Flavel, Fountain of Life, File 34.
( ...continued from File 33)
Sermon 34. The fifth excellent Saying of Christ upon the Cross,
illustrated.
John 19: 28.
After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished,
that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
It is as truly, as commonly said, death is dry: Christ found it
so, when he died. When his spirit laboured in the agonies of death,
then he said, I thirst.
This is the fifth word of Christ upon the cross, spoken a
little before he bowed the head and yielded up the ghost. It is only
recorded by this evangelist; and, there are four things remarkable
in this complaint of Christ, viz. The person complaining: the
complaint he made: the time when, and the reason why he so
complained.
First, The person complaining. Jesus said, I thirst. This is a
clear evidence, that it was no common suffering: great and resolute
spirits will not complain for small matters. The spirit of a common
man will endure much, before it utters any complaint. Let us
therefore see,
Secondly, The affliction, or suffering, he complains of; and
that is thirst. There are two sorts of thirst, one natural and
proper, another spiritual and figurative: Christ felt both at this
time. His soul thirsted, in vehement desires and longings, to
accomplish and finish that great and difficult work he was now
about; and his body thirsted, by reason of those unparalleled
agonies it laboured under, for the accomplishing thereof: but it was
the proper natural thirst he here intends, when he said, I thirst.
Now, "this natural thirst," of which he complains, "is the raging of
the appetite for moist nourishment, arising from scorching up of the
parts of the body for want of moisture." And, amongst all the pains
and afflictions of the body, there can scarcely be named a greater,
and more intolerable one, than extreme thirst. The most mighty and
valiant have stooped under it. Mighty Samson, after all his
conquests and victories, complains thus, Judges 15: 18. "And he was
sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this
great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and now shall I die
for thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?" Great
Darius drank filthy water, defiled with the bodies of the slain, to
relieve his thirst, "and protested, never any drink was more
pleasant to him." Hence, Isa. 41: 17, thirst is put to express the
most afflicted state, "When the poor and needy seek water, and there
is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear
them;" i.e. when my people are in extreme necessities, under any
extraordinary pressures and distresses, I will be with them, to
supply and relieve them. Thirst causes a most painful compression of
the heart, when the body, like a sponge, sucks and draws for
moisture, and there is none. And this may be occasioned, either by
long abstinence from drink, or by the labouring and expense of the
spirits under grievous agonies and extreme tortures; which, like a
fire within, soon scorch up the very radical moisture.
Now, though we find not that Christ tasted a drop since he sat
with his disciples at the table; after that no more refreshments for
him in this world: yet that was not the cause of this raging thirst;
but it is to be ascribed to the extreme sufferings which he so long
had conflicted with, both in his soul and body. These preyed upon
him, and drank up his very Spirits. Hence came this sad complaint, I
thirst.
Thirdly, Let us consider the time when he thus complained.
"When all things were now accomplished," saith the text, i.e. when
all things were even ready to be accomplished in his death. A
little, a very little while before his expiration, when the pangs of
death began to be strong upon him: and so it was both a sign of
death at hand, and of his love to us, which was stronger than death,
that would not complain sooner, because he would admit of no relief,
nor take the least refreshment, until he had done his work.
Fourthly, and lastly, Take notice of the design and end of his
complaint: "that the scripture might be fulfilled, he saith, I
thirst;" i.e. that it might appear, for the satisfaction of our
faith, that whatsoever had been predicted by the prophets, was
exactly accomplished, even to a circumstance in him. Now it was
foretold of him, Peal 69: 21. "They gave me gall for my meat, and,
in my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink;" and herein it was
verified. Hence the note is,
Doct. That such were the agonies and extreme sufferings of our
Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, as drank up his very spirits,
and made him cry, I thirst.
"If I, (said one) should live a thousand years, and every day
die a thousand times the same death for Christ that he once died for
me, yet all this would be nothing to the sorrows Christ endured in
his death." At this time the bridegroom Christ might have borrowed
the words of his spouse, the church, Lam. 1: 12. "It is nothing to
you, all ye that pass by? See and behold, if there be any sorrow
like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord has
afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger."
