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fat with me at the last communion-table, that are now fitting at the higher table, and are drinking it new with Chrift in his father's kingdom: What a fweet fong are they prefently finging! "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our fins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." O that I may this day get a foretaste of that celestial feast and heavenly joy, and fuch a seal of Chrift's love as may fill my foul with hope to be a communicant at the upper table. if God fhall call me hence before the next communion! "Lord, let me have one good day in all my life-time: Shew me a token for good before I die."

DIRECTION II.

RETIRE prefently, O communicant, for prayer and meditation, in order to excite and quicken grace in thy foul; and, in a special manner, fee to get faith enlivened, and love inflamed. And, for this end, 1. Take a new view of Chrift's fufferings, and his unparalleled love manifefted therein: "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the fins of the world." If you have a clear difcovery of his love and fufferings at the table, be taking frequent views of him before-hand.

Confider how free and undeferved Chrift's love was. Behold the Son of God intreated by no man, but hated by all men; yet in his love and pity intreats for man, yea, fuffers and dies for him, even then when he was a finner and an enemy to him. Behold him fuffering for fin, that never finned: Yea, behold him made "fin for thee, who had no fin: that thou, who hadft no righteoufnefs, might be made the righteousnefs of God in him." View his love with wonder, that made him take on the heavy burden of your iniquities, and bear it, till he fwate, bled, groaned, and cried under the weight. Behold him ftruggling, praying, and falling to the ground, till he is all covered with his own blood: Fix the eye of faith upon him, till thine eye affect thine heart. Take a view of his tears and bloody fweat, his pierced

pierced hands and wounded feet, his fcourged back and open fide, his ftreaming heart and yearning bowels to poor finhers: This is he, O finner! that would rather die than thou fhouldft die, who chose thy life before his own, and now pleads his blood before his Father.

Behold and wonder at his love, that made him tread the wine-prefs alone for us, and drink the cup of the red wine of the wrath of God; a cup whereinto all our vile and deadly fins were grated, a cup that no angel durst taste; yea, the tafting of it made Chrift's heart to melt like wax in the midst of his bowels, Pfal xxii. 14. which was a greater matter than if the whole world had melted to nothing: Yet he drank it off, with the bittereft dregs of it, and left not fo much as one drop of it for us. Behold him taking his moft precious heart's blood, to quench hell's flames that were ready to break out on us! Was there ever love like this?

This love is unfearchably great: You may fooner find out the height of heaven, the breadth of the earth or the depth of the fea, than measure Chrift's love; for it paffeth knowledge, Eph. iii." It is an unfathomable ocean, that hath neither bank nor bottom. O whither did his love carry him? Even from heaven to earth, from the throne to the manger, from the manger to the crofs, from the crofs to the grave; yea, from the glory of heaven to the torments of hell, and all this for poor creatures, that were defpicable as worms, defiled as lepers, deformed as monsters, black as Ethiopians, yea as black and ugly as hell could make us. Worfe are we than devils, if we are not affected with this love, that made the glorious Son of God leave the heaven of his Father's prefence, and wade through hell for dregs of the creation. Did Chrift fee any thing in us to make him love us? No, he faw much to lothe us, but nothing to love us: Yet the time when we were moft lothfome was Chrift's time of love, Ezek. xvi. We were lying polluted in our blood, and all spread over with running ulcers and putrifying fores, when Chrift loved

us.

Our fouls were as unlovely as Lazarus's body, whose fores the dogs licked; or Job's body, when he was full of boils, and fat in the afhes, and fcraped him

felf

felf with a potfherd: Yet all this could not cool his affection to us. The inftances of Chrift's love are inexpreffible, both in their nature and number. Wonder at his condefcendency, in becoming not only a creature, but such a mean creature as man, for us; yea, not only a man, but in taking on him the form of a fervant for us, and being willing not only to lie in a manger, but in a cold grave for us. Wonder that the glorious Redeemer of Ifrael fhould be content to be born as a beggar, live as a fervant, and die as a flave for us. Wonder that he, who is infinitely pure, fhould be willing, not only to be numbered among finners, and to bear our fins, but also to be made fin, and likewise a curfe for us. Was it not for you and your advantage he did all this? and, will you not admire and love him? He was content to endure the poverty of the world, that you might enjoy the riches of heaven: He lived in the form of a fervant, that you might have the adoption of fons: He humbled himself to live with men, that he might exalt you to live with God: He bowed his foul to death, that he might raife you to eternal life: He was fhut up forty days with the devil, that you might not be fhut up with him for ever: He was hungry, that you might be fed: He was numbered among tranfgreffors, that you might have a room among the bleffed. O believer, he wept, that you might rejoice: Sorrow oppreffed his heart, that everlasting joy might be on your head: He was fcourged and wounded, that you by his ftripes might be healed of fin's wounds: He was crowned with thorns, that you might be crowned with glory: He was flandered and condemned before men, that you might be juftified and acquitted before God: He bore the curfe, that you might inherit the bleffing: He drank the bitter and poisonous cup of God's wrath, that you might drink the pure river of life: He was deferted of God, that you might not be forfak en by him eternally: He bore the burden of fin and wrath, that you might be freed from that burden: He hung upon our cross, to advance us to fit upon his throne: He cried out in forrow upon a cross, that we might fhout joyfully in finging God's praise for ever:

