my law a yoke that was never worn is ready to gall the necks of beasts; but Christ wore this yoke, and made it easy to us, fulfilling it as a covenant, and obeying it as a rule, and as our pattern. And then it is in him that all our obedience is accepted of the Lord. You must not think any thing is accepted as it comes from you, or done by you; no, our persons are accepted in him, and our obedience is rewarded in him; our obedience, as it is a fruit of his own Spirit, and of his love and satisfaction, is accepted and rewarded of the Lord. It is a remarkable expression you have, 1 Cor. xv. 58: "Be ye steadfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." There is a little word, that is little looked to, but the very hinge of religion lies in it: Are you "in the Lord" when you obey? Are you in him as the true God, and eternal life?" Does all your obedience flow from being in him? Is all your strength and holiness derived from him? When you look for a reward of your obedience as done in your own persons, you just run back to the covenant of works, and quit the covenant of grace; but, depend upon it, it will never be rewarded in yourselves, but in the Lord, in the Redeemer. Take care, then, and see that ye be in him, or else you and your obedience will be found [worth nothing] in the end of the day. - I might tell you, that Christ is the resurrection both of soul and body. He is the resurrection of the soul, that noble part of man: "The redemption of the soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever," as to any ransom man could give for his soul, Psal. xlix. 8. O sirs! Christ is the resurrection of the soul, because he is the Redeemer of the soul; and he hath redeemed it by a great ransom: "We are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot?" And then he is not only the resurrection of the soul, by paying a price for it, but by application of that price in a day of power: why, we are raised up by virtue of his resurrection; when our souls are raised up to a life of fellowship and communion with God, it is "the Spirit of Christ" that does it. Then he is not only the resurrection of the soul, but also of the body. There is a word you have to this purpose, Is. xxvi. 19: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise: awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Sirs, they that die in Jesus, and sleep in Jesus, are said to be his dead, Thy dead men shall live; they are his dead body, yet they shall arise and sing, they that dwell in the dust. What way is it he will bring them up from the grave? Whenever he comes from heaven, he will let down his dew, then they will spring up as flowers in the spring; "for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." It has sometimes been pleasant to me, to think of the difference between the resurrection of the godly and the wicked. The wicked will be raised by a word of power: they have no connexion with Christ, they are the devil's prisoners in the grave; and the devil, as God's execu tioner, drags their souls immediately to hell: but the saints, when they die, they do not die in consequence of the penalty of the law, but because it is the pleasure of their glorious Head, that so he may bring them through death, the road he travelled before them, to the immediate enjoyment of himself; he lets them drop for awhile into the grave; but at the resurrection, the dew of his Spirit will fall upon them like a warm shower, and then they will spring up like the corn after a warm shower; then they shall sing in that day, “Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us : this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation," Is. xxv. 9. I shall only add to this, that the very same Spirit of Christ that quickened thee at conversion, will quicken thee at the last day. I will give you a word for this, which you have in Rom. viii. 11: “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Your mortal bodies shall be quickened by that selfsame Spirit that quickened you in conversion, and holds you in life, and keeps you from returning to the generation of the dead. And thus much shall serve for the third head, of what Christ is the resurrection? IV. The next thing was, to inquire to what sort of life are we raised by him, who is the resurrection and the life? But I choose to forbear this at present, and give way to another speaker. However, I may have occasion to speak upon it at greater length, ere this solemnity be over. The Lord bless his word. CHRIST THE RESURRECTION, AND THE LIFE. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life.-JOHN XI. 25. THE THIRD SERMON ON THIS TEXT. O THAT these words may be spoken effectually and effica-. ciously to all this company this day! O that they may come to every soul, to every individual person here, by the powerful energy of his Spirit, and say, I am the resurrection, and the life! There is life in the Son as the second Adam, to quicken the slain family of the first Adam, "The slain of the Lord are many in the valley of vision," many dry bones lying scattered about the grave's devouring mouth. Well, sirs, I come to make a proclamation of life to the dead, in the name of him who is the life, in the name of him who is the resurrection and the life; his words, "are spirit, and they are life;" and there is spirit and life in him, to quicken all this company. O hear, hear, hear the word of God, and your souls shall live; hear this word, and life shall enter in with it. The text itself was the doctrine. The method I proposed was, I. In the first place, to inquire what may be imported in this amiable, this desirable title that Christ takes to himself, the resurrection and the life? II. Of whom is he the resurrection and the life? V. How comes this about, or by what means is this effected, that he is the resurrection and the life to us? VI. Why is he the resurrection and the life? And then, VII. Lastly, Apply. As to the first of these, I spoke to it upon Saturday evening. I touched a little on the second and third heads yesterday. I showed to whom Christ is the resurrection and the life. To this I answered, (1.) That he is not the resurrection and the life to fallen angels; but he is the resurrection and the life to fallen man. (2.) He is not the resurrection of the Jews only, but the resurrection of the Gentiles also, that were afar off. Says the Father to Christ, "It is but a light thing VOL. II. 50 that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel:" but he "gave him also to be a light to enlighten the Gentiles," to us poor Gentiles that lay in darkness many thousands of years. And then, (3.) Christ is the resurrection of churches. (4.) He is the resurrection of every individual sinner in the day of conversion and believing. And then, lastly, Christ is the resurrection of languishing saints and believers. - The third general head I touched was, Of what is he the resurrection? To this I answered in a good many particulars. 1st, He is the resurrection of God's declarative glory in this lower world. His glory was obscured by the sin of man, until Christ illuminated the divine perfections to greater advantage than they were before they were darkened by the sin of man. He is the resurrection of the holy law that was broken all to pieces, as it were; for "he magnifies the law, and makes it honourable;" and the Lord is so well pleased with his obedience to the law, that he proclaims himself to be a reconciled God in him.-Again, he is the resurrection of the human nature that was sunk below its original excellency. The crown fell from our heads in the first Adam, but O it is set up again on our heads in the second Adam; he himself is the crown on our head, he is the ornament of the human nature.— Again, he is the resurrection of all saving discoveries of God. None had known God after the fall, if "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father," had not revealed him. He is the resurrection of our righteousness. We lost our original righteousness in Adam; but he brings it in again into the world, he "brings in an everlasting righteousness." The righteousness of the first Adam was but short-lived, but the righteousness of the second Adam is everlasting, it will never fail. He is the resurrection of our sonship. Adam was declared to be the son of God at his creation, but he lost it to himself and us; but the second Adam brings us back again to God's family, we have faith through him, we have adoption through him, we have sanctification through him; he is the resurrection of our sanctification, and if ever you were made holy, it is the Son of God that hath made you so by his Spirit. He is the resurrection of our peace; he made reconciliation for our iniquities by his blood.-He is the resurrection of correspondence between God and us. All correspondence between God and us was broken up by the fall; but Christ brings us again into the presence of God, we have 'fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." -He is the resurrection of all the graces of the Spirit in the soul. He is the resurrection of our faith; he is "the author and finisher of faith." He is the resurrection of our love; for we had never loved him, nor any of Adam's family, if he had not first loved us. He is the resurrection of our hope: "We are begotten again," saith the apostle Peter, "unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." He is the resurrection of our repentance; for "him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." He is the resurrection of our obedience to God; he is the commander of our obedience, he is the pattern of our obedience, he is the strength of our obedience, and through him our obedience is accepted, and through him our obedience is rewarded. All these particulars I endeavoured to enlarge upon, therefore I have only named them now in a cursory way. 1 There is one thing I shall mention before I proceed, and that is, that Christ is the resurrection of a shattered and broken creation. No sooner had sin entered into the world, but the wrath of God came down, and the creation began to groan under the weight of wrath that sin had brought upon it. We read of the whole creation groaning on the account of sin; "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," says God to Adam; that curse is a dead weight upon the earth, it either has been reduced to its primitive nothing, or to its original chaos out of which it was at first formed. The eternal Son of God, seeing the wrath of his Father coming down upon this lower world, steps in and offers a ransom for it, saying, O Father, give me a remnant of the lost race of Adam for a possession: let the earth, and all that is in it, be mine, and upon the granting it to me, I promise to satisfy thy justice, to repair the honour of thy law and sovereignty, and to restore the disjointed creation to its primtive beauty and order. Upon this parole and promise, God the Father makes a gift of the whole creation to him, "all power in heaven and earth" is devolved upon him; he "gives him the heathen for an inheritance, and the ends of the earth for a possession; he gives him power over all flesh, and gives him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body;" and he hath a human body prepared for him, that he might be "the man of his right hand;" and, in the fulness of time, having put on the human nature, he, with the ransom of his blood, buys the visible creation; he buys the elect as a seed to serve him; he buys this earth as a theatre; he buys the wicked world as tools to serve his purpose of grace with respect to an elect world, and, when he has served himself of them, he casts them away into the fire of hell. Thus Christ is the resurrection and the life of a shattered creation; and, if it were not kept up by his power, it would sink to nothing, or sink down into hell under the |