been given from heaven for your security and supply from day to day. “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," Jer. x. 23. It is true, Christ is out of your sight, and you see him not; but he sees you, and orders every thing that concerns you. And is this a due requital of all the care he has taken for you? Do you thus requite the Lord for all his benefits? What! recompense evil for good! O let shame cover you.

(4.) They wound their Head of honour. Christ your head is the fountain of honour to you: this is your glory, that you are related to him as your head; you are, on this account, exalted above angels. Consider how vile a thing it is to reflect the least dishonour upon him from whom you derive all your glory. O consider, and bewail it.

5. Is there so strict and intimate a relation and union between Christ and the saints? Then they can never want what is for their good.

Every one naturally cares and provides for his own, especially for his own body: yet we can more easily violate the law of nature, and be cruel to our own flesh, than Christ can be so to his mystical body. I know it is hard to rest upon and rejoice in a promise, when necessities pinch, and we see not from whence relief should arise; but oh! what sweet satisfaction and comfort might a necessitous believer find in these considerations, would he but keep them upon his heart in such a day of straits.

(1.) Whatever my distresses are in number or degree, they are all known, even to the least circumstance, by Christ my head: he looks down from heaven upon all my afflictions, and understands them more fully than I that feel them. "Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee," Psa. xxxviii. 9.

(2.) He not only knows them, but feels for them: “We have not an High Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," Heb. iv. 15. In all your afflictions he is afflicted; tender sympathy cannot but flow from such intimate union; therefore, in Matt. xxv. 35, he saith, "I was an hungered, I was athirst, I was naked." For indeed his sympathy and tender compassion gave him as quick and as tender a sense of their wants as if they had been his Yea,

own.

(3.) He not only knows and feels my wants, but hath enough in his hand, and much more than enough, to supply

them all; for all things are delivered to him by the Father, Luke x. 22. All the store-houses of heaven and earth are his, Phil. iv. 19.

(4.) He bestows earthly good things, even upon his enemies they have more than heart can wish, Psa. lxxiii. 7. He is bountiful to strangers, and can it be supposed that he will, in the mean time, starve his own, and neglect those whom he loves as his own flesh? It cannot be.

(5.) Hitherto he hath not suffered me to perish in any former straits; when and where was it that he forsook me? This is not the first plunge of trouble I have been in; have I not found him a God at hand? How oft have I seen him in the mount of difficulties!

(6.) I have his promise and engagement that he will never leave me nor forsake me, Heb. xiii. 5, and John xiv. 18. If then the Lord Jesus knows and feels all my wants, and has enough, and more than enough, to supply them; if he gives even to redundance to his enemies, if he has not hitherto forsaken me, and has promised he never will, why then is my soul thus disquieted within me? Surely there is no cause that it should be so.

6. If the saints are so nearly united to Christ, as the members to the head, O then, how great a sin and full of danger is it for any to wrong and persecute the saints! for in so doing they persecute Christ himself.

"Saul, Saul," saith Christ, "why persecutest thou me?” Acts ix. 4. The righteous God holds himself obliged to vindicate oppressed innocency, though it be in the persons of wicked men; how much more when it is in a member of Christ! "He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye," Zech. ii. 8. "He ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors,” Psa. vii. 13.

O it were better thine hand should wither, and thine arm fall from thy shoulder, than that ever it should be lifted up against Christ in the poorest of his members. Believe it, not only your violent actions, but your hard speeches are all set down upon your doomsday-book; and you shall be brought to an account for them in the great day, Jude 15. Beware what arrows you shoot, and be sure of your mark before you shoot them.

7. If there be such a union betwixt Christ and the saints, how peacefully may believers part with their bodies at death!

Christ your head is risen, therefore you cannot be lost;

nay, he is not only risen from the dead himself, but is also "become the first fruits of them that slept," 1 Cor. xv. 20. Believers are his members, his fulness; he cannot, therefore, be complete without you: a part of Christ cannot perish in the grave, much less can it be left to burn in hell. Remember, when you feel the natural union dissolving, that this mystical union can never be dissolved: the pangs of death cannot break this tie. And as there is a peculiar excellency in the believer's life, so there is a singular support and peculiar comfort in his death: "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," Phil. i. 21.