Here we are to enquire into, and consider the extremities and
agonies Christ laboured under upon the cross, which occasioned this
sad complaint of thirst; and then make application, in the several
inferences of truth deducible from it.
Now the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross were
two fold, viz. His corporeal, and spiritual sufferings: we shall
open them distinctly, and then show how both these meeting together
upon him in their fulness and extremity, must needs consume his very
radical moisture, and make him cry, I thirst. To begin with the
first.
First, His corporeal and more external sufferings were
exceeding great, acute, and extreme sufferings; for they were sharp,
universal, continual, and unrelieved by any inward comfort.
First, They were sharp sufferings; for his body was racked or
digged in those parts where sense more eminently dwells: in the
hands and feet the veins and sinews meet, and their pain and anguish
meet with them; Psal. 22: 16. "They digged my hands and my feet."
Now Christ by reason of his exact and excellent temper of body, had
doubtless more quick, tender and delicate senses than other men: his
body was so formed, that it might be a capacious vessel, to take in
more sufferings than any other body could. Sense is, in some, more
delicate and tender, and in others dull and blunt, according to the
temperament and vivacity of the body and spirits; but in none as it
was in Christ, whose body was miraculously formed on purpose to
suffer unparalleled miseries. and sorrows in: "A body hast thou
fitted me," Heb. 10: 5. Neither sin nor sickness had any way
enfeebled or dulled it.
Secondly, As his pains were sharp, so they were universal, not
affecting one, but every part; they seized every member; from head
to foot, no member was free from torture: for, as his head was
wounded with thorns, his back with bloody lashes, his hands and feet
with nails, so every other part was stretched and distended beyond
its natural length, by hanging upon that cruel engine of torment,
the cross. And as every member, so every particular sense, was
afflicted; his sight with vile wretches, cruel murderers that stood
about him; his hearing with horrid blasphemies, belched out against
him; his taste with vinegar and gall, which they gave to aggravate
his misery; his smell with that filthy Golgotha where he was
crucified, and his feeling with exquisite pains in every part; so
that he was not only sharply, but universally tormented.
Thirdly, These universal pains were continual, not by fits, but
without any intermission. He had not a moment's ease by the
cessation of pains; wave came upon wave, one grief driving on
another, till all God's waves and billows had gone over him. To be
in extremity of pain, and that without a moment's intermission, will
quickly pull down the stoutest nature in the world.
Fourthly, and lastly, As his pains were sharp, universal and
continual, so they were altogether unrelieved by his understanding
part. If a man have sweet comforts flowing into his soul from God,
they will sweetly demulce and allay the pains of the body: this made
the martyrs shout amidst the flames. Yes, even inferior comforts and
delights of the mind, will greatly relieve the oppressed body.
It is said of Possidonius, that, in a great fit of the stone,
he solaced himself with discourses of moral virtue, and when the
pain twinged him, he would say, "O pain thou does nothing, though
thou art a little troublesome, I will never confess thee to be
evil." And Epicures, in the fits of the colic, refreshed himself, ob
memoriam inventorum, i.e. by his inventions in philosophy.
But now Christ had no relief this way in the least; not a drop
of comfort came from heaven into his soul to relieve it, and the
body by it: but, on the contrary, his soul was filled up with grief,
and had an heavier burden of its own to bear than that of the body;
so that instead of relieving, it increased unspeakably the burden of
its outward man. For,
Secondly, Let us consider these inward sufferings of his soul
how great they were, and how quickly they spent his natural
strength, and turned his moisture into the drought of summer. And,
First, His soul felt the wrath of an angry God, which was
terribly impressed upon it. The wrath of a king is as the roaring of
a lion; but what is that to the wrath of a Deity? See what a
description is given of it in Nahum 1: 6. "Who can stand before his
indignation: and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His
fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him."
Had not the strength that supported Christ been greater than that of
rocks, this wrath had certainly overwhelmed and ground him to
powder.
