Chapter XIV
Uses of Christ s being made sin and a curse for us. We see herein God the Father s love, and his own. We should not regret to suffer anything for Christ. Let us obey and worship Christ in soul and spirit. The troubled
in soul should be comforted. We see the heinousness of sin by the greatness
of Christ s sufferings, and the misery of being without an interest in Christ.
We should charge our sins upon ourselves for humiliation. We should mourn for them, and hate them.
Use 1. See the love of Christ, who laid not his hodily life down only, hut
his soul. The redemption of the soul is precious, says the psalmist, Ps. xlix. 8 : precious indeed, when it cost not his precious blood only, but
his precious soul also. Not with corruptible things, gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Christ were we redeemed. As the body is more worth than raiment or estate, so the soul than the body. Christ gave not
his estate only, nor his body only, but his soul.
Use 2. See the love of God, who gave not his Son up only to the hands of men to be executioners of his body, but himself laid on upon his soul ; and that because justice called for the soul, the very soul, ere it would be
satisfied. Which no creature being able to reach, rather than we should not be redeemed, he will be the executioner himself; ties him to the cross, and with his own hand whips him, because no creature could strike strokes hard enough. A tender mother hath not the heart to whip her child for
its own fault ; God bruiseth Christ s soul himself for others ; Zech. xiii. 7, Awake my sword against the man God s fellow; yea, Isa. liii. 10,
* It
delighted the Lord to bruise him. So much was his heart in our salva
tion, that this (otherwise the most abhorred act that ever was done) was sweetened to him by its end, our salvation, and made a matter of delight, not simply, but in relation to the end.
Use 3. Let us not think much to suffer any thing in our body for Christ; he hath done more for us, he hath suffered in his soul. All that men can do is but to kill the body, they cannot reach the soul, Mat. x. 28. And
therefore all that we can fear from them is but outward, in comparison of what Christ endured, it is but whipping through the clothes ; all that is done to the body, Mat. xx. 22. Can ye drink of the cup he drank of, and be baptized with the baptism he was baptized with ? Rom. viii. 29. He exhorts us to cheerful suffering; because therein we are conformed to
Christ s image, who yet was in suffering the first-born among many brethren, and so had a larger portion in them than ever any had.
Use 4. Did the chief of Christ s sufferings lie in his soul ? Let the chief
of our obedience be placed in our souls and in soulworship. God said to
Christ, My Son, give me thy soul ; and Christ says to us, My son, give me your hearts. Obedience in the inward man is the soul of obedience.
Sanctify the Lord in your hearts, 1 Pet. iii. 15 : there especially is God ennobled. God seeks for such to worship him as worship him in spirit.
1 Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness, &c., 1 Tim. iv. 8. There
godliness is opposed to bodily exercise, and therefore godliness is put for
the service of the inner man, which is only godliness, in which (Rom. vii.) the apostle says he served the Lord, which he calls serving him (ver. 4 of
that chapter) in the newness of the spirit. The papists, whose worship is
all bodily, they are all for Christ s bodily sufferings, and deny th is of
CHAP. XIV. OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 287
his soul. But let us place the main of his obedience in the suffering of
his soul, and so seeing his love, give up our souls to him chiefly to obey him with.
Use 5. Comfort to those that are distressed in soul.
(1.) You are herein conformed so much the more to Christ.
(2.) He knows the heart of a sinner distressed, and so is moved to pity more feelingly. He became a merciful high priest, in that he was tempted in all things as we, sin only excepted. Pity is more kindly when it is from
experience of the like extremity.
(3.) In that he suffered in his soul, he thereby purchased comfort for
thy soul. As in other things we make use of Christ s sufferings to relieve
us against the particulars we are distressed in, so also let us in this. When we are poor, we may consider Christ was poor that we might be made rich ; when we suffer from men, we may have recourse to this, that by his stripes we are healed : so when in soul, that he was buffeted in spirit to free us ; his soul was heavy unto death that we might be comforted ; God spake to him in wrath that he might speak peace to us. Speaking comfort, in
Scripture phrase, is called speaking to the heart.
