August 17

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.—Hebrews 12:3.

CHRIST has left us his example as the best lecture of our duty. His sufferings concern us not only in point of merit, but conformity. We can never enjoy the benefit of his passion, without following his pattern. His example is the rule of our highest perfection, and we are under the greatest obligation to imitate and honor him who is our Sovereign and Saviour, to whom we owe our redemption from everlasting misery, and the inheritance of glory. It is the apostle's advice to the afflicted; To consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that ye be not wearied and faint in your minds. This

21 deduction is of greater force to make us humble and patient, if we consider,

1. The infinite dignity of his person. He was the eternal and only Son of God, and descended from the throne of his majesty, divested himself of his robes of insupportable light, that concealed and manifested his glory to the angels, and was obedient to the death of the cross. What are the highest and best of men to him? Were it not extremely unbecoming and undutiful for a subject to refuse obedience to a just law, if the king that made the law should voluntarily observe it, and reserve no other advantage to himself, but the honor of enacting it? Our Saviour did not stand upon the dignity and liberty of his person, being equal with God, and our King, but entirely complied with the law; and shall we complain of its rigor?

2. The greatness of his sufferings. They were incomparable as to their value, so in their degrees. He endured the equal extremities of infamy and torment, that are so contrary to the inclinations of mankind. He was crowned with a cruel diadem of thorns, scourged, spit upon, derided, crucified:—insensible nature, as if capable of understanding and affection, was disordered in its whole frame at his death. The heavens sympathized in eclipses of the sun, in the darkness of the air at mid-day as mid-night, the earth quaked with deep tremblings, and the rocks were rent asunder. And the sufferings of his soul from the incensed justice of God were inconceivably great. What is the worst we suffer, either immediately from God, or instrumentally from men, to his bitter passion? Our sufferings are but superficial shadows of misery, compared to his deep sorrows.

3. His sufferings were most undeserved; for he was the holy One of God, his conception without the least taint of sin, his life of strictest purity and complete obedience to the divine law. We may read the process of our sins, and understand their guilt, in his passion: He was made sin for us, (a sacrifice to atone the divine displeasure,) who knew no sin. As David, when guilty of adultery and murder, was fired with disdain at the relation of an incompassionate rich man killing the single lamb of his poor neighbor, and sparing his own numerous flock; and when the prophet unveiled the parable, and surprised him with that piercing reproach, Thou art the man! he presently, by that fiction in another, was convinced of his own true guilt, and was extremely afflicted in the sense of it. Thus we are apt to conceive indignation against the murderers of our Saviour, the apostate apostle, the malicious priests, the unrighteous judge, the bloody soldiers; but conscience (as a true Nathan) may charge us to have been in that wicked conspiracy against the Lord of glory: for our sins condemned and crucified him. And as our sins were the impulsive cause of his sufferings, so our good is the effect of them. He suffered the death of the cross, that his blood might be our ransom, his ignominy the purchase of our glory, his torments the merit of our blessedness, his death the seed of immortal life to us; but we suffer the just punishment of our own sins.

4, His willing obedience, divine patience, and invincible constancy in suffering for us. In his distress the whole army of heaven were in readiness for his protection and rescue, upon the least signification of his will: If I prayed to my father, he would send me twelve legions of angels. Nay, he had the springs and keys of the divine power in his hands, and could by a word have destroyed his enemies; but he freely gave himself for us; and without resistance, without complaint took up his cross. Now our Saviour, who had the fullness of the Spirit, communicates to us the first-fruits of it, faith and love, humility and patience, peace and joy, to support us under affliction.

5, Consider the excellent reward of his sufferings. He was abased below men, and is advanced above all the orders of angels, and is the eternal argument of their praises: never were sufferings so grievous, never was issue so glorious. Unfainting perseverance in our duty, shall be rewarded with the glory of our Redeemer. And is not the prospect and expectation of this sufficient to confirm our minds, and make us patiently to bear the greatest afflictions?