He

He thirsted on the cross, that we might not thirst eternally, with Dives, for a drop of cold water to cool our tongue: He ftruggled in a bloody agony, that we might not ftrugle among devils in hell's furnace for ever: Öh, what fhall we fay of this love! "Lord Jefus, thy pity was infinite, thy love hath overflown all banks, and thy compaffion knew no bounds: Thou ftoodft before the mouth of hell that I deferved, and stoppedft the flaming furnace of divine vengeance, that was breaking out against me: When I was. like Ifaac, bound to the altar, ready to be facrificed to juftice, thou, offeredft thyself, like the ram caught in the thicket, to be facrificed in my room: When my fins had raised a terrible tempest, which threatened to drown me eternally, thou waft content to be thrown overboard, like Jonah, to appease the ftorm: When the fword of justice was furbished, and ready to be fheathed into my bowels, thou interpofedft betwixt me and it, and receivedft the blow into thy heart: When I was fhipwrecked and perifhing, thou caftedft thyself in as a plank of mercy to fave my life. Can I think on this, and my heart not burn? Can I fpeak of it, and not feek, with Jofeph, a fecret place to weep in ?"

View the furpaffing nature of Chrift's love. No love like to it; yea, Chrift's love to us tranfcends his love to all other things: He loved us more than angels, for he would not put on their nature: He loved us more than heaven; for he left that to come and fave us: He loved us more than riches and honour; for he chofe poverty, and became of no reputation, to redeem us: He loved us more than the comforts of life; for he parted with these, and became a man of forrows for our fake: He loved us more than his blood; for he willingly parted with that for us: He loved us more than his foul or body; for he gave both these to be an offering for our fins: He was more concerned for us than for himself; he rejoiced more in our welfare than in his own; he wept and prayed more for us than for himself; and, in the time of his greateft ftrait, when heaven, earth, and hell, were all at once rufhing upon him, we have his prayer, John xvii. Yet it is all spent for us, except one VOL. I.

3 S

verfe

verfe or two for himfelf. Again, Chrift loved us more than his life; and "all that a man hath will he give for his life" yet Chrift willingly parted with that for our fake But, is there nothing that is better than life? Yes, David tells us of one thing that is better, Pfal. Ixiii. 3. "Thy loving kindnefs is better than life." The faints and martyrs, that parted with all other things, would by no means part with that, they would rather part with a thousand lives than quit with that; yet Chrift, who had infinitely more of it than ever any faint attained to, for our fakes parted with it, and had the light of God's countenance totally eclipfed from him on the cross, so that he cried out, "My God, my God, why haft thou forfaken me?"

II. If you would have the facramental graces quickened, particularly faith, take a view of Chrift in all his fweet offices and relations: " Look unto me and be ye faved, all the ends of the earth," Ifa. xlv. 22. O communicant, endeavour upon the morning of a communion-fabbath, to give a believing look to Chrift in all his bleffed offices and relations; and this will strengthen and quicken faith, and help thee to act it the more diftinctly at a communion-table.

1. Look to Chrift, as a bankrupt debtor to his furety, and fay, “Lord, I owe many thousand more than I can pay, but thou haft a fufficient ranfom to pay all my debt: I flee to thee as my furety: Lord, undertake for me, and fatisfy thy Father's juftice, that Ibe not seized on, and dragged to hell's prifon for ever."

2. Look to him as an able phyfician to cure thy wounds: "Say, Lord, here lies a Job full of boils, a Lazarus full of fores at thy gate; here a paralytic hand, here a blind eye, here a hard heart, here a plague, and there a wound, that have fcorned all other phyficians, and defpifed all other remedies; let me this day get the balm of Gilead, even the fovereign plaifter of thy blood, to my various maladies; one touch of the hem of thy garment, and I fhall be whole."

3. Look to him as a ranfomer of captives, and fay, "Lord, it was thy errand to proclaim liberty to the captives: I look to thee this day to knock off my fet

ters,

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