Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

SECT. II. Of Considering Jesus in that Respect.

2. Let us consider Jesus carrying on the great work of our Salvation during his Life. It is not enough to study and know, but we must muse and meditate, and consider of it, till we bring it to some profitable issue. By meditating on Christ we may feel or find a kind of insensible change, we know not how; as those that stand in the sun for other purposes, they find themselves lightened and heated; so in holy meditation our souls may be altered and changed in a secret insensible way; there is a virtue goes along with a serious meditation; a changing, transforming virtue; and therefore look further, O my soul, have strong apprehensions of all those several passages of the Life of Christ.

2. LEt us consider Jesus carrying on the great work of our Salvation during his Life. It is not enough to study and know, but we must muse and meditate, and consider of it, till we bring it to some profitable issue. By meditating on Christ we may feel or find a kind of insensible change, we know not how; as those that stand in the sun for other purposes, they find themselves lightned and heated; so in holy meditation our souls may be altered and changed in a secret insencible way; there is a vertue goes along with a serious meditation; a changing, transforming vertue; and therefore look further, O my soul, have strong apprehensions of all those several passages of the Life of Christ.

1. Consider the Preaching of John Baptist, we talk of strictness, but show me among all the Ministers or Saints of this Age, such a pattern of sanctity and singular austerity; the sum of his sermons was repentance, and dereliction of Sin, and bringeth forth fruits worthy of amendment of life. In the promoting of which Doctrine, he was a severe reprehender of the Pharisees, and Sadducees, and Publicans, and Soldiers, and indeed of all men, but especially of those that remained in their impenitency; for against them he denounced judgment, and fire unquenchable; Oh, he had an excellent zeal, and a vehement Spirit in Preaching; and the Commentary upon all his Sermons was his own life; he was clothed in Camels hair, his meat was locusts and wild honey; he contemned the world, resisted temptations, despised to assume false honours to himself, and in all passages was a rare example of self-denial, and mortification; and by this means he made an excellent, and apt preparation for the Lord's coming. O my Soul, that thou wouldst but sit a while under this Preacher; or that thou wouldst but ruminate, and chew the cud; think over his Sermons of repentance, and righteousness, and temperance, and of the judgment to come;