Use 6. When we think of Christ crucified, let us especially think of the
sufferings of his soul, so much forgotten and denied. To this end tie
ordained the cup in the sacrament ; as the bread to represent to our faith
the body of Christ, so the wine the pouring forth of his soul, which is called
the blood of the New Testament. That as the blood of the Old was the blood of bulls and goats, in which blood lies the life, as the Scripture
speaks, the souls of beasts being but the spirits of the four elements which run in the blood, so that thing which that type signified, was the soul
poured out, there being nothing nearer to represent the soul more lively than the blood, with which therefore all was sprinkled.
Use 7. See the heinousness of sin by this, that Christ was made a
curse ; as he said, if thou wouldst see what sin is, go to mount Calvary. It is true that the utmost real evil of the thing itself which we call sin
consists in this, that it is the transgression of the command of the great God. But the utmost representation to make that evil known to us, is
the cross and the curse of the Son of God, blessed for ever. We seldom
conceive of the greatness of injuries, as they are in themselves committed ; so we are apt to slight them ; but we do measure them best by the anger and the wrath they beget in the party wronged (if he be not partial in his own cause), and by the furious expressions of his wrath returned back again upon the offence. So whilst we view sin in its direct and proper notion, and
that it is an injury against the great God, so we should never have seen the full vileness of it ; for as God is in himself invisible, so is the evil of
sin ; and as Christ is the liveliest image of the invisible God, so are his debasement and his sufferings the truest glass to behold the ugliness of sin
in, and the utmost representation to make us sensible of it. The throwing down the angels out of heaven, the cursing the earth and all Adam s pos
terity for Adam s sin, the drowning the old world, and overturning Sodom, and the fire unquenchable which burns to the bottom of hell ; these were such considerations as make us stand amazed and cry out, Oh, what is sin, that thou dost so remember it, or the sinfulness of it, that thou dost punish
it in the destruction of the best creatures thy hands have made ! But all these tragedies are but as lighter skirmishes, and but shows of justice and
wrath, in comparison of the death and sufferings of his Son. For how
greatly incensed must that anger be by sin, which so infinite, so ancient
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! How deep in guilt must that fault be, for which justice is bold to exact no less satisfaction than the blood of God ! For what crimes are kings at any time put to
love, to such a Son, could not quench nor yet allay
to death ? Here God blessed for ever is made a curse, the light and life
of the world and fountain of life is killed, the Lord of glory debased, the
fulness of the Godhead emptied, emptied to nothing ; he who is one with God in essence, in title to glory, is separated and accursed from him and
by him, and laid as low as hell ; and all this because he was made sin.
Use 8. Think what a miserable and fearful condition it must needs be to be found out of Christ and in your sins. And be assured of this, that
either Christ or you must bear the full weight both of your sins, and the
curse due to them. That Christ was made a curse may be both an evidence
of the certainty of the curse and wrath to come, and of the fearfulness of
it. Of the certainty, for if from former examples of God s vengeance upon other sinners like themselves, Peter argueth the assured inevitable destruc
tion of ungodly men, that if he spared not the angels nor the old world,
&c., 2 Peter ii. 5, 6 ; he would therefore certainly not spare them. If
further, from the chastisements brought upon his own dear children, God himself bids Jeremiah tell the nations that they should certainly drink
Jer. xxv. 29, For, lo, I bring evil upon the city that is called by my name, and should ye be unpunished ? much more is it argued from this, that he brought all this evil and these curses on his Son. If God spared not the
natural branch, nay, the root of branches, which bears all his olive branches, how will he spare those that shall be found wild olives, growing on their own stock, bearing all their wild olives and sins themselves ? If he not
only upon whom God s name is called, but whose name is in him, did and must drink of the cup, shall not the wicked of the earth drink the dregs of
it ? And as it may argue the certainty of it, so the fearfulness also. It was an use Christ made of it then when he was a-leading to be crucified,
( If they do this to the green tree, what will they do to the dry ? If he who was a green tree, and was by reason of his sap and fulness of grace no fit fuel for the fire, had no matter in himself for God to be angry with,
yet it burns so fiercely on him, standing but in the shade and within the
imputation of our sins ; if the curse withered him that he looked like a tree
growing on the dry ground, Oh, how will it rage upon dry trees, fitted for
hell ; upon fir trees that are full of, and bring forth, gum and rosin, fit fuel
