(2.) They who would come unto God by Christ may see what in the first place they are to look after. Indeed, if they are once brought into that condition wherein they will seriously look after him, they will not be able to look from it, though for a while it may be they will be unwilling to look unto it. Reconciliation they must have, or they can have no peace. This lies straight before them. They are willing, it may be, to look upon the right hand and the left, to see if there be any thing nigh them that will yield them relief ; but allisin vain. Ifany thing else gives them ease, it gives them poison; if it gives them peace, it gives them ruin. Reconciliation by the blood of Christ is the only relief for their souls. And nothing more discovers the vanity of much of that religion which is in the world, than the regardlessness of men in looking after this, which is the foundation-stone of any durable building in the things of God. This they will do, and that they will do, but how they shall have an in- terest in the reconciliation made for sin they trouble not themselves withal.
II. The Lord Christ suffered under all his temptations, sinned in none.
He suffered, being tempted; sinned not, being tempted. He had the heart of a man, the affections of a man, and that in the highest degree of sense and tenderness. Whatever sufferings the soul of a man may be brought under, by grief, sorrow, shame, fear, pain, danger, loss, by any afflictive passions within or impressions of force from without, he underwent, he felt it all. Because he was always in the favour of God, and in the assurance of the indissolubility of the union of his person, we are apt to think that what came upon him was so overbalanced by the blessedness of his relation unto God as not to cause any great trouble unto him. But we mistake when we so conceive. No sorrows were like to his, no sufferings like unto his. He fortified not himself against them but as they were merely penal; he made bare his breast unto their strokes, and laid open his soul that they might soak into the inmost parts of it, Isa. 1. 6. All
VER. 17, 18.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 485
those reliefs and diversions of this life which we may make use of to alleviate our sorrows and sufierings he utterly abandoned. He left nothing, in the whole nature of sorrow or suffering, that he tasted not and made experience of. ‘Indeed, in all his sufferings and temp- tations he was supported with the thoughts of the glory that was set before him; but our thoughts of his present glory should not divert us from the contemplation of his past real sufferings. All the ad- vantage that he had above us by the excellency of his person, was only that the sorrows of his heart were enlarged thereby, and he was made capable of greater enduring without sin. And it was to be thus with him,—
1. Because, although the participation of human nature was only necessary that he might be a high priest, yet his sufferings under temptations were so that he might be a merciful high priest for tempted sufferers. Such have need not only to be saved by his atonement, but to be relieved, favoured, comforted by his grace. They did not only want one to undertake for them, but to undertake for them with care, pity, and tenderness. Their state required de- livery with compassion. God, by that way of salvation that he pro- vides for them, intends not only their final safety in heaven, but also that, in the sense of the first-fruits of it in this world, they may glo- rify him by faith and thankful obedience. To this end it was ne- cessary that they should have relief provided for them in the tender- ness and compassion of their high priest; which they could have no greater pledge of than by seeing him for their sakes exposing him- self unto the miseries which they had to conflict withal, and so always to bear that sense of them which that impression would surely leave upon his soul. And,—
2. Because, although the Lord Jesus, by virtue of the union of his person and plenary unction with the Spirit, had a habitual fulness of mercy and compassion, yet he was to be particularly excited unto the exercise of them towards the brethren by the experience he had of their condition. His internal, habitual fulness of grace and mercy was capable of excitation unto suitable actings by external objects and sensible experience. It added not to his mercifulness, but occa- sioned his readiness to dispose it unto others, and shut the door against pleas of delaying succour. He bears still in his holy mind the sense he had of his sorrows wherewith he was pressed in the time of his temptations, and thereon seeing his brethren conflicting with the like difficulties is ready to help them ; and because his power is proportioned unto his will, it is said “he is able.’ And whatever may be the real effects on the mind of Christ from his temptations and sufferings now he is in heaven, I am sure they ought to be great on our faith and consolation, when we consider him undergoing them for this very end and purpose, that seeing he was constituted our