A28622:157
The guard of the tree of life, or, A sacramental discourse showing a Christians…The guard of the tree of life, or, A sacramental discourse shewing a Christians…
The guard of the tree of life, or, A sacramental discourse showing a Christians privilege in approaching to God in ordinances, duty in his sacramental approaches, danger if he do not sanctify God in them / by Samuel Bolton ...The guard of the tree of life, or, A sacramental discourse shewing a Christians priviledge in approaching to God in ordinances, duty in his sacramentall approaches, danger if hee do not sanctifie God in them / by Samuel Bolton ...
London: printed by M. Simmons for A. Kembe, 1644
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
They say, if one man kill another, and you bring the murderer into the place, where the slain person lies, the dead will bleed afresh: We are the murderers of Christ, and we come here to an Ordinance where Christ is represented in his blood, as broken and wounded for our sins. O! that our hearts might bleed! as he bleeds afresh to us; so that we might bleed a fresh to him. A Prince will weep himself when the Page is whipped for him: but how should the Page mourn when the Prince is scourged for him? My brethren, there is infinite more disproportion between Christ and us, then between the Prince and the Page, the Lord and the slave. And how can we then look upon him as wounded, scourged, pierced, for us, & not be affected with, ⟨p. 87⟩afflicted for our sin, the cause of it. Bernard saith, *If thou would be conformable to Christ (in the Sacrament) as thou beholdest a broken & a bleeding Christ, so labour to behold him wth a broken bleeding heart. Look on him in this Ordinance, as Mary looked upon him on the Cross, when Simeon's Prophecy was fulfilled, that a sword should pass through her soul; Luke 2.35. for then indeed did a sword pass through her soul, when she saw him pierced on the cross: so when you see him pierced and broken in the Sacrament, which is the lively representation of Christ broken, Oh, that then it might be as a spear to our hearts! as a sword to our spirits, that we by our sins have wounded and pierced him!
They say, if one man kill another, and you bring the murtherer into the place, where the slain person lies, the dead will bleed afresh: Wee are the murtherers of Christ, and we come here to an Ordinance where Christ is represented in his blood, as broken and wounded for our sins. O! that our hearts might bleed! as he bleeds afresh to us; so that wee might bleed a fresh to him. A Prince wil weep himself when the Page is whipped for him: but how should the Page mourn when the Prince is scourged for him? My brethren, there is infinite more disproportion between Christ and us, then between the Prince and the Page, the Lord and the slave. And how can we then look upon him as wounded, scourged, pierced, for us, & not be affected with, ⟨p. 87⟩