for that fire ! And if the whole curse did light on him, and the respect to and dignity of his person abated nothing of it, God spared him not, surely a sinner out of Christ shall be abated nothing neither, but pay the utmost
farthing. See in God s dealing with his Son the most vive type and resemblance of the curse to be executed upon all sinful unbelievers out of him. Cursed he is throughout his whole life, as Christ also was made a
curse in his. The curse seized on him when he was made flesh, and began to break out upon him in the spots of human infirmities, making him all
over like sinful flesh ; which curse secretly followed him, and increased
upon him in the fruits of it, and left him not till it had brought him to the
accursed death, when it appeared to all the world that he was made a curse
indeed, when he hanged upon a tree. Why, and cursed wert thou in thy
conception, and cursed was the womb that bare thee, and a thread of curses
are drawn through the web of thy frail life. And though a sinner may bless himself in honours, riches, pleasures, yet all these have a curse in them unto him ; cursed is he when he eats, cursed when he lies down and
rests, and cursed when he awakes again ; and this curse leaves him not till
CHAP. XIV.] OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 289
it brings him to his end, and after that to judgment, when it appears he is
cursed indeed, however accounted happy in this life. And learn to see and
tremble, and to avoid it, how the curse will then seize on thee by what was done to Christ, if it prove not then that he was made a curse for thee. Then was his day of judgment and ours in him, Isa. liii. 8. And therefore
in that day s passages with him, we may raise our hearts up to see what
shall be then ; what was done to the green tree then, shall be accomplished in a more transcendent manner upon the dry. When they come to lie upon their death-beds, then do their sins and God s wrath come in upon them,
as upon him in the garden ; they see them written in the curtains, and find
their souls environed about with curses, besieged, and see no way out ; and
then happily their friends stand sleeping or weeping by, but, alas ! they cannot help them or save them from that hour, as his disciples could not ; miserable comforters thou wilt find them all. And if a minister, yea, an
angel from heaven, should come to comfort them, oftimes he cannot. And
then comes thy Judas, thy bosom sin, with whom thou hast eaten so many
sweet bits, and communed together, and that comes into thy conscience with a troop of curses, and threatenings, and devils after it. And when
thy soul sits upon thy lips and is departed, an armed band of hell seizeth
upon it, binds thee hand and foot to be cast into utter darkness ; leads thee
before the throne of God s more private and particular judgment, as Christ was over night before the high priest ; where when thou comest thou wilt
be examined of all thy ways and works ; and as that man in the Gospel that wanted the wedding garment, wilt remain speechless, not able to answer one of a thousand, not have a word to say. Even Christ stood speechless, the guilt of our sins stopping then his mouth. And after sentence then
pronounced, that thou art worthy of death, thou wilt be kept in those chambers of death, and reserved in chains of darkness, as Christ was bound
in the high priest s hall all night, and there mocked, and whipped, and beaten with many stripes, as the gospel hath it. And in the morning of
the resurrection, when the dawning of the day of judgment shall appear, then they shall be more publicly brought forth before the throne of Christ,
appointed to judge both the quick and dead, a time when all the world,
great and small, shall be assembled to thy arraignment and execution, as all
the Jews were then at the feast ; when God will shame thee before this
sun, and rip up all the hidden things of darkness. As Christ was put to
open shame, so shalt thou ; and confusion of face shall cover thee, and thou shalt become a loathing and an hissing to all flesh. And though thou
hast thy soul filled full of evils, yet God and the saints shall but mock when
this thy fear cometh, and laugh at thy destruction, Prov. i., as they did
Christ, Thou that destroyest the temple, &c., and savest others ; so will God say, I have called, and ye refused ; ye set at nought all my counsel, Prov. i. 24-26 ; and now let your gods deliver you if they would have you. And this confusion will most befall those who profess themselves the sons
of God and were not, that saved others and now are damned themselves ; with which they mocked Christ, He said he was the Son of God, and that he trusted in him, and he saved others ; now let him save himself. And then after sentence is pronounced, Go, ye cursed, hurried shall they be, ere Christ riseth off the bench, by angels, Mat. xxv., to hell, the place of
execution, where in utter darkness (as Christ also was crucified in a great darkness that was over the land) separated and accursed from God for ever, they shall be punished from his presence, 2 Thess. i. 9, with everlasting destruction ; where a drop of water shall be denied them, as it was to VOL. v. T
290 OF CHEIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK Y.
Christ, left naked and destitute of all comforts, stripped as Christ also was, and with the scroll of their rebellions pinned over their heads, for men and
angels to read, as Christ s was in all languages.
