and fhould be mock'd, and Spitefully entreated, and spitted on; and that they fhould fcourge him, and put him to Death; yet fo deep an Impreffion had this Notion made upon them, fo firmly were they perfwaded of the Truth of it, and to fuch a degree were they blinded by it, that as St. Luke observes, They underStood none of thefe Things; and this Saying was hid from them, neither knew they the Things which were spoken, Luke XVIII. 34. SERM. VI AND when all these Things had happen'd to our Lord, juft as he had foretold them, we find that the Difciples were ftrangely disappointed of their Hopes, and that they fufpected they had been deceiv'd; not in the Opinion which they had entertain'd of the Chrift that was to come into the World, but in believing that their Mafter was the Chrift. Thus much the two Difciples going to Emmaus did ingenuously confefs, in the Conclufion of the Relation they made of their Lord's Paffion and Death; We Luke trusted, fay they, that it had been he xxiv.21. who SERM. ᏙᏞ who fhould have redeem'd Ifrael. Whereupon our Saviour feverely upbraids them with their Dulnefs and Stupidity, occafioned by the partial Regard they had to fome Prophecies more than to others; O Fools, and flow of Heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken; Ought not Chrift to have fuffered thefe Things, and to enter into his Glory. So that the Meannefs of our Saviour's Circumftances, and the barbarous Treat ment he met with whilft he was upon Earth, were fo far from being a juft Ground of Exception against him, that they were an Evidence that he was the Perfon he pretended to be; and without this Evidence he could never have given fatisfactory Proof, that he was indeed that Perfon. As, on the other hand, it would have been an unanswerable Objection against the Truth of his Pretenfions, if the Predictions concerning the Glory of the Meffiah had not in due Time and Place receiv'd a full Completion in him. But after his Refurrec tion and Afcenfion into Heaven, and his fending fending down the Holy Ghoft upon his Apoftles; Matters of Fact that were attested by many Eye-witneffes, who laid down their Lives in Confirmation of their Teftimony; after thefe Facts, no Room was left for this Objection; fince, as the Humiliation and Sufferings of our Saviour, recorded by the Evangelifts, did in every Circumftance exactly answer the proplie tical Descriptions of them: So the glorious Majefty, with which he was invefted upon his Afcenfion, and which he ftill is and always fhall be poffefs'd of, as it is reprefented in my Text, and in other Places of the New Teftament, does not at all fall fhort of the Fame which the Prophets had for several Ages before spread of it; and beyond all Comparison exceeds what the Jews had conceiv'd of the Glory and Kingdom of their Mesfiah. FOR he is conftituted Lord and Governour not of the Earth alone, but of the Universe, and all the Creatures in it. SERM. VI. By Men Prayer is to be made unto him, Pf.lxxii. and daily is he to be praised. 15. All the Heb.i.6. SERM. VI. Angels of God are commanded to worship him; the Devils too, thofe Sons of Pride, are forc'd to ftoop to him, and, even while they fight against him, to acknowledge his Superiority over them. His Name, that is, his Title, his Authority, his Glory, is above every Name; and his Dominion is extended over Things or Perfons in Heaven and in Earth, and under the Earth; All these are by God put under Him, and oblig'd willingly or unwillingly to fubmit to his Authority, and to acknowledge their Subjection to it; to bow the Knee at his Name, and to confefs with the Tongue that he is Lord. NOT that God the Father hath parted with any Power or Authority belonging to him; but he has only put the Execution and Administration of it into the Hands of his Son. Nor doth it from hence follow that there are two Gods, or two Lords and Governours of the Univerfe, any more than that there are two Kings in a Country, where the King governs by the Miniftry of his Son. The The Subordination of the Son to the Father preferves the Monarchy intire; And the Father may be very properly faid to be the fole Lord and Governour of the World, while the Son himself, to whom the Administration of the Government is committed, doth all Things in Conformity and Obedience to the Father's Will, and directeth all his Actions to the Father's Glory. Now our Lord was thus highly exalted, because, as the Apoftle tells us in the Words before my Text, He being in the Form of God emptied himself, and took on him the Form of a Servant, and was made in the Likeness of Men; And being found in Fashion as a Man, He humbled himself and became obedient to Death, even the Death of the Crofs. So that this high Honour conferr'd upon our Lord was the Reward of his great Services and Merits. And from the Accounts which the Scripture elsewhere gives us of his confummate Wisdom and Almighty Power, of his unerring Juftice and unbounded Goodness, it appears that |