formed, as we have abundant cause of, and encouragement' unto obedience, so also just ground to expect whatever else belongs unto our salvation, as he also argues, Rom. viii.

Secondly, It was so on his own part also. Had not this been first accomplished, he could not have undertaken any other act of his priestly office for us. What the Lord Christ doth in heaven on our behalf, was prefigured by the entrance of the high priest into the holy place. Now this he could not do, unless he had before offered his sacrifice of atonement, the blood whereof he carried along with him into the presence of God. All his intercession for us, his watching for our good, as the merciful high priest over the house of God, is grounded upon the reconciliation and atonement which he made: his intercession indeed being nothing but the blessed representation of the blood of the atonement. Besides, this was required of him in the first place, namely, that he should make his soul an offering for sin, and do that, in the body prepared for him, which all the sacrifices and burnt-offerings of old could not effect nor accomplish. And therefore hereon depended all the promises that were made to him about the success of his mediation, so that without the performance of it, he could not claim the accomplishment of them.

Thirdly, It was so on the part of God also. For herein principally had he designed to manifest his righteousness, grace, love and wisdom, wherein he will be glorified, Rom. iii. 25. He set him forth to be a propitiation to declare his righteousness. The righteousness of God was most eminently glorified in the reconciliation wrought by Christ, when he was a propitiation for us, or made atonement for us in his blood. And herein also God commendeth his love to us, Rom. v. 8. John iii. 16. 1 John iv. 9. And what greater demonstration of it could possibly be made, than to send his Son to die for us when we were enemies, that we might be reconciled to him. All after actings of God towards us indeed are full of love, but they are all streams from this fountain, or rivers from this ocean. And the apostle sums up all the grace of the gospel in this; that God was in Christ reconciling us to himself; and that by this way of atonement, making him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him, 2 Cor. v. 19. 21. And so also he declares, that this was the mystery of his will wherein he abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence, Eph. i. 8-10. So that in all things the great glory which God designed in the mediation of Christ, is founded alone in that act of his priesthood, whereby he made reconciliation for the sins of his people. And therefore,

1. They who weaken, oppose, or take away this reconciliation, are enemies to the salvation of men, the honour of Christ, and the glory of God. From men they take their hopes and happi

ness, from Christ his office and honour, from God his grace and glory. I know they will allow of a reconciliation in words, but it is of men to God, not of God to men. They would have us reconcile ourselves to God by faith and obedience, but for the reconciliation of God to us, by sacrifice, satisfaction and atonement, that they deny. What would they have poor sinners do. in this case? they are enemies to God; go say they, and be reconciled to him; lay aside your enmity, and be no more his adversaries: but alas, he is our enemy also; we are children of wrath, obnoxious to the curse as transgressors of his law, and how shail we be delivered from the wrath to come? Take no care of that, there is no such justice in God, no such indignation against sin and sinners as you imagine. But our consciences tell us otherwise; the law of God tells us otherwise; the whole Scripture testifies to the contrary; all the creation is filled with tokens and evidences of this justice and indignation of God against sin, which you deny and would you have us to give credit to you, contrary to the constant dictates of our own consciences, the sentence of the law, the testimony of the word, the voice of the whole creation, and that in a matter of such importance and everlasting concernment unto us? What if all these should prove true, and you should prove liars, should we not perish for ever, by relying on your testimony? Is it reasonable we should attend unto you in this matter? Go with your sophisms unto men who were never burdened with a sense of the guilt of sin, whose spirits never took in a sense of God's displeasure against it, who never were brought under bondage by the sentence of the law, who never were forced to cry out in the bitterness and anguish of their souls, what shall we do to be saved? wherewith shall we come before the Lord, or appear before the High God? and it may be they will be entangled and seduced by you; but for those who have thus in any measure known the terror of the Lord, they will be secured from you by his grace. Besides, what ground do such men leave to the Lord Christ to stand upon, as it were, in his intercession for us in heaven? do they not take that blood out of his hand, which he is carrying into the holy place? and how do they despoil him of his honour, in taking off from his work?-a miserable employment; when men shall study and take pains to persuade themselves and others, that Christ hath not done that for them, which he hath done for all that are his; and which if he hath not done for them, they must perish for evermore. Is it worth the while for them to weaken faith, love and thankfulness to Christ? From whom can such men look for their reward? Can right reason, or a light within, be no otherwise adored, but by sacrificing the blood of Christ to them? no otherwise be enthroned, but by deposing him from his

office, and taking his work out of his hand; and by a horrible ingratitude, because they know no other could do that work, to conclude that it is needless? Are men so resolved not to be beholden to Jesus Christ, that rather than grant that he hath made reconciliation for us by his blood, they will deny that there was any need tliat any such reconciliation should be made? O the depths of Satan! Oh the stupidity and blindness of men that are taken alive by him, and led captive at his pleasure!

2. They who would come to God by Christ, may see what in the first place, they are to look after. Indeed if they are once brought into that condition wherein they will seriously look after him, they will not be able to look from it, though for a while it may be they will be unwilling to look to it. Reconciliation they must have, or they can have no peace. This lies straight before them; they are willing it may be to look upon the right hand and the left, to see if there be any thing nigh them that will yield them relief; but all is in vain. If any thing else gives them ease, it gives them poison: if it gives them peace, it gives them ruin. Reconciliation by the blood of Christ is the only relief for their souls. And nothing more discovers the vanity of much of that religion which is in the world, than the regardlessness of men in looking after this, which is the foundation-stone of any durable building in the things of God. This they will do, and that they will do, but how they shall have an interest in the reconciliation made for sin, they trouble not themselves withal.