A second sort of uses are to men humbled for sin, and seeking after
faith, to guide and direct poor souls to the right way of obtaining and seek
ing justification by faith.
Use 9. If Jesus Christ was thus made sin and a curse, the one charged upon him, the other inflicted, then surely all those Christ will save, he will have them also know and apprehend what their sins are, and the curse due
to them, though not by way of satisfaction to God, yet by way of humilia
tion to them. If your sins were charged upon Christ, who knew no sin, there is reason they should be charged upon your consciences. If your sins brought Christ upon his knees (as they did in the garden) before God
as an angry judge, they may well bring you upon your knees also. They were yours before they were his, and therefore ere you by faith can come
to lay your sins upon Christ and discharge yourselves of them, you must know the burthen of them yourselves. His was but an assumed guilt, yours is proper and inherent. If your sins made Christ s soul heavy unto
death, they must make your soul heavy also ere ever Christ will ease you. Christ did so ordain to save you as that you should be conformable to him, and die with him if ever you rise again with him. Now as Christ died and
rose again, so must you ; and as we are said to rise again with him through
faith, Col. ii. 12, so to die with him through humiliation.
Use 10. To this end lay all your sins to your own charge ; they were laid
to his charge to satisfy God s justice, and thou must lay thenfto thine own
charge, to humble thy sonl and to make thee the more thankful. Christ s
death keeps many off from troubling themselves with their sins at all : they
put off thinking of their sins with this, that God is merciful, and Christ hath died ; but that they were laid to his charge hinders not that thou art
to charge thyself with them ; only thou art to do it to a differing end.
Jesus Christ had them laid to his charge to satisfy for them ; take heed of
taking them so upon thyself, they will break thy back. But take them on
thee to humble thee, which thou art therefore to do, because they were all
* Father, thine they
thine ere his ; as Christ said to his Father, of his elect,
were, and thou gavest them me, John xvii. So on the contrary mayest thou
say to Christ of thy sins, Lord, mine they were, and thou didst take them on me.* Thus Isaiah teacheth us to do, Isa. liii. 6, We like sheep have
gone astray, and God laid on him the iniquities of us all. And therefore, as David humbled himself, Lord, it is I and my father s house ; what have these sheep done ? -so say, Lord, it is I that have sinned against thee, these sins are all done by me ; what hath this lamb, holy, innocent, without spot, done ? And withal, think what an infinite misery it will be to
be found in thy sins, if all these sins should be thine own, and not to be
taken off by Christ for thee, if it should fall out that thou must die in thy sins (as Christ threatened the Pharisees), that thou shouldst not be eased
of the burden of one sin by the death of Jesus Christ. If they made his
soul so heavy when they were made his but by imputation, what will they do to thee, whose they are by inherent, by proper and immediate guilt ?
If the shadow of them withered him so, what will the true guilt of them in
thee ? Thou hast guilt of conscience in thee of them, a conscience of sins which he had not, and yet they made his soul heavy ; what will they do
thine ? Thou wilt have despair in hell to make thy torment greater, be- * Qu. thee ? ED.