8. If there be such a union betwixt Christ and believers, how does it concern every man to try and examine his state, whether he is really united with Christ or not, by the natural and proper effects which always flow from this union!

(1.) Is there a real communication of Christ's holiness to the soul? We cannot be united with this root, and not partake of the vital sap of sanctification from aim; all that are planted into him, are planted into the likeness of his death and of his resurrection, Rom. vi. 5, 6; that is, by mortification and vivification.

(2.) They that are so nearly united to him as members to the head, cannot but love him and value him above their own lives; as we see, in nature, the hand and arm will interpose to save the head. The nearer the union, the

stronger always is the affection.

(3.) The members are subject to the head. Dominion in the head implies subjection in the members, Eph. v. 24. In vain do we claim union with Christ as our head, whilst we are governed by our own wills, and our lusts give us law.

(4.) All that are united to Christ bear fruit to God, Rom. vii. 4. Fruitfulness is the end of our union; there are no barren branches growing upon this fruitful root.

9. How much are believers engaged to walk as the members of Christ, in the visible exercise of all those graces and duties which the consideration of their near relation to him exacts from them.

(1.) How contented and well-pleased should we be with our outward lot, however Providence has cast it for us in this world. O do not repine, God hath dealt bountifully with you; upon others he hath bestowed the good things of this world; upon you, himself in Christ.

(2.) How humble and lowly in spirit should you be under

your great advancement! It is true, God hath magnified you greatly by this union; but yet do not boast. You bear not the root, but the root you, Rom. xi. 18. You shine, but with a borrowed light.

(3.) How zealous should you be to honour Christ, who hath put so much honour upon you! Be willing to give glory to Christ, though his glory should rise out of your shame. Never reckon that which brings glory to Christ, to be lost to you: when you lie at his feet, in the most par ticular heart-breaking confessions of sin, let this please you, that therein you have given him glory.

(4.) How circumspect should you be in all your ways, remembering whose you are, and whom you represent! Shall it be said that a member of Christ was convicted of unrighteous and unholy actions? God forbid. "If we

say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie," 1 John i. 6. "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked," 1 John ii. 6.

(5.) How studious should you be of peace among yourselves, who are so nearly united to such a head, and thereby are made fellow-members of the same body. The heathen world was never acquainted with such an argument as the apostle urges for unity, in Eph. iv. 3, 4.

(6.) How joyful and comfortable should you be, to whom Christ, with all his treasures and benefits, is effectually applied in this blessed union of your souls with him! This brings him into your possession: O how great, how glorious a person do these little weak arms of your faith embrace!

Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ.

SERMON III.

THE GOSPEL MINISTRY, AS AN EXTERNAL MEANS OF APPLYING CHRIST.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 2 Cor. v. 20.

THE effectual application of Christ principally consists in our union with him; but, ordinarily, there can be no union without a gospel-tender and an overture of him to our souls; for, "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?" Rom. x. 14, 15.

If God would espouse poor sinners to his Son, there must be a treaty in order to it: that treaty requires interlocution between the parties concerned in it; but such is our frailty, that should God speak immediately to us himself, it would confound and overwhelm us: God therefore graciously condescends and accommodates himself to our infirmity, in treating with us, in order to our union with Christ, by his ambassadors, and these not angels, whose converse we cannot bear, but men like ourselves, who are commissioned for the effecting of this great business between Christ and us. "Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ," etc. In which words you have,

1. Christ's ambassadors commissioned. "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ." The Lord Jesus thought it not sufficient to print the law of grace and the blessed terms of our union with him in the Scriptures, where men may read his willingness to receive them, and see the just and gracious terms and conditions upon which he offers to become theirs; but he has also set up and established a standing office in the church, to expound the law, inculcate the precepts, and urge the promises he has given; to woo and espouse souls to Christ: "I have espoused you to one Husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to