Sermon 9

"O Lord, you Son of David" — the one word ("O Lord") holds forth Christ's Godhead, the other ("Son of David") holds forth his manhood. Here is the perfection of our Mediator, in that he is the substantial Covenant, and Emmanuel, God with us, or God with us in a personal union — the substantial marriage and alliance between the two houses of heaven and earth, God and clay. He is not ashamed to call them brothers (Hebrews 2:11). And why would he take part of flesh and blood, but because he would be a child of our house (verse 14)? He would be of blood to us, not only come to the sick, and to our bedside, but would lie down and be sick, taking on him sick clay, and be in that condition of clay — a worm and not a man — that he might pay our debts. And he would borrow a man's heart and bowels to sigh for us, a man's eyes to weep for us, his spouse's body, legs and arms to be pierced for us, our earth, our breath, our life and soul, that he might breathe out his life for us, a man's tongue and soul to pray for us. And yet he would remain God, that he might perfume the obedience of a High Priest with heaven, and give to justice blood that chambered in the veins and body of God, in whom God had a personal lodging.

First Use. O what love! Christ would not entrust our redemption to angels, to millions of angels, but he would come himself, and in person suffer. He would not give a low and base price for us clay — he would buy us with a great ransom, so that he might over-buy us, and none could over-bid him in his market for souls. If there had been millions more believers, and many heavens, without any new bargain, his blood should have bought them all, and all these many heavens should have smelled one Rose of Life. Christ should have been one and the same Tree of Life in them all. O, we under-bid and under-value that Prince of love, who did over-value us. We will not sell all we have to buy him — he sold all he had, and himself too, to buy us.

Second Use. What an incomparable thing must the Mediator, God-man, be? There is no fair creature, no excellent one, but there is a piece of nothing, and creature-baseness, and creature-vanity in it, even a thing of blood to the mother-nothing of the creation of God. There is no rose, but it has a brier growing out of it, except the Rose of Sharon, that flower of the field, not planted with hands, the Son without a Father (and who shall declare his generation?) A rose that should smell, and cast out odors for a mile of earth, or for ten miles could draw to it many beholders, but if it should smell for the bounds of the half of the earth, it should be more admirable. The flower that sprang out of the root of Jesse spreads his beauty, and the odors of his myrrh through heaven and earth. Could the darkness of hell stand and look on the face of the sun, blackness of darkness should be better seen. But convene all the little pieces of creation, summon before Christ — fair angels, all the troops of the sinless, glorified spirits, the broad skies, fair heavens, lightsome stars, all the delicious roses, flowers, gardens, meadows, forests, seas, mountains, birds, all the excellent sons of Adam, as they should have been, in the world of innocence — and let them all stand in their highest excellency before Jesus Christ. The matchless and transcendent glory of that great All should turn the world's all into pure nothing. What wonder then that this same Lord Jesus be the delight and heaven of all in it? (Revelation 7:17) The Lamb has his throne in the midst thereof. (Revelation 22:4) And they shall see his face. They do nothing else, but stare, gaze, and behold his face for ages, and are never satisfied with beholding. Suppose they could wear out their eyes at the eye-holes in beholding God, they should still desire to see more. To see him face to face has a great deal more in it than is expressed. Words are short garments to the thing itself. Your now sinful face to his holy face, your piece clay-face to his uncreated soul-delighting face is admirable. We do not praise Christ, and hold out his virtues to men and angels. The creatures, as the heaven, sun, moon, are God's debtors, and they owe him glory. But men who have understanding and tongues are God's factors and chamberlains to gather in the rent of glory and praise to God. The heavens do indeed declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1), but they are but dumb musicians. They are the harp, which of itself can make no music. The creatures borrow man's mouth and tongue to speak what they have been thinking of God and his excellency these five thousand years. Now all the glory of God, and the glory of the creatures are made new by Christ (Revelation 21:5), and made friends with God (Colossians 1:20), and are in a special manner in the Mediator Christ. He is (Hebrews 1:3) [illegible] the irradiation or brightness of the glory, and the character or express image of his person. All creatures by Adam's sin lost their golden luster, and are now vanity-sick, like a woman travailing in birth (Romans 8:22). All the creatures by sin did less objectively glorify God than they should have done, if sin had never been in the world, and so they were at a sort of variance and division with God. And it pleased (Colossians 1:20) the Father in Christ [illegible] to make friendship between God and all things — that is, to confirm angels, to reconcile man, to restore the creatures to be more illustrious objects of his glory. Now the income of the rents of glory is more due to Christ, and the debt the greater, in that Christ has made all things new. And why should we not in the name of sun, moon, earth, heaven, which are all freed from the arrest of vanity by Christ, and in the name of angels and of saints redeemed, hold forth the praises and the glory of God in Christ? [reconstructed: Pay] what you owe to Christ, O all creatures! — but especially you redeemed ones.

