for that purpose: If they help you to discover, that you have fled to Jefus for refuge, rejoice in your happy lot, and let your mouths be filled with praife. But alas! are there not fome of you that have made the contrary discovery, and, confequently, that you are expofed to all the dreadful dangers of a finner without Chrift? And is there no place of fafety for you? Yes, under thofe wings where believers have fheltered themfelves. In Jefus Chrift there is fafety, if you fly to him: but you may perhaps enquire, "What encouragement have I to fly to him? I, who am so vile a finner; I, who have nothing at all to recommend me! Can I hope that he will stretch out the wings of his mercy, and receive me into protection?" Yes, poor trembling creature, even yon may venture; for res member what my text farther implies, viz. 3. That the compaffionate Jefus is willing to receive the very greateft finner under his protection. Can you queftion this, after this moving lamentation of his over Jerufalem! Jerufalem, that killed the prophets, and ftoned them that were fent unto her, though upon meffages of grace; Jerufalem, upon whom fhould come all the righteous blood of the prophets, through a length of near 4000 years, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias; Jerufalem, the den of those murderers, who, he well knew, would in a few days imbrue their hands in his own blood; Jerufalem, that had abused fo many mercies, been incorrigible under fo many chaftifements, deaf to fo many invitations; yet, of this very city, the compaffionate Saviour fays, How often would I have gathered thy children under the wings of my protection; thy children, obftinate and ungrate fui as they are! O what gracious encouragement is here to the greateft finners among us! Jefus is the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever; the fame compaffionate, all-fufficient Saviour. He did not lofe his pity for Jerufalem after he had fuffered death by her bloody hands; but after his refurrection he orders his apoftles to make one trial more with her obftinate children: Go, Go, fays he, and preach repentance and remiffion of fins to all nations, beginning at Jerufalem, Luke xxiv. 41. as much as to fay, "Though Jerufalem be the ungrateful city, where fo much pains have been taken in vain, and where I have juft been crucified with cruel hands, yet do not give them up; try once more to gather them under my wings; yea, let them have the very firft offer of grace under this new dispensation; make the firft offer of pardon through my blood to the wretches that shed my blood; invite them to me as a Saviour, who nailed me to the crofs as a malefactor and a flave." O what melting overpowering mercy! What overflowing and free grace are here! This exemplifies his own declaration, that he came not to call the righteous, but finners to repentance; and finners of the vileft characters are welcome to him. He took care, at the first introduction of the gospel, to felect fome of the moft daring finners, and make them the monuments of his grace to all ages, that their history might give the strongest affurance of his grace to finners of the like character, from that time to the end of the world. Such an inftance was the famous St. Paul. This is a faithful faying, fays he; a faying that may be depended upon, and worthy of all acceptation; worthy to be received as true, and embraced with joy by all the fons of men, that Chrift Jefus came into the world to fave finners, of which I am the chief. 1 Tim. i. 15. This chieftain, this king of finners, was made a happy fubject of Jefus Chrift. And for this caufe, fays he, I obtained mercy, that in me first, or in me the chief,* fefus Chrift might fhew forth all long-fuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him. Bleffed be God, there are many fuch inftances now in heaven, in the glorious company of angels! "There, as one obferves, is murderous and idolatrous Manaffeh among the true worshippers of God; there is oppreffing Zaccheus The fame word in the fame fenfe is thus tranflated two or three words before-wy [fcil. aμaplwxwv] @pŵlès iiji żyw—and then followsvipi pal, 1 Tim. i. 15, 16. cheus among the fpirits of juft men made perfect; there is Mary Magdalen, poffeffed by feven devils, among the faints of the Moft High, filled with the Holy Spirit of God. In a word, there are the betrayers and murderers of our bleffed Lord and Saviour, receiving eternal life and happiness from that precious blood which their own guilty hands did fhed." + And what + Dr. Grofvenor, in a Sermon, intitled, "The Temper of Jefus Chrift towards his Enemies, and his Grace to the chief of Sinners, in his commanding the Gofpel to begin at Jerufalem," has the following very lively and ftriking paffage: It is very affecting that the first offers of grace fhould be made to those who, of all people in the world, had done it the most defpite! That the heavenly gift fhould be tendered to thofe first who leaft deferved it: not that any can deferve it at all, for then it were not grace; but they of all people had most deserved the contrary! That they, who had abufed Chrift to a degree beyond the most pitiful defcription, fhould yet lie uppermoft in his care, and ftand foremost in his pity, and find fo much mercy from one to whom they fhowed none at all! "One would rather have expected the apoftles fhould have received another kind of charge, and that Chrift fhould have faid, Let repentance and remiffion of fins be preached, but carry it not to Jerufalem, that wicked city, that has been the flaughter-houfe of my prophets, whom I have often fent. After them I fent John the Baptift, a burning and a fhining light; him they killed in prifon. Laft of all, I myfelf, the Son, came alfo; and me, with wicked hands, they have crucified and flain. They may do the fame by you; the difciple is not like to be better (treated) than