Christ the Best Minister of State
Upon our sovereign’s advancing his present young minister, while multitudes strive who shall most condemn or defend the British premier, let me turn mine eyes, my heart, and my tongue, towards Jesus Christ, to whom the Majesty of heaven hath committed all judgment, and given all power and fulness in heaven and on earth. Unless for an introduction to a better subject, it is not much worth my while to think or speak of British managers of state. Grey hairs assure me, that I shall soon be put out of their reach, with respect to both their good and their evil. But, blessed be God, I hope never to be out of the beneficent reach of the administrator of the new covenant! And whether I look backward or forward on his administrations, in earth or in heaven, I find them all full of infinite wisdom, condescension, faithfulness, mercy, and love. The more I know of him, or deal with him, my apprehensions of him are the more exalted and heart-engaging. When his eternal Father chose and appointed him to his office, he asked no lucrative salary, but the eternal salvation of his elect enemies of mankind; nay, he undertook to give his life a ransom for us, pay all our infinite debt, and supply all our unbounded wants. No sooner had sin rendered us miserable in Adam, than he began, and for four thousand years continued, to intimate his gracious designs in different forms, to bind himself by great and precious promises, and to bestow manifold blessings on sinful men; yea, and all of these were but presages of blessings far greater, to be afterwards bestowed.
When the fulness of time came, such was his grace, “that, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich.” 64 He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” By wearing the likeness of sinful flesh, by being made under the broken law, made sin, made a curse for us, and by his perfect obedience to every precept; and by his enduring poverty, hunger, thirst, weariness, reproach, temptation, desertion, persecution, and an ignominious death, he fully paid our debt, magnified the law and made it honourable, and purchased our eternal happiness, Ris infinitely valuable righteousness he hath consigned to the hand of the just and righteous Jehovah, as an inexhaustable fund of pardon, acceptance, grace, and glory, to men. In him men shall be blessed; and because he lives they shall live also. “If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins. Who then can lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, nay rather, who is risen again, and is even at the right hand of God, making continual intercession for us.” “Therefore now there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” We are the righteousness of God in him. The price being delivered into his hand, Jehovah must bestow the purchased blessings on men. If we ask the Father any mercy in Jesus’ name, he will, he must, grant it. He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, cleanse our natures, and fill us with grace and with glory.
To render the communication more honourable to himself, and more sweet to us, it hath pleased the Father that in Christ all fulness should dwell. “He hath received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them, and daily load them with his benefits.” God in love to him hath delivered all things into his hand, and given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to as many as he will. His darling maxim is, that “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” His liberal heart deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things his glory stands. From eter~ nity to eternity, he never thinks of imposing one hard assessment on poor and needy men, but how to save and bless them, and to feed them, and lift them up for ever. When he opens his budget, nothing is to be seen or heard but mercies, mercies and loving-kindnesses for ever and ever; sure mercies of David, blessings of Abraham; exceeding great and precious promises of eternal life — of Christ and his Spirit — of all the fulness of God, given, freely given, unto sinful men. Instead of squeezing collectors and excisemen, his officers are appointed to go into all the world, and preach the gospel of salvation to every creature, — to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to call and entreat sinners to take them freely, without money and without price. Alas! that, instead of Christ’s evangelists, Britain should be so overspread with legal and Arminian tax-demanders!
Under our blessed minister of state, how freely we enjoy all things! Our marriage with the Son of God is free. He is God’s free gift to us. We are betrothed to him in loving-kindness and mercies. Our receipts and notes of obligation are free. We are justified freely by his grace, and are accepted in him to the praise of the glory of his grace. Our charters and rights are altogether free, — given promises, an everlasting covenant put to us, even sure mercies, of which this is the sum, 41 1 will be to them a. God, and they shall be to me a people.” Our house is eternal in the heavens, and God as our dwelling-place is free. Our eternal life is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ. Our ligfit, both of the night and day, is free. Christ, the light of the w-orld, is the unspeakable gift of God. Our birth is free; of his own will he begets us again to a lively hope, and we are born of the free Spirit. Our baptism is free; we are buried with Christ in baptism, baptized into Christ, and put on Christ. Our food is free bread, which the Father giveth us from heaven; water of life, which we are required to take freely, and wine and milk bought without money and
without price. Our raiment is free; a gift of righteousness and grace, and garments of salvation. Our person is free; for, whom the Son makes free, he is free indeed. Our trade is free; whosoever will may use it, however poor or wretched. Our property and inheritance is free; what is good the Lord gives. Our riding to heaven in the chariots of salvation, or on horses of gospel-promises, is free. All the service that men and angels can give us is free. He that sitteth on the throne causeth us freely to inherit all things. Our death, or burial, our resurrection, our last sentence, and our eternal glory, are all free; grace much more abounding where sin had abounded, and reigning through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. All things are ours, because we are Christ’s and Christ is God’s: we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
Not only doth our great administrator allow us all things freely, but he himself provides, prepares, and gives them to us out of his own fulness. We have all, and abound, by receiving out of his fulness, and grace for grace. We have life because he died, t» and as a quickening Spirit comes that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. Our food is his flesh and blood, which he giveth for the life of the world. Our raiment is his everlasting righteousness, and purchased grace, put on by himself. Our wealth is his unsearchable riches. He himself is our all and in all. We are blessed with all our spiritual blessings of election, spiritual marriage, new birth, pardon, acceptance, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, holy conversation, happy death, and everlasting glory, in Christ Jesus. Thrice blessed, infinitely “unparalleled Manager of our new covenant state, who contrived and purchased all, and who freely disposes and distributes all good things to us; nay, in and of himself, is our all and in all! Let my soul rejoice in, and for ever boast of him as my God and my all! my God and my all! my God and my all!
For six thousand years past, he hath managed the whole concerns of the great King, the Lord of heaven and earth; and hath dealt so prudently, that omniscience itself cannot find a flaw in his admistrations. Not one of the new covenant subjects, or angelic servants, but is ready to attest that he hath done all things well. His name is but still in the bud. His name shall endure for ever. It shall beget children before the sun. Men shall be blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed. The knowledge and glory of him shall fill the whole earth, and all the ends of the earth shall see his salvation and fear before him. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. There shall be one Lord over all the earth, and his name one, God shall cause his name, which is above every name that is named, to be remembered in all generations, and the people shall praise him for ever and ever.
When, at the last day, he shall come in his own and his Father’s glory, with all his holy angels, he
shall judge the world in righteousness, and the people in equity. Not one conscience of the whole assembly, consisting, perhaps, of some millions of millions, but shall, at every step of his conduct, cry out, Righteous art thou, O Lord, and righteous are thy judgments! Even Beelzebub, infidels, heretics, profane, formalists, and their fellows, who had persevered till the last, in reproaching and blaspheming him in his absence, shall, with hanging heads and trembling hearts, confess themselves to have been impudent liars, and that he is Lord, to the glory of the Father. Even in hell, every conscience, to the eternal anguish and torment of its owner, shall perpetually attest the wisdom and equity of his whole conduct, and the justice of their own damnation, as reproachers of, and rebels against, him. In heaven, his equity, wisdom, mercy, and love, and the righteousness and holiness of all his works, are, and shall for ever be, the ravishing wonder of every heart, and the delightful burden of every song. In the view of my being for ever thus employed, let my heart now meditate good matter concerning my King, and in speaking to his honour, let my tongue be as the pen of a ready writer.