fellow-heirs, fellow-kings with Christ ; for God's favours are complete. As a God he stablisheth not a peace as men do, only to do them no harm that they are at peace with ; but where he makes a peace, he confers all that is good : reconciliation, adoption, giving us the liberty of sons and friends, to go boldly to God as a Father in all our wants. Let us think more of this, and improve this blessed privilege every day.
* Peace upon earth.'
Quest. Why doth he say, ' peace on earth ' ?
Ans. Because peace was here wrought upon earth by Christ in the days of his flesh, when he offered himself ' a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour to his Father.'
Because here in earth we must be partakers of it. We ofttimes defer to make our peace with God from lime to time, and think there will be peace made in another world. Oh, beloved, our peace must be made on earth. ' We must live godly, and righteously, and soberly in this present world,' Titus ii. 12. We must enter ' into the kingdom of heaven' here. Further entrance ' must be ministered here, by growing in grace daily more and more,' 2 Pet. iii. 18. If heaven be not entered into here, it shall never be entered afterwards ; for the church is the seminary of the heavenly paradise. All that are taken to heaven, to be set there for ever, they are set in the church before they are planted, and grow up there a while, under the means of salvation. Therefore, labour to have this * peace on earth,' or else we can never glorify God on earth ; and if we glorify him not on earth, we shall never do it in heaven.
But to come to some trials, whether we have this peace made or no ; whether we can say in spirit and truth, there is a peace established between God and us.
1. For a ground of this, that may lead us to farther trial, know that Christ hath reconciled God and us together, not only by obtaining peace, by way of satisfaction, but by way of application also. Whom he died for
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