CHAP. XIV.J OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 291
cause of that eternity of thy torment, whereas he had faith to uphold him
to endure the cross by reason of the joy set before him, which he knew he should receive when the brunt was over. If Christ s soul was so per
* What shall I say ? John xii. 27, how perplexed will
plexed that he said,
thy soul be, not knowing what to do, but wishing the rocks to fall upon thee
to cover thee ! Use 11. If God charged all our particular sins upon Christ, then go and humble thyself for thy particular sins. If God gave Christ a bill of
them, do thou make bills and catalogues of them. As Christ knew what he paid for, so he will have thee know what he pardoneth and what was
paid for. This will make thee love Christ the more, as Mary did, who
loved much because much was forgiven her, and it will make thee see thy self more beholden to Christ for suffering more for thee than another. Thus the thorough knowledge of Paul s sin wrought the more love and thank
fulness in him unto Jesus Christ, 1 Tim. i., that though Christ came into
the world to save sinners, yet for me, the chief of sinners. And though there are many sins which thou daily discoverest, which thou sawest not at
first, yet be not discouraged, for secret sins, though not confessed, may be
pardoned ; for Jesus Christ bare all sins, and those that are not known to
thee to humble thee were yet known to Christ to pardon them to thee. And the confessing particular sins over Christ thus will in the end bring assurance of the pardon of particulars, and be a means to strike off the
guilt of particulars ; for often when we think such and such sins are par doned, we yet stick at some one, or such or such, and cannot think them
pardoned. Therefore confess particulars, and bring them to God, and say concerning such a sin, Was not this sin, Lord, reckoned amongst the rest unto Christ? This soul-sin that stares me in the face, was not this amongst the rest ? Then, Lord, through his bearing of it, take it off from me. And
as you are to apply Christ crucified for the crucifying particular lusts, so
for the washing off of your consciences the guilt of particular sins. Do
therefore as men that would be sure to have a writing crossed and blotted, that the debt-book may not be read, they not only give general cross lines
over all the whole leaf at one stroke, but they will (to make all sure) go over every line with their pens, and cross every one in particular out ; and
so do thou, not apply Christ s death in general, but apply it to every par ticular sin. And especially against a sacrament, then make catalogues of
your sins, for then Christ is crucified afresh afore your eyes. And look, what was done by God to Christ, when he was crucified on the cross for the satisfaction of his justice, that you are to do when you come to view, and by faith to receive, Christ crucified, for the satisfaction of your con
sciences ; for the application of Christ crucified is but the acting over by faith what was done by God. Especially such sins as the guilt whereof doth in a more special manner trouble you, those bring catalogues of at
every communion ; that although the lines of Christ s blood have been drawn over them with the rest already, yet get more crosses of his blood over
them, and use his blood to cross out particulars. And as you do with aqua
fortis, when you would eat out letters written in a book, if any letters remain
more fresh than their fellows, remaining not so perfectly eaten out, you go over them anew ; so do with Christ s blood in your consciences, to such
sins, the guilt whereof is most conspicuous.
Use 12. Take heed of resting in duties. Christ s active obedience would not have saved you, if he had not also been made a curse, and therefore do you think your dunghill performances, as Paul calls it, will save you? You
292 OF CHEIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK V.
thereby dishonour Christ as much as the Jews that crucified him ; you bid him come off the cross, he need not hang there for you, you can pray it
out, and you can fast sin out yourselves.
Use 13. Eest on Christ alone, especially as crucified. Paul desired to know Christ, and him crucified especially. As they preached so are we to
believe. It is the serpent as lifted up that is the object of faith, so Christ
present in the sacrament, not simply the person of Christ, but Christ as
crucified and as broken for our sins. Otherwise Christ, considered in the
excellency of his person, so he might be an object for the faith of angels, who would have been glad of such a husband ; but Christ, as crucified, so he is fitted for sinners, and he becomes not an object of love for the excel
lency of his person, but of faith and confidence as a means and ordinance
for the salvation of sinners ; and though we are to look on him as glorified,
yet withal as once crucified. So that faith is to look at once with one eye to heaven, to Christ there as risen, ascended, interceding, so to look down
with another eye to that Christ as once crucified and hanging on the cross, as made sin and a curse.
Use 14. Labour for assurance ; so see by faith yourselves one with
Christ in all this he did for you, to be able to view yourselves in him when he died, that as by faith you believe you were in Adam when he was in
the garden, and ate the forbidden fruit, so that you were in Christ when he
fulfilled the law and hung on the cross. Therefore, Rom. viii. 4, the law
is said to be fulfilled in us, though not by us, yet in us, because we were in
Christ when he fulfilled it, and so it is as if we had done it. Endeavour
therefore to apprehend that Christ had not only an eye to thee and thy
person, and thy sins when he hung on the cross, but he then stood in thy stead and as thy proxy. This is that which will bring in the comfort.