Secondly, As it was the wrath of God that lay upon his soul, so
it was the pure wrath of God, without any allay or mixture: not one
drop of comfort came from heaven or earth; all the ingredients in
his cup were bitter ones: There was wrath without mercy; yea, wrath
without the least degree of sparing mercy; "for God spared not his
own Son," Rom. 8: 32. Had Christ been abated or spared, we had not.
If our mercies must be pure mercies, and our glory in heaven pure
and unmixed glory, then the wrath which lie suffered must be pure
and unmixed wrath. Yea,
Thirdly, As the wrath, the pure unmixed wrath of God, lay upon
his soul, so all the wrath of God was poured out upon him, even to
the last drop; so that there is not one drop reserved for the elect
to feel. Christ's cup was deep and large, it contained all the fury
and wrath of an infinite God in it! and yet he drank it up: he bare
it all, so that to believing souls, who come to make peace with God
through Christ, he saith, Isa. 27: 4. "Fury is not in me." In all
the chastisements God inflicts upon his people, there is no
vindictive wrath; Christ bore it all in his own soul and body on the
tree.
Fourthly, As it was all the wrath of God that lay upon Christ,
so it was wrath aggravated, in divers respects beyond that which the
damned themselves do suffer. That is strange you will say; can there
be any sufferings worse than those the damned suffer, upon whom the
wrath of an infinite God is immediately transacted, who holds them
up with the arm of his power, while the arm of his justice lies on
eternally? Can any sorrows be greater than these? Yes; Christ's
sufferings were beyond theirs in divers particulars.
First, None of the damned were ever so near and dear to God as
Christ was: they were estranged from the womb, but Christ lay in his
bosom. When he smote Christ, he smote "the man that was his fellow,"
Zech. 13: 7. But in smiting them, he smites his enemies. When he had
to do, in a way of satisfaction, with Christ, he is said not to
spare his own son, Rom. 8: 32. Never was the fury of God poured out
upon such a person before.
Secondly, None of the damned had ever so large a capacity to
take in a full sense of the wrath of God as Christ had. The larger
any one's capacity is to understand and weigh his troubles fully,
the more grievous and heavy is his burden. If a man cast vessels of
greater and lesser quantity into the sea, though all will be full,
yet the greater the vessel is, the more water it contains. Now
Christ had a capacity beyond all mere creatures to take in the wrath
of his Father; and what deep and large apprehensions he had of it
may be judged by his bloody sweat in the garden, which was the
effect of his mere apprehensions of the wrath of God. Christ was a
large vessel indeed; as he is capable of more glory, so of more
sense and misery than any other person in the world.
Thirdly, The damned suffer not so innocently as Christ
suffered; they suffer the just demerit and recompence of their sin:
They have deserved all that wrath of God which they feel, and must
feel for ever: It is but that recompence which was meet; but Christ
was altogether innocent: He had done no iniquity, neither was guile
found in his mouth; yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. When
Christ suffered, he suffered not for what he had done; but his
sufferings were the sufferings of a surety, paying the debts of
others. "The Messiah was cut off, but not for himself," Dan. 9: 26.
Thus you see what his external sufferings in his body, and his
internal sufferings in his soul were.
Thirdly, In the last place, it is evident that such extreme
sufferings as these, meeting together upon him, must needs exhaust
his very spirits, and make him cry, I thirst. For let us consider,
First, What mere external pains, and outward afflictions can
do. These prey upon, and consume our spirits. So David complains,
Psal. 39: 11. "When thou with rebukes correctest man for iniquity;
thou makes his beauty to consume away as a moth," i.e. look, as a
moth frets and consumes the most strong and well wrought garment,
and makes it scary and rotten without any noise; so afflictions
waste and wear out the strongest bodies. They make bodies of the
firmest constitution like an old rotten garment: They shrivel and
dry up the most vigorous and flourishing body, and make it like a
bottle in the smoke, Psal. 119: 83.
