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quire to whom or of whom Chrift is the refurrection and the life? Unto this I answer in the following five or fix particulars.

1. In the first place, he is not the refurrection and the life of the fallen angels, but he is the refurrection and the life of fallen and flain finners of Adam's family: Heb. ii. 16. " He took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the feed of Abraham." Sirs, when man complied with the tempter in paradife, and eat of the forbidden fruit, the curfe and wrath of God was about to fweep Adam and all his pofterity into the same state of condemnation and mifery with the angels that fell. But what method does God take to prevent this? Why, he joins a piece of the human nature to the perfon of his eternal Son, and, by that bit of the human nature, he brings back fallen man from ruin; this is what is intimate, Johniii. 16. "God fo loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." He gave him to be man, and he gave him to die: "He spared not his own Son, but the death for us;" he gave him unto the world, that is to say, he gave him not unto angelkind, but unto mankind finners. Sirs, here is matter of great joy and triumph, that Chrift hath taken hold of our nature, and let the angelic nature drop, at least an innumerable multitude of them. But then,

gave

him unto

2. Chrift he is not only the refurrection and the life of the Jewish nation, but of the Gentile nations that were afar off. The Jews they imagined that the Meffiah was to confine hist bleffings only to their nation, they imagined he was to be their Saviour and their Redeemer only; and therefore we find, after the refurrection of Chrift, when the apoftles began to preach to the Gentiles, great offence was taken at it by the Jews. Chrift" preached unto the Gentiles," is a branch of the "great mystery of godlinefs." Well, Sirs, Chrift is given as the refurrection and the life to the Gentile nations, as well as to the Jews; there is a prophecy to this purpose in the prophecies of Ifaiah, chap. xlix. 6. fays JEHOVAH, in the person of the Father, unto our Redeemer, "It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my fervant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preferved of Ifrael: I will alfo give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayeft be my falvation unto the end of the earth;" that is, it is but a trifle between thee and me: no, "I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles," &c. The apostle John, I remember, hath a word that points this way also, in his first epiftle, chap. ii. 1. 2. "If any man fin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jefus Chrift the righteous and he is the propitiation for our fins: and not for our fins ouly, but alfo for the fins of the whole world:" not

:

for

for us that are Jews only, but for the fins of the poor Gentiles alfo; they have an intereft in the redemption that the Son of God hath purchased. Again,

3. Chrift is the refurrection of all the churches; he is the refurrection of the church, both catholic and particular; there had never been a church in Adam's family, if he had not gathered it. He began to raile a church in paradife, and the foundation of the church was laid in the firft promife; "The feed of the woman fhall bruise the head of the ferpent." The church is God's family upon earth, and it is Chrift that builds the family, and that builds the house of mercy in which the family does dwell. He received furniture from his Father to build a new family among the tribes of Adam: Pfal. lxviii. 18. "When he afcended up on high, he led captivity captive: he received gifts for men, even for the rebellious;" for what end?"That the Lord God might dwell among us." So that he is the refurrection and the builder of the churches. The Jewish church it received its very being from him, and he raised them up out of nothing, out of the dunghill, when they were among the Amorites and the Hittites, why, he gathers them, as in Ezek. xvi. 3-6. "Thus faith the Lord God unto Jerufalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan, thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity in the day thou waft born (he fpeaks directly to the Jewish church), thy navel was not cut, neither waft thou washed in water to fupple thee: thou waft not falted at all, nor fwaddled at all, None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compaffion upon thee; but thou waft caft out in the open field, to the loathing of thy perfon, in the day that thou waft born. And when I paffed by thee, and faw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou waft in thy blood, Live: yea, I faid unto thee when thou waft in thy blood, Live." It was he that raised them up out of the houfe of bondage, as he tells them in the preface to the ten commandments; it was he that raised them out of Babylon, it was just like a grave to them, and it feemed as impracticable to bring them back to their own land again, as to bring up one lying in the grave to life; yet the Lord raifes them out of their Babylonith grave, and he plants and waters them there. Again,

4. Chrift is the refurrection and the life of every finner that belongs unto him, in a day of converfion and regeneration: Eph. ii. 1. "You hath he quickened who were dead in tref paffes and fins." Sirs, in a day of power, the Lord he comes unto the grave wherein we lie buried, the grave of fin and mifery, just as he came to Lazarus's grave, and he fays, Sin

ner,

ner, come forth, and immediately he gets life, the Spirit of Jefus enters into him; then the fetters of his fpiritual captivity drop off. And then,

in me.

5. Laftly, Chrift is the refurrection and the life of languifhing believers. Many times the real believer that is quickened by the Spirit of the Lord, he falls back in a great measure into fpiritual death, unto his fenfe and feeling; he is "free among the dead," as Heman fays of himfelf, Pfal. lxxxviii. 5.; that is to fay, I am a burgefs among the generation of the dead: my life is gone, as the eunuch, If. lvi. 3. "Behold, I am a dry tree," my life is gone, there is no fap in me, there is no life Well, I am ready to apprehend, there may be many of the Lord's people here, and up and down the land, that have this complaint in their mouth; but Chrift is the refurrec tion and the life, he lets out new ftreams of life unto languifhing foals, to restore them again, as David fays, Pfal. xxiii. 3. "He hath restored my foul to life again." What way does he that? He makes the dew of his life-giving Spirit defcend, and then the man" revives as the corn, grows as the vine, and his feent is as the wine of Lebanon." And thus you fee an answer to the fecond question, Of whom is Chrift the refurrection and the life?

