But what will he do with such deformed, polluted creatures as we are? Why, " he loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might wash and purify it, and present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." Though we are altogether deformed and defiled, — though no example, no instance can be given, in things below, or among the creatures, of any fixing love on such as we are, yet Christ has done it out of sovereign grace; with this resolution, that he would cleanse us with his own blood, to make us fit for himself.
C02 SACRAMENTAL DISCOURSES.
0 that God would help you and me to some firm, unshaken acts of faith, that Jesus Christ did, out of sovereign grace, love us in par- ticular; and that in pursuit of this love he has washed us in his blood, to make us lovely and meet for himself! This is love to be adored and celebrated in time and to eternity.
This special love of Christ is not only to be considered by us, in this special acting of faith, as free and undeserved, but it is to be consi- dered as invincible, — that would break through all oppositions, or whatever stood in the way, — that nothing should hinder or turn him aside in his design of doing good to our souls. It is a glorious pitch that the spouse rises to in Cant. viii. 7, " Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it : if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned ; " speak- ing of her own love to Christ: nothing could quench, nothing could drown it, nothing could make a purchase of it from her; but her love was invincible, and would carry her through all difficulties. 0 how much more was the love of Christ ! for our love being once fixed on Christ, meets with no difficulties of that nature that the love of Christ met withal when it was fixed on us. Y\7hat did the love of Christ meet with, when it was fixed on us? That we must take along with us, — namely, " the curse of the law" was the first thing that presented itself to him : " The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" — " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law, to do them." That he was to make " his soul an offering for sin," was presented to him. We are to look on this love of Christ as sovereign and free, and with a design of making our souls lovely ; so invincible, also, that it broke up the eternal obstacles, — that nothing could stand before it until it had accomplished his whole work and design : " Who loved me, and gave himself for me."
1 speak on this manner, and of these things, to encourage and di- rect the weakest and most unskilful in the mysteries of the gospel, — to instruct them in the exercise of faith in this ordinance : and there- fore I say, that as this special faith (which I proved to you to be our duty in this ordinance) is to respect the love of Christ ; so it is to re- spect more especially the peculiar acting of the love of Christ, whereby he gave himself for u s. Gave himself! how is that? Truly thus, brethren, — the Lord help me to believe it ! — that I stood before the judgment-seat of God, charged with my original apostasy from him, and with all the sins of my life, multiplied above the hairs of my head, and being ready to perish, to have the sentence pronounced against me ; then Christ came and stood in my place, putting the sinner aside, and undertaking to answer this matter: " Let the poor sinner stand aside a while. Come, enter into rest; abide here in the cleft of the rock ; I will undertake thy cause, and plead it out at God's judgment-
SACRAMENTAL DISCOURSES. 603
scat." In this undertaking God spared him not ; as if God should say, " If you will stand in the place of the sinner, and undertake his cause, then it must go with you as with him; I will not spare." " Lo, I come/' says Christ, notwithstanding this, " to do thy will, 0 God;" — "Whatever thou dost require to make good this cause I have espoused, lo, I come to do it."
So Christ loved me, and gave himself for me. Everlasting rest and peace will dwell upon our souls, if the Lord will be pleased to help us to exercise faith on Christ's love in this ordinance, wherein all these things are represented to us.
DISCOURSE XIX.1
" I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless 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." — Gal. ii. 20.
The apostle in this place is expressing the vigour, and indeed the triumph, of the life of faith : " Nevertheless I live." To show the excellency of that life, says he, " Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," etc. That which I would to our purpose observe from these words is this, that the exercise of faith on the death of Christ — " Who loved me, and gave himself for me" — is the very life of faith. This is that we are now called to, — to the exercise of faith on the death of Christ. And I cannot more recommend it to you than by this observation, to show that the life of faith does greatly consist in this peculiar exercise of it upon the death of Christ. And that, — ■