Though casting a man s self upon Christ for salvation through his death is
that faith that saves, which is called coming to Christ, yet more is required
: Rom. vi., Reckon yourselves dead with Christ; that is, to have died when he died. Faith will help a man to put himself into Christ hanging on the cross, and that is to reckon a man s self as then dying with him ; and
then you may see all your sins done away, purged away then, Heb. i., and
yourselves perfected for ever, Heb. x., that your sins shall arise no more. And to see this, all the world cannot help you, it must be the Spirit, that knew Christ s mind then. Only in the mean time you may go blindfold, as
it were, and cast anchor in the dark, and refer the casting of thy state to what Christ did then for thee, that if he bare not thy sins then, thou canst not be saved ; desiring God (blindfold) to pardon thee by virtue of what Christ
did then. Say, Lord, I refer myself to thy heart from everlasting, and to
Christ s heart when he hung upon the cross, and let that cast my condition. And be bold to plead Christ s death blindfold ; by way of questioning with God (though by absolute challenging as yet thou canst not), say, Lord, did
not Christ bear these very sins, that affright me so, on the cross ? Did not he condemn them there and cast them in their suit ? Why do they accuse me now ? Say, Lord, didst thouj not give my name to Christ in that bill
among the rest ? Was not I written in his heart and thine ? Didst thou
not eye my person and sins in his soul as satisfied for them by him ? If
so, Lord, pardon them, lift the guilt off from me by virtue of his bearing them. It is lawful to ask such questions
: 1 Pet. iii. 21, it is called
Wsgwr^a, the interrogating the challenge made of God s favour, by a good conscience justified by Christ s blood and resurrection. So Heb. ii. 4, the
church doth ; and God often whilst a man is pleading and questioning thus,
CHAP, XIV.] OF CHKIST THE MEDIATOR. 298
cannot deny it, but affirms it to a man s spirit. Carnal fancy hath a trick io make suppositions, and to put a man by way of supposition into such or such
a condition ; as suppose I were rich, or were a king, what would I do then ? Now let faith make sometimes such suppositions ; it is good and warrant
able to inure our thoughts to such suppositions till assurance comes. Make the supposition to thy heart, that all this that Christ did, he did for
thee ; upon such a supposition see how far thy heart would work, and thy affections ^stir. In suppositions of carnal fancy, you shall find corrupt affections stir, and your heart run out far in them ; and in the suppositions of faith you shall find holy affections stir and discover themselves ; and as
corrupt desires are nourished and increased by the other, so a virtue comes with these to cause a man to love Christ, to hate sin, to mourn for
it, that lifts off secretly the guilt of it, easeth the burden, maketh the pinch of it less.
A third sort of use is to them that have got assurance, then to make
use of Christ s crucifying and his being made a curse.
Use 15. To cause you to mourn and bleed for sin. His heart was melted
through heaviness, and so will yours be to sorrow. His sorrow was to
death, yours will be to life. As there is a sorrow to God-ward, 2 Cor. vii., so to Christ-ward ; as that God is offended with sin, so that Christ was
crucified by thy sin : not to be sorry that it was done, so as to wish it
undone, but that thy sin should be against him that did so much for thee unknown to thee. I do not say you are to mourn for the crucifying of
Christ as your sin, as some in their rhetoric have endeavoured to persuade men that they were as the Jews ; so indeed the Jews, when they are called,
shall mourn; but this should make thee mourn, that God should crucify his Son for these sins of thine, and Christ should have such love in him to
do it ; and so view every sin as dyed with Christ s blood. You cannot
say, I crucified Christ by my sins, and in that relation mourn, for that was God s act and his own ; but you may say he was crucified for my sins, and so mourn ; both as considering sin as an offence against one that loved
you so, and also as considering your very sins as that which was as the
weapons, as the instrument wherewith God wounded him. And so you may go over all your sins, and say they fetched those groans from him and
those bitter cries ; and shall his heart be made sorrowful by them ? and
shall not mine be for them ? Neither is it that you are to mourn for him
with a sorrow of compassion, which is all that popish postillers would bring their hearers unto, only such sorrow as a man would have stirred up in him at a pitiful story of an innocent man, or a man of a heroical spirit thus used : this sorrow Christ now regards not, as he did not much then, when he went to be crucified, for said he to them that followed him,
* Weep not
for me, but for yourselves ; he regarded not such womanish tears. But
to think of thy unkindness to him in sinning, who endured so much, so
willingly, to expiate these sins, this is it that is to make the heart to gush.
