Ebenezer Erskine

“ Because of the savour of thy good Ointments, thy Name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. “The believer find a scent about him, he draws a savour from him. What is the design of his ministers, but to cast abroad his scent, And it is by this we win souls. They that cast out, and drop the Plant of renown out of their sermons, no wonder their sermons stink; and they shall stick through eternity, that throw Christ out of their sermons. The great business of ministers is to cast forth the scent of Christ to people. ”

“ Adam, and all his posterity in him, and with him, having broken the covenant, are become liable to the curse, and penalty of it; so that our salvation is become absolutely impossible, until justice be satisfied, and the honour of the broken law be repaired; the law and justice of God are very peremptory, and stand upon a full satisfaction and reparation, otherwise heaven's gate shall be shut, and eternally barred against man and all his posterity. The flaming sword of justice turns every way, to keep us from access unto the paradise that is above. ”

“ O what fruit is here! Here is wisdom for fools: justification for the condemned soul;sanctification for the polluted soul; clothing for the naked; riches for the poor, bread for the hungry, drink for the thirsty. All manner of fruit is here, and we are trying, sirs, to shake the Tree of Life among you; and blessed be God. they may be gathered. O sirs! they are dropping among you; O gather, gather, for salvation is in every word that drops from him, his words are the words of eternal life. But,
6. This Plant is renowned for his scent and pleasant savour. ”

“ Death is a terror to many! O if you would be shadowed against the awful terrors of death and God’s vengeance, get in under this Shadow, and you are safe.
8. This Plant is renowned for his Stature. He is a high Plant, he is a tall Plant: You see the heavens above you, but they are but creeping things in comparison of him; for this glorious Plant is, The high and lofty One that inhabits eternity. You can never see his height; your eye will look high, and your thought will reach higher, but neither your eye nor thought will reach unto him ”

“ Whenever the poor believer takes the righteousness of the Surety in the hand of faith, and holds it up unto God as the ransom of his own finding, he is so well pleased with it, that his frowns are turned into smiles. In a word, you shall never get ride of a spirit of bondage, till you learn by faith to improve this law biding righteousness ”

“ Wantest thou pardoning grace, to take away the guilt of sin? That is one of the gifts of God, thro' the righteousness of Christ apprehended by faith: For he is set forth to be a propitiation thro' faith in his blood, to shew forth his righteousness for the remission of sins. Wantest thou to have thy peace with God confirmed? Improve this righteousness by faith: For, being justified by faith, we have peace with God thro' the Lord Jesus Christ. Wantest thou access unto the holiest? by faith in the blood of Jesus have we access with boldness. ”

“ He is "Jesus Christ the same today, yesterday and for ever." The best of men will fail us, when we trust: them; they will run like splinters into our hands, when we lean upon them: But, sirs, you will find Christ ay the same, to-day, yesterday and for ever. ”

“ He is not a barren Plant he would not be renowned if he were barren: He brings forth all manner of fruit every month; yea, I may add, every day, every moment.—You read in Rev. xxii. of the Tree of Life that brings forth twelve manner of fruits every month; that is to say, he brings forth all fruit that is necessary for a poor soul: Whatever thy soul stands in need of, is to be found in him; see then and gather, see if you can gather some of it. There is the fruit of his Incarnation; there is the fruit of his Death ”

“ And whan nothing else will do, they will make their own act of believing the righteousness on which they lean for acceptance: which is still a seeking righteousness in themselves: whereas, if ever we be justified before God, we must have it in the Lord Jesus, saying, In him we will be justified, and in him alone we will glory. Faith carries the soul quite out of itself; yes, faith renounces its own act in the point of justification. ”

“ He is renowned for his veracity and fidelity, for. faithfulness is the girdle of his reins, and righteousness the girdle or his loins. Have you got a word from him depend upon it, it is a such word, does not fail, the word of the Lord endures for ever, when heaven and earth shall pass away. He is renowned fer his Righteousness, for he has brought in an everlasting righteousness, whereby the law is magnified and made honourable, and by the imputation of which, the guilty transgressors are acquitted. ”

“ Whatever distance of time, suppose hundreds or thousands of years, may interveen before the actual coming of the Messiah; yet the promise of his coming, as it is the ground of your faith for eternal salvation, so it is a security for the present, that the enemy shall not prevail, to the total ruin of Judah and the royal family of David. In all the distresses of the Church, Christ is always presented to her, in the Promise, as the Object of her Faith, and the ground of her consolation ”

