rest in him, by reason of his kindred and alliance to us in the same common nature, which makes him every man's another self, under different accidents and circumstances; and his nature being perfectly happy, and perfectly pure from all irregular passions and appetites, cannot but be affected with a most tender regard to all the individuals of its own kind: because being completely happy himself, he can have nothing farther to desire for himself, but that his kindred by nature, who are all his own substance dilated and multiplied, may be happy too; and being entirely good, he can have nothing of that sordid selfishness in him which doth too often contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us like serpents to enfold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to all the world besides. Upon both these accounts therefore, as he is a perfectly happy and perfectly good man, he cannot but bear a hearty and universal good-will to mankind; and that he doth so, he hath given us too many dear experiments to make the least doubt of it: for while he was among us, he all along preferred our interest before his own; he made himself poor to enrich us, exposed himself to contempt to raise us to glory, took upon him our guilt to release us from punishment, and willingly underwent a most miserable death, that we might live happily for ever. In all which he gave us the most glorious demonstrations, how infinitely dear the human nature, of which he participated, was to him in all those numberless individuals into which it hath been multiplied. The consideration of which is exceeding pregnant with encouragements to obedience: for seeing God governs us by one who is as well our brother by nature as our king by office, seeing he

carries our kind in his own person, and is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, we may certainly depend upon it, that he will be as kind and as gracious to us as his government, and our happiness, which is involved in it, will permit him; that so long as we are sincere to him, he will compassionate our weakness; and that when we have gone astray from him, he will graciously receive us upon our humble submissions; that he will not load us beyond our strength, nor punish us beyond our demerit, but that he will readily assist us in all our needs, and tenderly pity us in all our pitiable cases, and kindly accept of our honest endeavours, and reward them beyond all our hopes and expectations; in short, that nothing shall be able to separate us from his favour, but only our own obstinacy and wilful rebellion; and that though in this case he will be angry with us, yet he will wait to be gracious again, in expectation of our repentance, and not hastily abandon us to everlasting ruin, till we have sinned ourselves past all hope of recovery. For as to all these things the human nature in him is our constant advocate, which being our nature as well as his, makes our case its own, and is as much concerned for us, as it could reasonably be for itself, if it were in our circumstances; than which what higher encouragement to loyalty and obedience can there be given to ingenuous minds, to consider that he who reigns above in the heavens, and hath the disposal of my fate, is my kinsman by nature, who, by assuming my substance, hath assumed my interest; so that whatsoever he doth for me, he doth it for himself, that is, for his own human nature that is in me; and that therefore it is impossible but he must continue kind to me

whilst I continue dutiful to him, seeing that without great provocation he can never be unkind sure to his own nature. For this reason therefore God governs us by his Son in our own nature, that so, by this his near kindred to us, he might the better assure our diffident mind of a most gracious and merciful treatment at his hands, and thereby excite us to a free and cheerful obedience to him.

IV. God governs us by his own eternal Son in our nature, that so he might the more powerfully excite our gratitude and ingenuity, and thereby oblige us to render him a more free and generous obedience, which is the obedience he delights in, and that alone which answers the end of his government. For that which he aims at in governing us, is to subdue the rebellion of our nature against the eternal laws of right reason, that thereby he may render us more and more rational, and consequently more and more prepared to participate of the happiness of a rational nature, which is never to be effected by a forced and constrained obedience; for so long as our obedience is forced, our wills and affections are unsubdued, and all our outward submissions are only the disguise of a treacherous and rebellious nature: we would still fly out into acts of rebellion, but we dare not our inclinations are as stiff and obstinate as ever, and the restraint which our fear lays upon them is so far from conquering them, that it only heightens and enrages them. Till therefore our obedience becomes generous and free, and doth proceed from a willing mind, from a mind that is influenced by ingenuous motives, it will signify little or nothing to the amendment of our nature; which, notwithstanding its beautiful rind and outside, will

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still remain corrupt and rotten at the core. Now to render us freely and willingly obedient, what more effectual method could God have taken than this, of governing us by his own Son in our nature? For in this our nature he was our Priest; and, as I shewed before, it was infinitely reasonable he should be so; and by what more endearing motive can we be obliged to obey him than this, that now he is in heaven he rules and governs us in that very nature which he sacrificed for us when he was upon the earth; and that it is in that individual humanity, which as our Priest he offered up for us on the cross, that he now reigns over us at the right hand of God; so that he who is now our King was once our sacrifice, and that not by constraint, but by his own free offer and consent! For to redeem the lives of our souls, which by a thousand guilts were forfeited to the vengeance of God, he freely chose to assume our nature, and therein to undergo our punishment, that so we might escape, and be happy for ever: and being governed, as we are, by a King that died for us, that willingly died a woful, shameful death, to ransom our lives from death eternal, what monsters of ingratitude must we be, if we still persist in our rebellions against him! When I consider that he who exacts my obedience hath spent his own heart's blood for me, that he who requires me to sacrifice my lusts to him did cheerfully sacrifice his own life for me; how can I grudge to comply with his demands, without blushing and confusion? O ungrateful! had he been as backward to die for thee as thou art to submit to him, thou hadst been a wretch, a miserable desperate wretch, for ever. With what face then canst thou pretend to any thing that is

modest or ingenuous, tender or apprehensive in human nature, that thinkest it much to render him those duties which he demands of thee, and which he demands for no other reason, but because they are necessary to thy happiness, when thou knowest he never thought it much to pour out his soul for thee in the bitterest agonies and torments that ever human nature endured? If therefore it be possible to work up our degenerate natures into a free and cheerful obedience to God, one would think this consideration should do it, that he whom God hath constituted our King, to demand our obedience, demands it in our own nature, which he assumed that he might die for us, and thereby release us from that dreadful obligation we were under to have died for ever. So that now, while his authority bespeaks our awe and reverence, his blood bespeaks our gratitude and ingenuity, and that in such language, and with such powerful rhetoric and persuasion, as is impossible for us to resist, unless we are resolved to outvie the devils themselves in ingratitude, who, though they have been audacious enough to outface the authority of their Maker, were never so much devils yet as to turn a deaf ear to the vocal blood and wounds of a Redeemer.

V. And lastly, God governs us by his own eternal Son in our own natures, that thereby he may give us the more ample assurance of our future reward. Had he continued to govern us by himself immediately, we had wanted one of the most encouraging instances of his immense bounty in rewarding obedience that ever was given to the world; and that is his advancement of our Saviour to that mediatorial royalty which he now exercises at the right