Again, we may mourn for our sins as the crucifiers of Christ, but not as if it were an aggravation of our sins that they crucified Christ, but only of his
love, that would be crucified for them and by them. And so, as we say, it
is not the executioner kills the man, nor the judge properly that gives the
sentence and delivers him up, but the fact laid to his charge, that is it may be said to have been his death ; and so may our sins in all this be con
sidered as the cause of all, peccatum solum homicida est. So, we may say, the swiftness of our feet to do evil nailed his feet, the works of our hands
drave the nails into his, for he was delivered up for our sins. Yea, and of
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the sorrows of his soul, they were the more immediate instruments and
executioners, for they were particularly represented to him, and ran every one with their hodkins and pierced him through ; he was beset, as being encompassed about with them, and pierced through and through by every of them ; there is not a sin of them but had a stab, and his soul had a stab
for it ; and in that relation thou mayest mourn over thy sin and his soul and body, and mayest go forth and view every part upon the cross his hands nailed, his side pierced, his back whipped, and look through his side
into his heart, and see it in agonies and horror, and all for these sins of
mine,* yea, and caused by these sins, which will make thy heart sweat blood, as his body did, if thou hast any love to him. But above all, thou art to
consider his love in all, that is it which above all is to work in this mourn
ing upon thy view of his being crucified. His love was stronger than death ; death could not keep him in the grave, but his love kept him on the cross
for thee when he was provoked to come down. His pains were great, but
his love more ; thy sin, and his love in all this, to endure all this for thy
: if any of you
sin, this is it must move thee. I will say but this to you
believers, that have love in your hearts to Christ, had been alive then, and had known from Christ afore that all his sufferings to come had been for
your sins, and to save you for them, and your heart had followed him to
the cross full of such apprehensions, and you, as John and his mother, had
stood by and viewed all that really passed then, and had still had this thought
all this is for me, out of love to me and my sins ; I like a sheep have gone
astray, and God now lays on him all my sins and then had gone over in
your thoughts all your sins, how would your hearts have been broken and melted ! Now, by faith you may view him in this narration, and in the
sacraments, as really as if you had been by; so Paul says, Gal. iii. 1, 2.
Therefore, get your hearts to melt and break over this crucifix, and put your sins and his love into one cup and drink them off, and see how this
potion will work. To bring the murderer to a dead man makes the dead man bleed afresh ; but bring thy sins to Christ, and it will make thy heart
to bleed afresh.
Use 16. Work your hearts to a hatred of sin upon these considerations
also. If a man had killed your friend, or father, or mother, how would
you hate him! You would not endure the sight of him, but follow the law
upon him (as in the old law they did if they fled not to the city of refuge).
Send out the avenger of blood with a hue and cry after thy sin ; bring it
afore God s judgmentseat, arraign it, accuse it, spit on it, condemn it and
thyself for it, have it to the cross, nail it there, if it cry I thirst, give it
vinegar, stretch the body of sins upon his cross, stretch every vein of it, make the heart-strings crack ; and then when it hangs there, triumph over
the dying of it, shew it no pity, laugh at its destruction, say, Thou hast been a bloody sin to me and my husband, hang there and rot. And when thou art tempted to it, and art very thirsty after the pleasure of it, say of
that opportunity to enjoy it, as David said of the water of Bethlehem, It is
the price of Christ s blood, and pour it upon the ground. Mere ingenuity should move us ; say with thyself, 1. If no more but the conformity between Christ and me, shall I live in
that to which I died when my head died ? thus Paul, Piom. vi.
2. Shall I live upon that which was Christ s death ? Shall I please myself in that which was his pain ? Shall I be so dishonest, so unkind, as
to enjoy the pleasure for which he endured the smart ? Shall I spend on * Qu. thine ? ED.
CHAP. XV.] OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 295
his score, the score of his love ? King s children, when others are beaten
for them, it moves them to be as diligent and fearful to offend as if them
selves were to be beaten, out of ingenuity ; and that Christ was whipped for us and our sins, should move us as much against them as if ourselves were every day to be crucified as he was. I only put this to all your con
siderations that love the Lord Jesus, if Christ were yet to suffer at the end
of the world, and in suffering to bear all the sins you should commit (as you heard when he suffered he did), if you had any ingenuity, how wary would you be how you increased his load, how sorry that you added any
sin, knowing it would be his sorrow ; and shall he fare the worse because
all is done already ?