became obedient to death, even the "accursed" death of the cross; that mercy of God the Holy Ghost, who hath made that Christ mine, and hath sealed to my soul the benefit of that blessed redemption :-lastly, that justice of God, which, as it is infinitely displeased with every sin, so will be sure to take infinite vengeance on every impenitent sinner.

And from hence, it will be fit and seasonable for the devout soul to look downward, into that horrible pit of eternal confusion; and there to see the dreadful, unspeakable, unimaginable torments of the damned: to represent unto itself the terrors of those everlasting burnings; the fire and brimstone of that infernal Tophet; the merciless and unweariable tyranny of those hellish executioners; the shrieks, and howlings, and gnashings of the tormented; the unpitiable, interminable, unmitigable tortures of those ever-dying, and yet never-dying souls. By all which, we shall justly affright ourselves into a deep sense of the dangerous and woeful condition, wherein we lie in the state of nature and impenitence; and shall be driven with a holy eagerness to seek for Christ, the Son of the ever-living God, our blessed Mediator; in and by whom only we can look for the remission of all these our sins; a reconcilement with this most powerful, merciful, just God; and a deliverance of our souls from the hand of the nethermost hell.

2. It shall not now need or boot to bid the soul which is truly apprehensive of all these, to sue importunately to the Lord of life for a freedom and rescue from these infinite pains of eternal death, to which our sins have forfeited it; and for a present happy recovery of that favour which is better than life. Have we heard, or can we imagine, some heinous malefactor that hath received the sentence of death, and is now bound hand and foot, ready to be cast into a den of lions or a burning furnace; with what strong cries and passionate obsecrations he plies the judge for mercy? We may then conceive some little image of the vehement suit and strong cries of a soul truly sensible of the danger of God's wrath deserved by his sin, and the dreadful consequents of deserved imminent damnation : although what proportion is there, betwixt a weak creature and the Almighty? betwixt a moment, and eternity? Div.-No. XXXIX.

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3. Hereupon therefore follows a vehement longing, incapable of a denial, after Christ, and fervent aspirations to that Saviour by whom only we receive a full and gracious deliverance from death and hell, and a full pardon and remission of all our sins: and, if this come not the sooner, strong knockings at the gates of heaven, even so loud, that the Father of mercies cannot but hear and open. Never did any contrite soul beg of God, that was not prevented by his mercy; much more doth he condescend, when he is strongly entreated. Our very entreaties are from him; he puts into us those desires which he graciously answers. Now therefore doth the devout soul see the God of all comfort to bow the heavens, and come down with healing in his wings; and hear him speak peace unto the heart thus thoroughly humbled: "Fear not; thou shalt not die, but live. Be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee." He therefore, comes in that divine grace of faith, effectually apprehending Christ the Saviour and his infinite satisfaction and merits; comfortably applying all the sweet promises of the gospel; clinging close to that all sufficient Redeemer; and, in his most perfect obedience, emboldening itself to challenge a freedom of access to God, and confidence of appearance before the tribunal of heaven. And now the soul, clad with Christ's righteousness, dares look God in the face, and can both challenge and triumph over all the powers of darkness: for "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," Rom. v. 1.

4. By how much deeper the sense of our misery and danger is, so much more welcome and joyful is the apprehension of our deliverance, and so much more thankful is our acknowledgment of that unspeakable mercy. The soul, therefore, that is truly sensible of this wonderful goodness of its God, as it feels a marvellous joy in itself, so it cannot but break forth into cheerful and holy, though secret gratulations. "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, long-suffering, and of great goodness: he keepeth not his anger for ever: he hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us after our iniquities," Ps, ciii. 8, 10. "What shall I render unto the Lord, for all his benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call

upon the name of the Lord," cxvi. 12, 13. "I will thank thee; for thou hast heard me, and hast not given me over to death; but art become my salvation," cxviii. 18, 21. "O speak good of the Lord, all ye works of his praise thou the Lord, O my soul," ciii. 22.

5. The more feelingly the soul apprehends, and the more thankfully it digests the favours of God in its pardon and deliverance, the more freely doth the God of mercy impart himself to it; and the more God imparts himself to it, the more it loves him, and the more heavenly acquaintance and entireness grows between God and it. And now that love which was but a spark at first, grows into a flame, and wholly takes up the soul. This fire of heavenly love in the devout soul is and must be heightened more and more, by the addition of the holy incentives of divine thoughts concerning the means of our freedom and deliverance.