his Lord: let not the gofpel enter those gates, through which they led me, its author, to crucifixion. "I have been preaching there myself these three years, I have mingled my tears with my fermons, I have fupported my pretenfions and character from the fcriptures of Mofes and the prophets, I have confirmed them by divine miracles, and fealed all with my blood, yet they would not give ear: O Jerufalem! Jerufalem! all that I have left for thee now is, what I have before dropt over thee, viz. a compaffionate tear and wifh, that thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belonged to thy peace! but now they are hid from thy eyes; and fo let them remain ; for I charge you, my apoftles, to preach repentance and remiffion of fins to all other nations, but come not near that wicked city. "But God's thoughts are not as ours, neither are his ways as our ways; but as far as the heavens are above the earth, fo are his thoughts and ways above ours. Our way is, to make the chief offenders examples of justice, to avenge ourselves upon those who have done us perfonal injury and wrong; but Chrift chooses out thefe to make examples of mercy, and commands the first offer of eternal life to be made to them, and all the world are to wait till they have had the first refusal of the gofpel-falvation. " As what farther arguments need I produce of the willingnefs of Jefus Chrift to receive the vileft finner among you, upon your coming to him? I might prove the fame joyful truth from his repeated declarations, from his indefinite invitations, and especially from that kind affurance which has kept many a foul from finking: pim that cometh unto me I will in nowife caft out. John vi. "As if our Lord had faid, It is true my fufferings are an univerfal remedy, and I have given my life a ransom for many, that the Gentiles afar off might be brought nigh, and all the ends of the earth might fee the falvation of God, and therefore go into all nations and offer this falvation as you go; but, left the poor houfe of Ifrael fhould think themfelves abandoned to defpair, the feed of Abraham, mine ancient friend, as cruel and unkind as they have been, go, make them the first offer of grace, let them have the first refusal of gospel mercy; let them that ftruck the rock, drink first of its refreshing ftreams; and they that drew my blood, be welcome to its healing virtue. "Tell them, that as I was fent to the loft sheep of the house of Ifrael, fo, if they will be gathered, I will be their Shepherd ftill. Though they defpifed my tears, which I fhed over them, and imprecated my blood to be upon them, tell them it was for their fakes I fhed both, that by my tears I might foften their hearts towards God, and by my blood I might reconcile God to them. "Tell them I live; and because I am alive again, my death fhall not be their damnation; nor is my murder an unpardonable fin, but that the blood of Jefus cleanfeth from all fin, even the fin by which that blood was drawn. "Tell them, you have feen the prints of the nails upon my hands and feet, and the wound of the fpear in my fide, and that thofe marks of their cruelty are fo far from giving me vindictive thoughts, that every wound they have given me fpeaks in their behalf, pleads with the Father for remiffion of their fins, and enables me to bestow it; and by those fufferings which they may be ready to think have exafperated me against them, by thofe very wounds, court and perfuade them to receive the falvation they have procured. "Nay, if you meet that poor wretch that thrust the spear into my fide, tell him, there is another way, a better way of coming to my heart, even my heart's love, if he will repent, and look upon him whom he has pierced, and will mourn, I will cherish him in that very bofom he has wounded; he fhall find the blood he fhed an ample atonement for the fin of shedding it. And tell him from me, he will put me to more pain and displeasure by refusing this offer of my blood, than when he first drew it forth. In fhort, "Though they have gainfayed my doctrine, blafphemed my divinity, and abused and tormented my perfon, taken away my life, and, what is next valuable to every honeft man, endeavoured to murder my reputati оп vi. 37. But this argument from matters of fact is fufficient. Therefore come, finners, fly to Jefus, however deep your guilt. Had you been murderers of fathers, or murderers of mothers; nay, had you come hither this day with hands reeking in the blood of the Son of God, yet, if you repent and believe, he is willing to receive you under the fhadow of his wings. I may therefore invite you in the language of the following lines: * Outcasts of men, to you I call, Harlots, and publicans, and thieves; Come, all ye Magdalens in luft: Come, O my guilty brethren, come, Come, O my guilty brethren, come! To encourage you the more, and even to constrain you, confider what my text implies farther, viz. 4. That the Lord Jefus has often ufed means to prevail upon you to fly to him for fafety. What he fays to Jerufalem may be applied to you: how often would I have gathered thy children together! How often has he given you the fignal of danger, that you might fly from it! how often has he fpread out a friendly wing to shelter you! as often as the law has denounced his curfes against you; as often as the gofpel has invited and on too, by making me an impofter, and imputing my miracles to a combination with Beelzebub; however, go to Jerufalem, and by beginning there, fhow them fuch a miracle of goodness and grace, that they themfelves must confefs too good for the Devil to have any hand in, too Godlike for him to be affifting to; that may convince them of their fin, and at the fame time, that nothing can be greater than their fin, except this mercy and grace of mine, which, where their fin has abounded does thus much more abound, beginning at Jerufalem." Mr. Wefley. |