he is fure to have in everlasting torments for SER M..

ever.

agony,

If we compare the sufferings of Christ with thofe good men, the reason why they undergo them with chearfulness and courage is, because they have all that fupport and comfort which was withdrawn from him, that he might, during the time of his labour under unspeakable mifery. They have a present sense of the pardon of that guilt, which actually lay upon him; they are so far from bearing the load of other peoples fins, that they are lightened of their own; they have the prefence and comfort of that holy fpirit, which was withdrawn from him; which drives away from him the terrors of the fpirits of darkness. And therefore well might many of his martyrs fuffer torments and death with a compofed and chearful mind; carry on the fame calmnefs and ferenity through moft exquifite racks and tortures; and go out of the world with exultation and triumph, whilft he was exceeding forrowful, even unto death, before he came to it: They had not only an Angel, but the immediate influences of the holy Ghoft to comfort them; to fill them with a fecret unspeakable joy, whilst he was defolate and forfaken: They enjoyed that glorious profpect, which was cut off from him; accordingly we find St. Stephen, at his death, faw the heavens open, and the Son of man ftanding at the right hand of God, which filled him with extafy and tranfport: But when

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X.

SER M. when our Saviour was upon the cross, it was X. all over darkness, and he was forced to cry out with a loud voice, my God, my God, why haft thou forfaken me? And art fo far from my health, and from the words of my complaint? And in the reft of the 22d. Pfalm, which is thought to be his prayer upon the crofs; the fubftance of his complaint is, that good men were ever supported in all their extremities, by his immediate influence; our fathers trufted in thee, and thou didst deliver them; they put their trust in thee, and were not confounded. But as for him, he fays God had given him over to the merciless cruelty of wicked men; who upbraided him with that very absence of his father's fpirit and power: He trusted in God that he would deliver him, let him deliver him if he will have him.

Now if any one that hears, is apt to think that the fufferings of Chrift are here enlarged and magnified beyond measure, and described above the capacities of a man to undergo; and utterly difproportionable to human nature: And from thence fhall be inclined to look upon what hath been faid, as all precarious conjecture, and the result only of a warm imagination; I am fo far from making any apology, by way of mitigation or qualifying what is faid, that I am to fay fomething yet more hard of belief, and fhocking to fuch narrow fpirits; and that is, that if these notions are precarious and imaginary, they are fo for no other reafon, but because they cannot reach

the

the truth and reality of the fufferings of our S ERM. Saviour's mind: We have not capacities for X. comprehending the reality, the boundless extent and degrees of his fufferings; particularly of the agony of his mind: And therefore it is, that we thus help out our own conceptions of them with the livelieft images our imaginations are furnished with, or reafon can fuggeft; which, after all, do raise up in us as imperfect an idea of what he then endured, as we now have of the unconceivable blifs and unfpeakable happiness he now enjoys. Who can tell to what degree those paffions and affections were to be moved, which had infinite knowledge and goodness to fway them? The intimate union of the Godhead with the humanity put it into a condition of suffering, infinitely beyond what it would have been capable of in the the person of a meer man. We are not to look upon the motions of our Saviour's foul, as nothing more than the affecttions of a man; but as the attributes of a divine person, which rendered him qualified for a joy, or a forrow proportionable: So that the very thing, which made him capable of greater happiness than any other man, put him into a condition of greater degrees of anguish and trouble in his mind: His human nature, fays Bishop Pearfon, though in conjunction with the divinity, fuffered more than if it were alone; and the divine nature fuffered as little, as if it had not been conjoined. He muft

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SER M.muft have been man, to have fuffered at all; and he must have been united to the divinity,. to be able to fuffer what he did.

X.

And this is a plain account, why the fcriptures lay the greatest stress upon the sufferings of our Saviour's body; not because these were the acuteft, and most unfupportable part of them; for, as we have feen, there are plain indications to the contrary in fcripture: But because his outward fufferings were more obvious and remarkable: The tearing of his body, and fpilling of his blood, with the circumftances that attended them, were things beft fuited to our prefent condition of infirmity; and apt to affect and touch us moft feelingly. Befides, thefe are things, which could be prophetically defcribed; reprefented by types and figures; and the memory of them eafily perpetuated to pofterity by fymbols: As it is now in the moft holy facrament of the Lord's fupper; wherein the sufferings of his body only are reprefented: And accordingly, these are fufficient arguments of the divine love; and anfwer all the ends of religion in this world; though men fhould carry their thoughts no farther. Whereas his internal agonies could neither be described, nor typified; nor the memory of them conveyed down to all generations of men, by any outward fymbols or reprefentations: They are beyond the proportion of our understanding; and therefore muft have been referved for the fubject of our praise and wonder in another world.

Now

X. 2

Now if that part of our Saviour's fufferings S ER M. which were vifible, and whereof we can have a fenfe and feeling, are fufficient arguments, of infinite love; what muft the hidden anguish of his mind be, which none but God could fee, and Chrift alone could feel? O! could this grief of his be weighed, as Job fpeaks of his own, and his calamity laid in the balance together, now, it would be heavier than the fand of the fea; Job vi. 2. heavier than the fins of mankind, which were grievous and numberlefs: It outweighed them all, though the weight would have crushed mankind to death, to everlasting death; never to rise again. Were it a thing poffible for us to frame a notion of his fufferings, fo as to take in the full extent and latitude of them, we fhould be all inflamed with love and gratitude: Could we comprehend them! did I fay? We wretched mortals! who fhrink at the fight of a pityful object, and are rendered inftantly miferable by it. Alafs! we could not now bear the knowledge of them; the profpect of them would overwhelm us it would dart confufion through our fouls; and we should sweat great drops of blood, as he did when he felt them: Our whole frame would be diffolved, and we should fink under the mighty weight of woe.

I shall only observe to you one thing farther, which is very peculiar to our Saviour in all his fufferings, both of body and mind; and which no other perfon was capable of; namely,

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