3. Use. If Christ the Mediator is so excellent a person, we are to seek our life the Gospel-way in Christ; we often conceive Legal or Law-thoughts of Christ, when we conceive the Father just, severe, and Christ his Son to be more meek and merciful; but the text calls him Lord, and so that same God with the Father; nor has Christ more of law, by dying to satisfy the law, nor is he more merciful than the Father, because he and the Father are one; there are not two infinite wills, two infinite mercies, one in the Father, another in the Son; but one will, one mercy in both, and we owe alike love and honor to both, though there be an order in loving God, and serving him through Christ.

4. Use. Infinite love, and infinite majesty, concur both in Christ; love and majesty in men are often contrary to one another, and the one lessens the other; in Christ, the infinite God breathes love in our flesh. 1. And we see but little of Christ, we know not well the Gospel-spirit, we rest much on duties to go as civil saints to heaven; but the truth is, there are no moral men and civilians in heaven — they are all deep in Christ who are there; we are strangers to Christ and believing. 2. The spirit of a redeemed one can hardly hate a redeemed one, or be bitter against them; Christ in one saint cannot be cruel to Christ in another saint. 3. Christ cannot lose his love, or cast it away; the love of Christ is powerful for conquering hearts; his chariot is bottomed and paved with love; duties bottomed on Christ's love are spiritual; as the Father accepts not duties but in Christ, so cannot we perform them aright when the principal and fountain cause is not the love of Christ (John 21:15).

5. Use. The Ancient of days, the Father of ages, takes a title from his new house, the Son of Man; he has an old house, from which he is named the Son of God; he must have affection for us, and his delight be with the sons of men, when he takes a name from us — we should have affection for him, and desire a communion with him, and strive to have Christ's new name, as he takes our new name, the Son of Man, of David.

Son of David, have mercy on me:] The second article of her prayer is conceived under the name of mercy: why? God's mercy is a spiritual favor: deliverance to her daughter is but a temporary favor, that may befall a reprobate: the devil may be cast out of the daughter's body, and not out of the mother's soul. Indeed, but to the believer, all temporal favors are spiritualized, and watered with mercy.

1. They are given as dipped in Christ's bowels and mercy, wrapped about the temporary favor (Mark 1:41). Jesus cured the leper: but how? Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him: so is the building of the temple given, but oiled with mercies (Zechariah 1:16). Therefore thus says the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it. Epaphroditus recovered health, but with it, some of God's heart and bowels also (Philippians 1:27). For indeed he was sick near to death, but God had mercy on him.

2. The ground of it is God's mercy; the two blind men (Matthew 20:30) put this in their bill — they cry, Have mercy on us, O Lord, you Son of David. They will not have seeing eyes, but under the notion of mercy: David, pained with severe sickness, as some think, or under some other rod of God, desires to be healed, upon this ground (Psalm 6:2): Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak.

3. Faith looks to temporal favors as faith with a spiritual eye, as Christ and his merits go about them (Hebrews 11:22). By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the children of Israel's departure. 23. By faith, Moses, come to age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Why? And that was but a civil honor — Moses's faith looked at it in a spiritual manner.