II. The Lord Christ suffered under all his temptations, sinned in none. He suffered being tempted, sinned not, being tempted, He had the heart of a man, the affections of a man, and that in the highest degree of sense and tenderness. Whatever sufferings the soul of a man may be brought under by grief, sorrow, shame, fear, pain, danger, loss, by any afflictive passions within, or impressions of force from without, he underwent, he felt it all. Because he was always in the favour of God, and in the assurance of the indissolubility of the union of his person, we are apt to think, that what came upon him, was so overbalanced by the blessedness of his relation to God, as not to cause any great trouble to him. But we mistake when we so conceive. No sorrows were like to his, no sufferings like to his. He fortified not himself against them, but as they were merely penal, he made bare his breast to their strokes, and laid open his soul that they might 'soak into the inmost parts of it, Isa. l. 6. All those reliefs and 1. diversions of this life which we make use of, to alleviate our sorrows and sufferings, he utterly abandoned. He left nothing in the whole nature of sorrow or suffering, that he tasted not, and made experience of. Indeed in all his sufferings and temptations, he was supported with the thoughts of the glory that was set be

fore him; but our thoughts of his present glory should not divert us from the contemplation of his past real sufferings. All the advantage that he had above us by the excellency of his person, was only that the sorrows of his heart were enlarged thereby, and he was made capable of greater enduring without sin. And it was to be thus with him,

1. Because, although the participation of human nature was only necessary that he might be a high priest, yet his sufferings under temptations were so, that he might be a merciful high priest for tempted sufferers. Such have need not only to be saved by his atonement, but to be relieved, favoured, comforted by his grace. They did not only want one to undertake for them, but to undertake for them with care, pity and tenderness. Their state required deliverance with compassion. God, by that way of salvation that he provides for them, intends not only their final safety in heaven, but also that in the sense of the first fruits of it in this world, they may glorify him by faith and thankful obedience. To this end it was necessary that they should have relief provided for them in the tenderness and compassion of their high priest, which they could have no greater pledge of, than by seeing him for their sakes, exposing himself to the miseries which they had to conflict withal: and so always to bear that sense of them, which that impression would surely leave upon his soul. And,

2. Because, although the Lord Jesus, by virtue of the union of his person and plenary unction with the Spirit, had an habitual fulness of mercy and compassion, yet he was to be particularly excit ed to the exercise of them towards the brethren, by the experience he had of their condition. His internal habitual fulness of grace and mercy was capable of excitation unto suitable actings by external objects, and sensible experience. It added not to his mercifulness, but occasioned his readiness to dispose it to others; and shut the door against pleas of delaying succour. He bears still in his holy mind the sense he had of the sorrows wherewith he was pressed in the time of his temptations; and thereon seeing his brethren conflicting with the like difficulties, is ready to help them; and because his power is proportioned to his will, it is said he is able. And whatever may be the real effects on the mind of Christ from his temptations and sufferings now he is in heaven; I am sure they ought to be great on our faith and consolation, when we consider him undergoing them for this very end and purpose, that seeing he was constituted our high priest to transact all our affairs with God, he would be sensible of that condition in his own person, which he was afterwards to present to God, for relief to be afforded to it.

III. Temptations cast souls into danger. They have need under them of relief and succour. Their spring, rise, nature, tendency, effects, all make this manifest. Many perish by them, many are wounded, none escape free that fall into them. Their kinds are various; so are their degrees and seasons, but all dangerous. But this I have elsewhere particularly insisted on.

IV. The great duty of tempted souls, is to cry out unto the Lord Christ for help and relief.-To succour any one, is to come to his help upon his cry and call. This being promised by Christ to those that are tempted, supposeth their earnest cry unto him. If we be slothful, if we be negligent under our temptations, if we look other ways for assistance, if we trust unto, or rest in our own endeavours for the conquest of them, no wonder if we are wounded by them, or fall under them. This is the great arcanum for the cure of this disease, the only means for support, deliverance and conquest, namely, that we earnestly and constantly apply ourselves unto the Lord Christ for succour, and that as our merciful high priest, who had experience of them. This is our duty upon our first surprizal with them, which would put a stop to their progress, this our wisdom in their success and prevalency. Whatever we do against them without this, we strive not lawfully, and shall not receive the crown. Were this more our practice than it is, we should have more freedom from them, more success against them than usually we have. Never any soul miscarried under temptation, that cried to the Lord Christ for succour in a due manner, that cried unto him under a real apprehension of his danger, with faith and expectation of relief. And hereunto have we encouragement given us, by the great qualifi cations of his person in this office; he is faithful, he is merciful, and that which is the effect of them both, he is able; he is every way sufficient to relieve and succour poor tempted souls. He hath a sufficiency of care, wisdom and faithfulness, to observe and know the seasons wherein succour is necessary to us; a sufficiency of tenderness, mercy and compassion to excite him thereunto; a sufficiency of power to afford succour that shall be effectual; a sufficiency of acceptance at the throne of grace, to prevail with God for suitable supplies and succour. He is every way able to succour them that are tempted.-To him be praise and glory for evermore !