III. I proceed now to the third thing I propofed, and that was, to inquire of what is be the refurrection and the life? Unto this I anfwer in the following particulars.

1. Chrift is the refurrection of the declarative glory of God in this lower world. Sirs, God's declarative glory was marred by man's fin: his effential glory cannot be marred by men nor devils, let them do their utmost; but, I fay, his declarative glory was marred. When man finned, he threw off God as his Sovereign; he, upon the matter, faid, with proud Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord, that I fhould obey him?" He fwore allegiance unto hell, in oppofition unto God, the glory of his juftice and holiness, and all his perfections, particularly his truth. All these perfections of God they were fullied and ftained, there was a blot caft upon them, as far as man was able. Well, but Chrift came to wipe away the duft that was caft upon them by man; and accordingly he raifes them unto a greater fplendour than if man had not finned; hence he is called, "The brightnefs of the Father's glory, and the exprefs image of his perfon.-Father (fays he), I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gaveft me to do. And therefore, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own felf, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." But then,

2. Chrift

2. Christ is the refurrection of the holy law of God. The holy law of God was violated, broken, and trampled under foot; man he had broken God's bands, and caft his cords from him; the authority of God's law was despised and disregarded; but God will not let his law lie trampled under the feet of man. Well, Chrift comes and repairs the honour of the law more than if it had never been broken, that it might not be a bar upon our falvation: If. xlii. 21. "He will magnify the law, and make it honourable.” Thus, I fay, he is the re furrection of the holy law; he vindicates the honour of the law, and puts a greater luftre and beauty upon it, than if man had continued in his primitive integrity. Yea, greater honour is done the law, than if all the angels in heaven had died; for though all the angels in heaven had obeyed its precepts, and endured its penalty in our room, they could never have done fo much honour to it as Chrift did, because he was the great Lawgiver, and was not a debtor to it like other men: Gal. iv. 4. "When the fulness of the time was come, God fent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." Here is a wonder, a wonder that will be matter of astonishment to all eternity, that he who gave the law was made under the law, to redeem us that were under it. So he is the refurrection of the law: "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God fending his own Son, in the likenefs of finful flesh, and for fin condemned fin in the flesh," Rom. viii. 3. But then again,

3. In the third place, Chrift is the refurrection of the primitive integrity, purity, and beauty, of the human nature. Sirs, the nature of man it was marred, the beauty of it was fullied by the fall; yea, the nature of man was fo polluted, and fo ugly, by the fall, that it was funk, as it were, below the very inferior creatures; but Chrift is the refurrection of the human nature. By uniting our nature to himself, he raises it unto a higher degree of honour than ever it had when it stood in the first Adam. Yea, Sirs, the nature of man it is advanced unto a greater honour, by being united to the Son of God, than ever was put upon the angelic nature. The angelic nature was never brought fo near to God as the human nature; the angels they are nigh his face, and happy in the enjoyment of God: but there are none of the angels that are united to any of the perfons of the Trinity. The nature of man is fo clofely united to the perfon of the Son, as that it becomes one perfon with him. O come fee what God hath wrought, to what God hath advanced us: "For unto which of the angels faid he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?" Chrift is called "the glory of his people If

rael,"

rael," and all his people are called to glory in him; and well may they, for he is the ornament of the family, he is the credit of the family. The crown fell from our heads when we finned against God. Well, but by the incarnation of the Son of God, the crown is fet upon the head of the human nature; and whenever we look to Chrift, we fhould call him our crown, our ornament, our honour, and our beauty. Sirs, when people have a great man for their relation, they are very ready to tell it, Such a great man is my friend; but let not your boafting be in human things, but let your boafting be, that your very nature is joined unto the perfon of his eternal Son. I wish I could be inftrumental to bring people to right notions of the perfon of Chrift; ignorance of Chrift's person is the lofs of all. What is, Chriit, but God wearing man's nature, coming, and dying, and rifing again, and afcending up into heaven, and wearing our nature for ever, as a pledge of his love to us? God in our nature is a God to be believed in, to be trufted in, and rejoiced in. Is not this God an object of the highest delight, triumph, and obedience? So then, I fay, he is the refurrection of the human nature. But then again,

our eyes.

4. Chrift is the refurrection of our knowledge of God, and acquaintance with God. Sirs, immediately upon the fall of man, he fell out of acquaintance with God, and lost all saving views of God: it was the happiness of man before the fall, he faw God's glory in the whole creation around him, and he never looked upon a creature in it, but he faw the glory of God fparkling in that creature; but when we fell, Satan he just did with us as the Philiftines did with Samfon, he put out Man by nature is born blind, but Chrift is the recovery of our fight; Chrift came to bring light and fight together to us. Chrift is called "the Sun of righteoufnels, the bright and morning Star:" Why? Becaufe he brings the knowledge of God back to the fallen tribe of Adam. He came to discover the glory of his Father unto the world: John i. 18. "No man hath feen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." And, Sirs, it is juft the beginnings of everlasting life in the foul, when the foul begins to know a God in Chrift, and takes up that discovery of God in the word: John xvii. 3. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jefus Chrift whom thou haft fent." He is the refurrection of our knowledge that we loft in the first Adam. Again,

5. In the fifth place, Chrift is the refurrection of our righteoninels, and of our juftification and acceptance before God. Immediately upon the fall of Adam, he lost his original righte VOL. II.

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outnefs;

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