And here offers itself to us that bottomless abyss of mercy in our redemption, wrought by the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ the Just, by whose stripes we are healed, by whose blood we are ransomed; where none will befit us, but admiring and adoring notions.

We shall not disparage you, O ye blessed angels and archangels of heaven, if we shall say, ye are not able to look into the bottom of this divine love, wherewith "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." None, O none can comprehend this mercy, but he that wrought it.

Lord, what a transcendent, what an infinite love is this! What an object was this for thee to love! a world of sinners! impotent, wretched creatures, that had despited thee; that had no motive for thy favour but deformity, misery, professed enmity! It had been mercy enough in thee, that thou didst not damn the world; but that thou shouldest love it, is more than mercy. It was thy great goodness to forbear the acts of just vengeance to the sinful world of man; but to give unto it tokens of thy love, is a favour beyond all expression. The least gift from thee had been more than the world could hope for; but that thou shouldest not stick to give thine only begotten Son, the Son of thy love, the Son of thine essence, thy co-equal, co-eter

nal Son, who was more than ten thousand worlds, to redeem this one forlorn world of sinners, is love above all comprehension of men and angels. What diminution had it been to thee and thine essential glory, O thou great God of heaven, that the souls that sinned should have died and perished everlastingly? yet so infinite was thy loving mercy, that thou wouldest rather give thine only Son out of thy bosom, than that there should not be a redemption for believers.

Yet, O God, hadst thou sent down thy Son to this lower region of earth upon such terms, as that he might have brought down heaven with him; that he might have come in the port and majesty of a God, clothed with celestial glory, to have dazzled our eyes and to have drawn all hearts unto him; this might have seemed, in some measure, to have sorted with his divine magnificence; but thou wouldest have him to appear in the wretched condition of our humanity. Yet even thus, hadst thou sent him into the world in the highest estate and pomp of royalty that earth could afford; that all the kings and monarchs of the world should have been commanded to follow his train and to glitter in his court; and that the knees of all the potentates of the earth should have bowed to his sovereign majesty, and their lips have kissed his dust; this might have carried some kind of appearance of a state next to divine greatness: but thou wouldest have him come in the despised form of a servant.

And thou, O blessed Jesu, wast accordingly willing, for our sakes, to submit thyself to nakedness, hunger, thirst, weariness, temptation, contempt, betraying, agonies, scorn, buffetings, scourgings, distention, crucifixion, death. O love, above measure, without example, beyond admiration! "Greater love," thou sayest, "hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;" but O what is it then, that thou who wert God and man, shouldest lay down thy life, more precious than many worlds, for thine enemies!

Yet had it been but the laying down of a life in a fair and gentle way, there might have been some mitigation of the sorrow of a dissolution. There is not more difference betwixt life and death, than there may be betwixt some

one kind of death and another. Thine, O dear Saviour, was the painful, shameful, cursed death of the cross; wher in yet all that man could do unto thee was nothing to that inward torment, which, in our stead, thou enduredst from thy Father's wrath; when, in the bitterness of thine anguished soul, thou criedst out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Even thus, thus was thou content to be forsaken, that we wretched sinners might be received to mercy. O love, stronger than death which thou vanquishedst! more high than that hell is deep, from which thou hast rescued us!

6. The sense of this infinite love of God cannot choose but ravish the soul; and cause it to go out of itself into that Saviour who hath wrought so mercifully for it; so as it may be nothing in itself, but what it hath, or is, may be Christ's. By the sweet powers therefore of faith and love, the soul finds itself united unto Christ feelingly, effectually, indivisibly; so as that it is not to be distinguished betwixt the acts of both. "To me to live is Christ," saith the blessed apostle; and, elsewhere, "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. My beloved is mine, and I am his," saith the spouse of Christ in her bridal song. O blessed union, next to the hypostatical, whereby the human nature of the Son of God is taken into the participation of the eternal Godhead!

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7. Out of the sense of this happy union, ariseth an unspeakable complacency and delight of the soul in that God and Saviour who is thus inseparably ours, and by whose union we are blessed; and a high appreciation of him above all the world; and a contemptuous under-valuation of all earthly things in comparison of him.

And this is no other, than a heavenly reflection of that sweet contentment which the God of mercies takes in the faithful soul. "Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes," Cant. iv. 9. "Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah; comely as Jerusalem. Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me," vi. 4, 5. "How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy