If supreme beauty demands love, Christ does. All beauty his.

If goodness in creatures, Christ hath more.

If love demands love.-Behold, what love.-Helen, Rachel. Name is Jacob.

- to

If kindness, presents for body and soul, letters, messengers, parting with his glory, assuming our nature, confined for our crimes, leaping into the sea of save us, drinking the cup of death to make us live, pleading our cause, he wept for Lazarus, he bleeds and dies for

us.

This is heightened by the consideration of our unworthiness, our wretchedness, guilt, pollution, baseness.

II. Some do not love the Lord Jesus.

1. They will not have that Lord to reign over them.

2. They love him not as a Saviour from sin.

3. They love him not as a Christian prophet.

They love not to think, talk of, or converse with him. They slight his letters, messengers, members, saints, doctrines, commands, and pledges of dying love.

III. Not to love Christ, is a detestable and destructive sin.

It makes us execrable, accursed, Maranatha.

1. It is the highest ingratitude. The basest of sins. 2. It attacks the blessed Trinity, God so loved.-Lovest thou me?

&c.

The Spirit makes us understand the length, breadth,

3. Sin worse than that of Adam, Capernaum, Sodom. 4. Worse than the sin of the scribes. We reject a glorious Redeemer.

5. Worse than murder, &c. He is our Lawgiver, Redeemer.

6. It spoils all duties and works. Give me thy heart. 7. It breaks the whole law at once.

8. It unfits for heavenly love. Fits for hell, unbelief. APPLICATION.-Lovers of the world.-Ye are adulterers; the love of the Son is not in you. You are dead. Your object will fail you. As you would not forfeit a double heaven, get Christ's love. Pray for Christ's love,

for the Holy Spirit, and a new heart. Sin not against so much love, and against your interest, duty. Come, and taste how loving, how good Christ is.

Mourners.- "We love him, because he first loved us." Believe, view, remember his love.-"Blessed are the mourners."

Backsliders.-Peter.

Believers.-Show, grow, walk in love, blessed.
Any man.-Maranatha."

66

OUTLINE XXVI.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.-John iii. 14, 15.

INTRODUCTION.-Law our schoolmaster to bring us to Moses.

Christ.

I. Deadly nature of sin.

Like a fiery serpent.

Act, like the sting, bite. In its guilt, like the venom infecting. In its consequence, pain, death. Prov. xxiii. 32. Approaches as a serpent. It stupifies, or makes raging. One serpent killed man with one bite.

II. Powerful remedy prepared.

"The Son of man lifted up," as,—

Brass, bright, durable. Serpent in the likeness ofChrist in the likeness of sinful flesh, without sin. Serpent accursed.-Christ was made a curse.

Lifted up on the
Christ is the phy-

cross, to heaven. On the gospel pole. sician and remedy. He is the judge, and goes through the

execution.

III. Way to apply the remedy.

Not by works. These remedies are preparations of our own. Formalists, moralists. But, by looking to Christ, Isaiah xlv. 22; 2 Cor. iv., till the sting is extracted, the soul is pardoned and healed.

Behold Christ at the door, in the garden, on the cross. Your sin fastened on him. The serpent bruised his heel. His godhead, unbruised, raises him. your cause. I bring the pole near. Look steadily through all clouds. love, with detestation of sin.

IV. Encouragement to believe.
Christ lifted up
for this end.

See him pleading Look and be saved. In faith, in hope, in

1. "That they might not perish.”—In sin, death, hell, everlasting destruction.

2. "But might have everlasting life,"-health, life of grace, and glory for ever.

3. This is fulness of salvation.-The freeness, "Whosoever believeth on him," &c.

1. APPLICATION.-Careless sinners.-Is sin so terrible? Play not; trifle not with it; rest not with its sting; plead not for its life; put not off its cure; misery of sinners here, and in hell; gnawn by serpents, envy, rage, disappointment, worm.

2. Is he a sovereign remedy? Convinced sinners, despair not; neglect it not; spoil it not; use it in haste, now. To avoid death, to secure life, to get strength to go through the wilderness to Canaan.

&c.

3. Backsliders.-Look again.-Let there be enmity,

4. Believers.-Look on till you have got to Canaan. Serpents follow you; but so does the rock. Help others; tell of the physician. Show you are healed; work, and

eat.

OUTLINE XXVII.

For whom [Jesus Christ my Lord] I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ.-Philip iii. 8.

INTRODUCTION.- "Win Christ." What a prize! Kings have run in this race: beggars not excluded. is for all that "run lawfully."

It

I. Let us take a view of the prize.

Riches, honours, pleasure, earth, heaven, life, eternal life, men, angels, God in three persons, Christ in three offices.

II. The way to gain it.

Faith. It is the ticket that always brings the glorious prize. If a distracted murderer, dying thief, &c.

III. What loss we are called to suffer.

"All things."-Loss of carnal rest, fair reputation, prospects of fortune, (Balaam,) friends, sensual pleasures, life itself: all this is lost in appearance; found in reality. IV. This loss is small.

It is but the loss of dung,—something base, disagreeable to the sight and smell, fit to be cast out, and buried out of the way.

APPLICATION.-Ungodly.-You too will soon suffer "the loss of all things; but for a worse cause than Christ's. You will lose all good things on earth; get all evil things in hell. O view Christ's excellency and the dung of the earth.

Win a gra

Mourners.-Look to Christ and be saved. cious Christ now, and you will have a glorious one soon. Run, lay aside every weight, despondency, gloom, hard thoughts of Christ and his blood. Put in a blank, a blot, and you will have a prize.

Backsliders.-O, what have you left? The pursuit of Christ. What do you grasp? Dung.

Weak believers.-Be strong, Christ is all. O hold him fast. He hath apprehended you.

Believers.-Grow stronger.

OUTLINE XXVIII.

Unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.-Hebrews

iv. 2.

I. The everlasting gospel was preached to the Jews. 1. In the promises.-The woman's seed, the seed of Abraham, Shiloh, Messiah, the prophet like unto Moses.

2. Types.-Noah, Aaron, Joshua, brasen serpent. Purification, sacrifices, as the daily lamb, the paschal lamb, the scape goat, offers of free mercy. This and the promise are chiefly meant here.

II. "The gospel is preached to us."

In the promises, types, antitypes, sacraments, daily offers of mercy and pardon.

III. "The word preached did not profit them."

They remained, (1.) unconvinced, (2.) unholy, (3.) unhappy, (4.) unfit for glory.

IV. The reason. them that heard it."

"It was not mixed with faith in

Faith is the ingredient without which the preaching of apostles, angels, and of Christ is lost.

Faith is that by which the preaching of babes avails. The word is milk, food, physic, cordial. Faith sucks, eats, &c.

Faith is the gift of God, and act of man.

It is like treasure in a field; dig for it.
Pardon is offered, accept it.

Gallios, beware. The king is courting a beggar's love. There are spices and gold in the East Indies, which we believe though we have not seen. It is only fools who believe only when they see.

Faith is both a gospel blessing and a term of access. takes the word and promises. Mix them now.

APPLICATION.-1.

word, crucifies Christ.

It

Mischievous unbelief defeats the