Secondly, Consider what mere internal troubles of the soul can
do upon the strongest body: They spend its strength, and devour the
spirits. So Solomon speaks, Prov. 17: 22. "A broken spirit drieth
the bones," i.e. it consumes the very marrow with which they are
moistened. So Psal. 32: 3, 4. "My bones waxed old, and through my
roaring all the day long: for day and night thy hand was heavy on
me: my moisture (or chief sap) is turned into the drought of
summer." What a spectacle of pity was Francis Spira become, merely
through the anguish of his spirit? a spirit sharpened with such
troubles, like a keen knife, cuts through the sheath. Certainly,
whoever has had any acquaintance with troubles of soul, knows, by
sad experience, how, like an internal flame, it feeds and preys upon
the very spirits, so that the strongest stoop and sink under it.
But,
Thirdly, When outward bodily pains shall meet with inward
spiritual troubles, and both in extremity shall come in one day; how
soon must the firmest body fail and waste away like a candle lighted
at both ends? Now strength fails a-pace, and nature must fall flat
under this load. When the ship in which Paul sailed, fell into a
place where two seas met, it was quickly wrecked; and so will the
best constituted body in the world, if it fall under both these
troubles together the soul and body sympathise with each other under
trouble, and mutually relieve each other.
If the body be sick and full of pain, the spirit supports,
cheers, and relieves it by reason and resolution all that it can;
and if the spirit be afflicted the body sympathises and helps to
bear up the spirit; but now, if the one be over laden with strong
pains, more than it can bear, and calls for aid from the other, and
the other be oppressed with intolerable anguish, and cries out under
a burden greater than it can bear, so that it can contribute no
help, but instead thereof adds to its burden, which before was above
its strength to bear, then nature must needs fail, and the friendly
union betwixt soul and body suffer a dissolution by such an
extraordinary pressure as this. So it was with Christ, when outward
and inward sorrows met in one day in their extremity upon him. Hence
the bitter cry, I thirst.
Inference 1. How horrid a thing is sin! How great is to that
evil of evils, which deserves that all this should be inflicted and
suffered for the expiation of it!
The sufferings of Christ for sin give us the true account, and
fullest representation of its evil. "The law (saith one) is a bright
glass, wherein we may see the evil of sin; but there is the red
glass of the sufferings of Christ, and in that we may see more of
the evil of sin, than if God should let us down to hell, and there
we should see all the tortures and torments of the damned. If we
should see them how they lie sweltering under God's wrath there, it
were not so much as the beholding of sin through the red glass of
the sufferings of Christ."
Suppose the bars of the bottomless pit were broken up; and
damned spirits should ascend from thence, and come up among us, with
the chains of darkness rattling at their heels, and we should hear
the groans, and see the ghastly paleness and trembling of those poor
creatures upon whom the righteous God has impressed his fury and
indignation, if we could hear how their consciences are lashed by
the fearful scourge of guilt, and how they shriek at every lash the
arm of justice gives them.
If we should see and hear all this, it is not so much as what
we may see in this text, where the Son of God, under his sufferings
for it, cries out, I thirst. For, as I shewed you before, Christ's
sufferings, in divers respects, were beyond theirs. O then, let not
thy vain heart slight sin, as if it were but a small thing! If ever
God shew thee the face of sin in this glass, thou wilt say, there is
not such another horrid representation to be made to a man in all
the world. Fools make a mock at sin, but wise men tremble at it.
Inf. 2. How afflictive and intolerable are inward troubles. Did
Christ complain so sadly under them, and cry, I thirst? Surely then
they are not such light matters as many are apt to make of them. If
they so scorched the very heart of Christ, dried up the green tree,
preyed upon his very spirits, and turned his moisture into the
drought of summer, they deserve not to be slighted, as they are by
some. The Lord Jesus was fitted to bear and suffer as strong
troubles as ever befell the nature of man, and he did bear all other
troubles with admirable patience; but when it came to this, when the
flames of God's wrath scorched his soul, then he cries, I thirst.
David's heart was, for courage, as the heart of a lion; but
when God exercised him with inward troubles for sin, then he roars
out under the anguish of it, "I am feeble, and sore broken; I have
roared, by reason of the disquietness of my heart. My heart panteth,
my strength faileth me: As for the light of mine eyes, it is also
gone from me," Psal. 38: 8, 10. "A wounded spirit who can bear!"
