38 THE EXCELLENCIES OF [Chap. 3 iÌ weepest thou ?" knows how to raise love and joy, without any cloud of sorrow, or storm of tears. If any thing we enjoy was purchased with the life of our dearest friend, how highly should we value it ! If a dying friend deliver us but a token of his love, how carefully do we preserve it, and still remember him when we behold it, as if his own name were written on it ! And will not, then, the death and blood of our Lord everlastingly sweeten our possessed glory ? As we write down the price our goods cost us; so on our righteousness and glory write down the price, The precious blood of Christ. His sufferings were to satisfy the justice that required blood, and to bear what was due to sinners, and so to restore them to the life they lost, and the happiness they fell from. The work of Christ's redemption so well pleased the Father, that he gave him power to advance his chosen, and give them the glory which was given to himself, sand all this " according to his good pleasure, and the counsel of his own will." 2. Another pearl in the saints' diadem is, that it is a free gift. These two, purchased and free, are the chains of gold which make up the wreaths for the tops of the. pillars in the temple of God. It was dear to Christ, but free to us. When Christ was to buy, silver and gold were nothing worth; prayers and tears could not suffice, nor any thing below his blood; but our buying is receiving; we have it freely, without money and without price. A thankful acceptance of a free acquittance is no paying of the debt. Here is all free; if the Father freely give the Son, and the Son freely pay the debt; and if God freely accept that way of payment, when he might have required it of the principal; and if both Father and Son freely offer us the purchased life on our cordial acceptance, and if they freely send the Spirit to enable us to accept; what is here, then, that is not free ? O the everlasting admiration that must needs surprise the saints to think of this free- ness ! " What did the Lord see in me, that he should judge me meet for such a state ? That I, who was but a poor, diseased, despised wretch, should be clad in the bright- ness of this glory! That I, a creeping worm, should be advanced to this high dignity! That I, who was but lately groaning, weeping, dying, should now be as fail of joy as my heart can hold ! yea, should be taken from the grave,
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