A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

2. It was convenient that Christ should give himself out of his own Love, partly that Christ might be a fit Mediator. It cannot stand with God's Justice, to punish an Innocent Person for a Nocent, unless he himself be willing; therefore that Christ might be a Mediator, he had a Will of his own, otherwise God could not in Honour exact the Debt of Christ, but that there was a voluntary Susception, he took it upon himself. The Lord Christ, when he condescended to the Father's Motion, when by his own Will he gave up himself, and set himself wholly apart to be our Redeemer, God might justly require the Debt of him. When Paul would take Onesimus his Debt upon himself, Philemon might justly require it of him; Philem. v. 18, 19. If he have wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine Account. I Paul have written it with mine own Hand, I will repay it. Or I may illustrate it thus; In the Case of Jonah, the Mariners were loth to throw him Over-board; but when he saw the Tempest, and said, Cast me into the Sea, and there shall be a Calm, then they took him up and cast him in. So when the Lord Christ saw the Tempest of his Father's Wrath that was rising against Sinners, he saith, Cast me into the Sea. Indeed there was a difference, the Tempest there was for Jonah's sake, but this was for our sakes; I saw there was no Intercessor, therefore my own Arm brought Salvation. The Father's Ordination had no place or room without Christ's voluntary Susception and Undertaking. And partly too, to set off the worth of his Love. Willingness and Freeness commends a Kindness, and makes it great. What more free than a Gift? Therefore his Passion was voluntary. Extorted Courtesies lose their Value, therefore Jesus Christ gave up himself to be a Sacrifice for us. But the chiefest Reason is this, Christ willingly offered up himself, that all things might come freely and sweetly from his Father to us; that so God might rejoice over us to do us Good, as the Expression is, Jer. 32.41. All a wicked Man's Blessings seem to be extorted from Providence; they have them not from the Heart of God, but from God's Anger, as the murmuring Israelites had Quails. But now that we might have Mercies from God's Heart, and not from his Hand only, that Mercy might come from Love, and all run in a free Channel to us; and as a Gift therefore did Christ give himself.

2. It was convenient that Christ should give himself out of his own Love, partly that Christ might be a fit Mediator. It cannot stand with God's Justice, to punish an Innocent Person for a Nocent, unless he himself be willing; therefore that Christ might be a Mediator, he had a Will of his own, otherwise God could not in Honour exact the Debt of Christ, but that there was a voluntary Susception, he took it upon himself. The Lord Christ, when he condescended to the Father's Motion, when by his own Will he gave up himself, and set himself wholly apart to be our Redeemer, God might justly require the Debt of him. When Paul would take Onesimus his Debt upon himself, Philemon might justly require it of him;