can't mount as with eagles wings, fee if you can run to Chrifl, and kneel before him, like that young mau, Mark x. 17.-Object. I find my felf fo burdened and heavy laden, that I cannot run. Anfw. Then fhew a willingness to run to Chrift; and cry, Draw me, and I will run after thee; even a defire to run will be accepted, as of thofe in Nebem. i. 11.

Object. But faith one, my heart is fo dead and fluggilb, I have neither ftrength nor will to run to Chrift. Anfw. If you cannot run, then fee if you can but go towards him; for we read in Fer. ii. 2. thofe who went after him in the wilderness, were accepted of him.-Object. Alas, faith one, I am fo weak and feeble, I cannot go. Anfw. Then endeavour to creep and move towards him as you can.. Object. But I am fo lame and impotent both in hands and feet, that I can't creep nor move. Anfw. If you cannot move to Chrift, then look to him as the Ifraelites did when ftung with fiery ferpents. Chrift calls every feeble foul to do it, Ifa. xlv. 22. Look unto me, and be ye faved, all the ends of the earth; and would you have Chrift come any lower than a look? look up to Jefus as lifted up upon the pole of the cross, for all nations to behold him.--Object. My eyes are dim, the crofs far off: Jerufalem, where it was fet up, is out of fight. Answ. The pole of the gofpel and of the facrament, on which Chrift is now lifted up, is near at hand; look up to him thereon, and be faved.Object. Saith one, I am so burdened with guilt, I can't lift up mine eyes. Answ. Then lye low before him like the humble publican, who was fo burdened that he was ashamed to lift up his eyes to heaven, and under a deep fenfe of his vilenefs, cried, God be merciful to me a finner, and so doing was accepted: In like manner humble yourfelf before a merciful Redeemer, and plead his proife,

Mattb. xi. 28. Truft his word for eafe and reft to your burdened foul.

ADVICE X.

From JOHN iii. 14.

Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

THE

HE lifting up of the brazen serpent upon a pole, to heal ferpent ftung Israelites, was a type of the lifting up of Chrift on the cross, to heal convinced finners of their wounds by fin.As there was but one brazen ferpent for healing the whole camp of Israel; fo Christ crucified is the only remedy and Saviour for a loft world. He must be lifted up; his dying on the cross was neceffary to fulfil his engagements from eternity to be our furety; he must be offered up as a facrifice to fatisfy divine juftice for the fins of men, feeing nothing else could do it. Tho' Chrift's engagement to fuffer for us was entirely voluntary at firft; yet having once undertaken, it became neceffary for him to be lifted up. And glory to him that would not go back from his word, however great his fufferings were.

Come, then, O communicants, behold and confi. der, with fuitable thoughts and affections, your lifted up Fefus dying on the crofs. After he had borne the heavy crofs on his bleeding fhoulders up mount Calvary, this crofs muft next bear him upon the top of the mount, being first nailed to it, and lifted up with it.. -Come fee how this was done ; behold the crofs-tree laid down upon the ground, and the Lord Jefus ftript naked, laid on his back, with hands and feet ftretched out upon the tree, hat they might take the measure of his body, and

mark the holes for the nails! and lo, they take the measure longer than the truth, that they might both crucify and rack him at once, till his bones fhould go out of joint: So the crofs was a rack as well as a death. Our first parents ftretched forth their guilty hands to take the forbidden fruit from the tree; therefore our glorious Saviour did wil. lingly ftretch forth his innocent hands to be nailed to the tree, to fatisfy for their guilt.Come fee four big nails driven into his hands and feet, the most finewy and fenfible parts of his body, and faftned to the tree; apply your ear, and hear the hideous found of the hammers knocking in these nails! Oh, your fins were the hammers that did it, mourn for them.

Come next and fee the Lord of glory, when nailed fast to the tree, lifted up with it on high, and made to ftand upright to the view of all the world! and then the foot of the tree let fall down with violence into the deep hole they had digged to faften it, which fall did unfpeakably increase his torments, and rend the four wounds made by the nails. Thus his own weight became his torture, ftill widen. ing the wounds more and more, till all his precious blood streamed out at them.Behold your great Immanuel lifted up on a crofs betwixt heaven and earth, as if he had been unworthy of a place in either, hanging between two thieves, as if he had been the greatest malefactor of the three! 0 what a fpectacle was your Redeemer to both hea. ven and earth when thus lifted up? An aftonishment to angels! A derifion to the wicked! Compunction to believers! but a facrifice acceptable to the juftice of his eternal Father!-Look on this moving spectacle, with deep forrow for fin that fafiened him to the tree, and made him hang on

these tormenting nails for feveral hours without comfort inward or outward! No way could he turn for eafe, being fix'd to the tree; if he ftirred his bleffed body at all, he was tormented afresh by the wounds of his hands and feet, on which the whole weight of his body did hang; if he moved his head, which had the crown of therns on it, the thorns would but pierce into it the deeper; yet for all this he complained not; no groan nor figh was heard from him, but what he offered up to God for your fins!

When the fon of man was thus lifted up, observe how the streams of his precious blood ran down to the ground, and flood in a little pool at the foot of the crofs, until the earth drank it up. Let this fight affect your hearts, and open all the springs of forrow for fin that pierced him. Sit down at the foot of the cross, and receive this facred blood, as it falls, upon your hard hearts; let it drop on them, until it make them as foft as the ground it fell on. Let it drop on all the fores and wounds of your fouls, for it is the balm that must heal them.Obferve alfo the great extent of Christ's sufferings at this time, they reached to all the parts of his body, and to all the powers of his foul: He fuffered in all his fenfes; his seeing, with the fcornful geftures of enemies; his bearing, with their scoffs and blafphemies; his smell, with the noisome stench of Golgotha; his tafle, with gall and vinegar; his feeling, with the piercing nails and thorns. Behold his bands that were fill beftowing bleffings, now fixed with nails; his feet that walked in God's ways, now digged thro; his bowels that yearned for finners, now fhrunk and dried up: his lips, that poke as never man spoke, now fwollen with blows. Now he fuffered on the cross till bis firength was

dried up like a potsherd, and his tongue cleaved to bis jaws; the fire of God's wrath fcorched him inwardly, which inade him cry out, I thirft. His eremies mingled, at this time, a cup of vinegar and gall to him, which he refused; but, glory to him, he refufed not the cup which his father mingled to him, tho' filled with wrath and curfes: This he drank for us, tho' it filled his whole foul with anguifh, and made him roar and complain of his father's deferting him: The arrows of the Almighty. were within him, the poifon whereof drank up bis spirit. Amidst thefe fearful fufferings, our lifted up Jefus expired, willingly offering up himself, on the crofs, a propitiatory facrifice for us.

O believers, did Chrift lift up himself as a wil ling facrifice for you on the cross; fee then to lift up the gates of your fouls to receive in this Savi. our; let him have a joyful welcome into your fouls, and give him the best entertainment, the beft af fections, and the best fervice.Did he willingly ftretch out his arms to be nailed to the cross for you? Then be not unwilling to ftretch out the arms of faith to embrace him; but fee to embrace him wholly in all his Offices, of prophet, prieft and king; be willing to be taught, faved, and ruled by him. Was Chrift lifted up on the cross (as the brazen ferpent was lifted up in the wilderness) for healing all the flings and wounds given us by fin and Satan? O then look up to him with the eye of faith for healing. This is the great remedy of God's contriving and providing, put ftrong confidence in it, and look to it with hope and expectation: Never mistrust the virtue of God's remedy, nor defpair of healing from it, however deep your flings, or large your wounds be: For Chrift was lifted up to be a remedy for the chief of finners,