Many have professed that all the torments in the world are but toys
to it; the racking fits of the gout, the grinding tortures of the
stone, are nothing to the wrath of God upon the conscience. What is
the worm that never dies but the efficacy of a guilty conscience?
This worm feeds upon, and gnaws the very inwards, the tender and
most sensible part of man and is the principal part of hell's
horror. In bodily pains, a man may be relieved by proper medicines;
here nothing but the blood of sprinkling relieves. In outward pains,
the body may be supported by the resolution and courage of the mind;
here the mind itself is wounded. O let none despise these troubles,
they are dreadful things!
Inf. 3. How dreadful a place is hell, where this cry is heard
for ever, I thirst! There the wrath of the great and terrible God
flames upon the damned for ever, in which they thirst, and none
relieves then. If Christ complained, I thirst, when he had
conflicted but a few hours with the wrath of God; what is their
state then, that are to grapple with it for ever? When millions of
years are past and gone, ten thousand millions more are coming on.
There is an everlasting thirst in hell, and it admits of no relief.
There are no full cups in hell, but all eternal, unrelieved thirst.
Think on this ye that now add drunkenness to thirst, who wallow in
all sensual pleasures, and drown nature in an excess of luxury.
Remember what Dives said in Luke 16: 24. "And he cried and said,
Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am
tormented in this flame." No cups of water, no bowls of wine in
hell. There, that throat will be parched with thirst, which is now
drowned with excess. The songs of the drunkard turned into cowlings.
If thirst in the extremity of it be now so insufferable, what is
that thirst which is infinitely beyond this in measure, and never
shall be relieved? Say not it is hard that God should deal thus with
his poor creatures. You will not think it so, if you consider what
he exposed his own dear Son to, when sin was but imputed to him. And
what that man deserves to feel, that has not only merited hell, but,
by refusing Christ the remedy, the hottest place in hell.
In this thirst of Christ we have the liveliest emblem of the
state of the damned, that ever was presented to men in this world.
Here you see a person labouring in extremity, under the infinite
wraths of the great and terrible God lying upon his soul and body at
once, and causing him to utter this doleful cry, I thirst. Only
Christ endured this but a little while, the damned must endure it
for ever: in that they differ, as also in the innocence and ability
of the persons suffering, and in the end for which they suffer. But,
surely, such as this will the cry of those souls be that are cast
away for ever. O terrible thirst!
Inf. 4. How much do nice and wanton appetites deserve to be
reproved? The Son of God wanted a draught of cold water to relieve
him, and could not have it. God has given us variety of refreshing
creatures to relieve us, and we despise them. We have better things
than a cup of water to refresh and delight us when we are thirsty,
and yet are not pleased. O that this complaint of Christ on the
cross, I thirst, were but believingly considered, it would make you
bless God for what ye now despise, and beget contentment in you for
the meanest mercies, and most common favours in this world. Did the
Lord of all things cry, I thirst, and had nothing in his extremity
to comfort him; and dost thou, who hast a thousand times over
forfeited all temporal as well as spiritual mercies, condemn and
slight the good creatures of God! What, despise a cup of water, who
deserves nothing but a cup of wrath from the hand of the Lord! O lay
it to heart, and hence learn contentment with any thing.
Inf. 5. Did Jesus Christ upon the cross cry, I thirst? Then
believers shall never thirst eternally. Their thirst shall be
certain satisfied.
There is a threefold thirst, gracious, natural, and penal. The
gracious thirst is the vehement desire of a spiritual heart after
God. Of this David speaks, Psal. 42: 1, 2. "As the hart panteth
after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My
soul thirsteth for God, for the living God, when shall I come and
appear before God?" And this is indeed a vehement thirst; it makes
the soul break with the longings it has after God, Psal. 119. It is
a thirst proper to believers, who have tasted that the Lord is
gracious.
Natural thirst is (as before was noted) a desire of refreshment
by humid nourishment, and it is common both to believers and
unbelievers in this world. God's dear saints have been driven to
such extremities in this life, that their tongues have even failed
for thirst. "When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none,
and their tongue faileth for thirst," Isa. 41: 17. And of the people
of God in their captivity, it is said, Lam. 4: 4. "The tongue of the
sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The
young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They
that feed delicately are desolate in the streets; they that were
brought up in scarlet embrace dung hills." To this many that fear
the Lord have been reduced.