4. That same ground that moves God to give Christ is enough to move him to give all other things with Christ; as by what right — even the right of a son — a father gives the inheritance to his son, by that same he gives him food, clothing, protection, medicine; there are not two parents here, but by one and the same covenant (Ezekiel 36:25-26). The Lord gives to his people remission of sins: and (verse 30) he multiplies the fruit of the trees, and removes famine. In the same spiritual capacity of sons we pray, that our Father would forgive us our sins, and give us our daily bread. Get Christ first, the great ship, and then all other things — the cock-boat sails after him, with the same motion and wind: they are not two tides and two winds that carry on the ship and the boat: Christ enjoyed by faith trails after him death, life, the world, things present, and things to come: if God gives you Christ, in the same charter all things are yours, because you are Christ's, and Christ God's (1 Corinthians 3:21). Christ waters with his blessing all things; if all that a saint has is blessed, and every thing — to speak so — mercied, and christened, even his basket and his dough (Deuteronomy 28:5), his inheritance must be blessed, much more all Christ's inheritance must be blessed, because he is the seed, the spring, and the sum of blessings. Now Christ (Hebrews 1:2) is appointed the heir of all things: then he is the heir of a draught of water, of brown bread, of a straw-bed on the earth, and hard stones to be the pillow: to the saints, to the children of God, hell — to speak so — is heavened, sorrow joyed, poverty riched, death enlivened, dust and the grave animated and quickened with life and resurrection. God save me from a draught of water without Christ: peace and deliverance from the sword without Christ and the Gospel are linked and chained to the curse of God; alas, if men have the single creature, they make no account how other things go: Give us peace upon any terms (say they) — you may have the earth, peace, and the creature, and the devil to salt them to you with the curse of God. Judas had the bag at his belt, but also the devil in his heart — the creature lacks life and blood without Christ.

2. All mercy — that is, graced mercy — is to be sought in Jesus Christ; every mercy is mercy, because it is in Christ; every stream is water, because it is of the element of water. Every thing in its own element and nature is most copious; water is nowhere so abundant as in the sea, so in Christ the great treasure of heaven, there is fullness (John 1:16), but (Colossians 1:18) there is a [reconstructed: fullness] in Christ, and a [reconstructed: particular] fullness — that fullness, that all fullness. And that all fullness is not in Christ as a stranger in an inn, coming in and going out, but it pleased the Father [reconstructed: that it should] dwell and remain in him. The grace and mercy that is in Christ must be sought, and no other, upon these grounds. 1. It is a special choice mercy that is in Christ. For, first, no person could serve God's ends in such a way as Christ did, being so complete as he is. God out of the deep of his wisdom found out such a Mediator, and so graced; Isaac should have been undutiful, if he had refused a wife of his father's choosing, for both out of love and much wisdom he chose her; now when God out of infinite love and deep wisdom has chosen to us a husband, a head, such a head, such a captain, and leader in whom there is such fullness, shall we refuse him, and shall we not seek the best things in him? Now Christ is a husband of God's choosing (Isaiah 42:1): "Behold my chosen one in whom my soul delights." 2. It is not from God that we now receive mercy immediately, but from Christ, God in the Mediator, though grace and mercy be every way free; yet now mercy is a flower that grows in our land, in him who is our blood-friend; so now we have mercy by nature, as well as by good will, we must have it by an act of the man Christ's will, and when our writs are grown old, why do we not seek that which God has laid by for us? Grace is more connatural to us now, in that it is in the bosom of our brother, and ours by derivation. 3. There is a difference between mercy and purchased mercy; it is paid-for mercy that we receive, and so more excellent than angel mercy. As some waters that run through metals have a more excellent virtue than those that spring from pure earth, mercy is so much the more desirable in that it is a river issuing through that more than golden and precious Redeemer; and so to us it is twice mercy, to the angels it is but once mercy. Even as the bee gathers sweetness out of various and diverse flowers, yet it is so composed that the liquor resulting out of them all has not any particular taste from the sundry flowers — the violet, the pink, the rose, the woodbine, the clover — but it tastes of honey only; so we all have meeting in Christ: wife, children, houses, lands — honor to the saints have not their own natural taste, but out of all there is in them a spiritual resultance of some heavenly composure of Christ's sweetness, and are so sprinkled and dipped in grace and mercy, that as fresh rivers do borrow a new taste from the sea when they flow into its bosom, so all earthly favors borrow a new smell and relish from the fountain Christ. What do they say then, that teach that a man may have all graces — indeed, and poverty of spirit — and yet want Christ? As if these could be separated: he that believes has the Son, grace and Christ cannot be separated (Ephesians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; John 1:11). These by-ways sunder souls and the foundation Christ.