(2.) The purity, the holiness, and the severity of God, that would not pass by sin, when it was charged upon his Son. " He set him forth," Rom. iii. 25, M to declare his righteousness." As there was a representation of the guilt of sin, so there was an everlasting repre- sentation of the holiness and righteousness of God in the cross of Jesus Christ. " He spared him not." And may [not] the soul say, " Is God thus holy in his nature, thus severe in the execution of his wrath, so to punish and so to revenge sin, when his Son undertook to answer for it? How dreadful is this God ! How glorious ! What a con- suming fire !" It is that which will make sinners in Zion cry, " Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings ?" Isa. xxxiii. 14. Consider the holi- ness and the severity of God in the cross of Christ, and it will make the soul look about him, how to appear in the presence of that God.
(3.) Would you have another object of your meditation in this matter? — let it be the infinite wisdom and the infinite love of God, that found out this way of glorifying his holiness and justice, and dealing with sin according to its demerit. " God so loved the world," John iii. 16, " that he gave his only begotten Son." And, " Herein is love," — love indeed ! 1 John iv. 10, " that God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." And the apostle, Eph. iii. 10, lays it upon " the manifold wisdom of God." Bring forth your faith ; be your faith never so weak, never so little a reality, do but realize it, and do not let common thoughts and notions take up and possess your spirits.
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Here is a glorious object for it to work upon, — to consider the infinite wisdom and love that found out this way. It was out of love unsearch- able. And now, what may not my poor, sinful soul expect from this love? what difficulties can I be entangled in, but this wisdom can disen- tangle me ? and what distempers can I be under, but this love may heal and recover? " There is hope, then," saith the soul, in preparation for these things.
(4.) Let the infinite love of Jesus Christ himself be also at such a season had in remembrance. Gal. ii. 20, " Who loved me, and erave himself for me." Rev. i. 5, " Who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." Phil. ii. 6-8, "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." 2 Cor. viii. 9, This was " the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." The all-conquering and all-endearing love of Christ is a blessed preparative meditation for this great ordinance.
(5.) There is the end, what all this came to. This guilt of sin, this holiness of God, this wisdom of grace, this love of Christ; what did all this come to ? Why, the apostle tells us, Col. i. 20, " He hath made peace through the blood of his cross." The end of it all was to make peace between God and us : and this undertaking issued in his blood; that was able to do it, and nothing else, — yea, that hath done it. It is a very hard thing for a soul to believe that there is peace made with God for him and for his sin; but really trace it through these steps, and it will give a great deal of strength to faith. Derive it from the lowest, the deepest pit of the guilt of sin, carry it into the presence of the severity of God, and so bring it to the love of Christ ; and the issue which the Scriptures testify of all these things was, — to make peace and reconciliation. .
Some may say, that they would willingly meditate upon these things, but they cannot remember them, they cannot retain them, and it would be long work to go through and think of them all, and such as they have not strength and season for.
I answer, — First. My intention is not to burden your memory or your practice, but to help your faith. I do not prescribe these things, as all of them necessary to be gone through in every duty of pre- paration ; but you all know they are such as may be used, every one of them, singly in the duty; though they that would go through them all again and again would be no losers by it, but will find something that will be food and refreshment for their souls. But, —
Secondly. Let your peculiar meditation be regulated by your peculiar present condition. Suppose, for instance, the soul is pressed with a sense of the guilt of any sin, or of many sins, let the pre-
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parative meditation be fixed upon the grace of God, and upon the love of Jesus Christ, that are suited to give relief unto the soul in such a condition. Is the soul burdened with senselessness of sin? doth it not find itself so sensible of sin as it would be, but rather, that it can entertain slight thoughts of sin? — let meditation be principally directed unto the great guilt of sin, as represented in the death and cross of Christ, and to the severity of God as there repre- sented. Other things may lay hold upon our carnal affections, but if this lay not hold upon faith, nothing will.