A penal thirst, is God's just denying of all refreshments or
relief to sinners in their extremities, and that as a due punishment
for their sin. This believers shall never feel, because when Christ
thirsted upon the cross, he made full satisfaction to God in their
room. These sufferings of Christ, as they were ordained for them, so
the benefits of them are truly imputed to them. And for the natural
thirst, that shall be satisfied: for in heaven we shall live without
these necessities and dependencies upon the creature; we shall be
equal with the angels in the way and manner of living and
subsisting, "isangeloi eisin", Luke 20: 6. And for the gracious
thirsting of their souls for God, it shall be fully satisfied. So it
is promised, Mat. 5: 6. "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they shall be filled:" They shall then
depend no more upon the stream, but drink from the overflowing
fountain itself, Psal. 36: 8 "They shall be abundantly satisfied
with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the
river of thy pleasures: for with thee is the fountain of life, and
in Thy light shall we see light:" There they shall drink and praise,
and praise and drink for evermore; all their thirsty desires shall
be filled with complete satisfaction. O how desirable a state is
heaven upon this account! and how should we be restless till we come
thither; as the thirsty traveller is until he meet that cool,
refreshing spring he wants and seeks for. This present state is a
state of thirsting, that to come of refreshment and satisfaction.
Some drops indeed come from the fountain by faith, hut they quench
not the believer's thirst; rather like water sprinkled on the fire,
they make it burn the more: but there the thirsty soul has enough.
O bless God, that Jesus Christ thirsted under the heat of his
wrath once, that you might not be scorched with it for ever. If he
had not cried, I thirst, you must have cried out of thirst
eternally, and never be satisfied.
Inf. 6. Lastly; Did Christ in the extremity of his sufferings
cry, I thirst? Then how great, beyond all compare, is the love of
God to sinners, who for their sakes exposed the Son of his love to
such extreme sufferings?
Three considerations marvellously heighten that love of the
Father.
First, His putting the Lord Jesus into such a condition. There
is none of us would endure to see a child of our own lie panting,
and thirsting in the extremity of torments, for the fairest
inheritance on earth; much less to have the soul of a child
conflicting with the wrath of God, and making such heart-rending
complaints as Christ made upon the cross, if we might have the
largest empire in the world for it: yet, such was the strength of
the love of God to us, that he willingly gave Jesus Christ to all
this misery and torture for us. What shall we call this love? O the
height, length, depth, and breadth of that love which passeth
knowledge! The love of God to Jesus Christ was infinitely beyond all
the love we have for our children, as the sea is more then a
spoonful of water: and yet, as dearly as he loved him, he was
content to expose him to all this, rather than we should perish
eternally.
Secondly, As God the Father was content to expose Christ to
this extremity, so in that extremity to hear his bitter cries, and
dolorous complaints, and yet not relieve him with the least
refreshment till he fainted and died under it. He heard the cries of
his Son; that voice, I thirst, pierced heaven, and reached the
Father's ear; but yet he will not refresh him in his agonies, nor
abate him any thing of the debt he was now paying, and all this for
the love he had to poor sinners. Had Christ been relieved in his
sufferings, and spared, then God could not have pitied or spared us.
The extremity of Christ's suffering was an act of justice to him;
and the greatest mercy to us that ever could be manifested. Nor
indeed (though Christ so bitterly complains of his thirst) was he
willing to be relieved, till he had finished his work. O love
unspeakable! He does not complain, that he might be relieved, but to
manifest how great that sorrow was which his soul now felt upon our
account.
Thirdly, And it should never be forgotten, that Jesus Christ
was exposed to these extremities of sorrow for sinners, the greatest
of sinners, who deserved not one drop of mercy from God. This
commends the love of God singularly to us, in that "whilst we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us," Rom. 5: 1. Thus the love of God in
Jesus Christ still rises higher and higher in every discovery of it.
Admire, adore, and be ravished with the thoughts of this love!
Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift.
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