“ The redemption of the soul is precious, and would have ceased for ever, unless it had been redeemed by this righteousness: For silver, and gold, and such corruptible things could never do it. Lay heaven, and all the glories thereof, in the balance with this righteousness, they would be all light a feather compared with it. Heaven is called a purchased inheritance, and this righteousness is the price that bought it. ”

“ You see it is no other than the great God, that raised up this Plant. find The great Jehovah glorying in his skill and wisdom, in raising up this Plant for the use of the church, Psal, txxxix. 19. Says the Lord “There, I have laid help upon one that is mighty, have exalted one chosen out of the pepple; “I have raised up David, my servant; with the holy oil have I anointed him.” You see he just glories in it, that he had raised up this glorious Plant of renown. I will tell you a few things with reference to the raising up of this blessed Plant
4. ”

“ Our nature was highly honoured at first, but it soon sunk below the beast that perisheth; but the second Adam took our nature upon him, and raised it to a higher dignity than the very Angels; for to which of the Angels did this this honour appertain, to be united to the eternal Son of God? So that, I say, this Plant of Renown is raised up for mankind-sinners, not for angel kind sinners; and every mankind sinner that hears tell of him, they should lay claim to him, as in Isaiah ix. ”

“ If a believer in Christ shall hear the thunderings and curses of mount Ebel, or Sinai, he has no reason to be affrighted; for Christ by his righteousness hath redeemed him from the curse of the law. Thou art not come to the mount that burned with fire or blackness, and darkness, and tempest; but thou art come to mount Zion, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant, and so the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel. The believer is dead to the law by the body of Christ, being married unto a better husband, even to him that is raised from the dead. ”

“ Christ gets many metaphorical names and descriptions in Scriptures He is called a Rose a Son a Door the Tree of Life, and he is content to be called any thing to make himself known to us, and here he is called a Palnt, and a renowned Plant but more of this afterwards. ”

“ Having such a great high priest over the house of God, let us come with boldness to a throne of grace.' The believer may come under the covert of this righteousness, with as great freedom unto God, as his Father in Christ, as ever Adam could have done in a state of innocence. ”

“ God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whomever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.—In the fulness of time he sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of Sons. ”

“ And the believer in a peculiar manner is bound to obey the law of a Creator, in the hand of a Mediator: But considering the law as a covenant of works, demanding the debt of obedience as a condition of life, or threatning eternal wrath in case of disobedience, the believer is indeed exalted above it by the righteousness of Christ: and if the law at any time attempt to bring the believer in bondage to it, he is to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made him free. ”

“ Hell will endeavour to keep him down; the Devil and his Angels will endeavour to smother him, when he sets his head above ground: So we find Satan sends Herod, and Herod sends the bloody dragoons to murder him, when he came into the world: But let hell do its utmost, as it hath done in all ages, and is doing this day, to smother that Plant, up it will be ”

“ Others will go further than bare morality: they will abound in the duties of religion, read, hear, pray, communicate, run from sermon to sermon, from sacrament to sacrament, and upon these things they rest; all these things are good in their proper place, but if you build your hope of acceptance here, you are still upon a covenant of works bottom, seeking righteousness, as it were by the works of the law; and while you do so, you do but seek the living among the dead. All your works are but dead works, till you be in Christ ”

“ He is here promised under the notion of God's Servant; and, in the words of the text, he is promised as a Renowned Plant that was to rise in the fulness of time. And, blessed be God, he has sprung up, and is in heaven already, and has overtopt all his enemies, and all his enemies shall be his footstool. ”

“ There is a blessed exchange of places between Christ and his people; he takes on our sin and unrighteousness, that we may be clothed with the white robe of his righteousness, 2 Cor. v. 21. 'He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' 2dly. This imputation goes upon the ground of the mystical union between Christ and the believer. When the poor soul is determined in a day of power to embrace the Lord Jesus in the arms of faith, Christ and he do that very moment coalesce into one body. He becomes a branch of the noble vine ”

“ We can tell you, he is the only begotten of the Father, but we cannot tell you the manner of his generation; it is a secret that God has drawn a vail upon, and it is dangerous to venture into a search of it ”

“ This is an incredible paradox to a blind world, that the believer, who is sitting this moment upon the dung-hill of this earth, should at the same time be sitting in heaven in Christ his glorious head and representative ”

“ Others rely upon a mixt kind of righteousness: they will freely own that their duties and performances will never exalt them into favour and acceptance with God; but, O, say they, it is Christ and our duties Christ and our prayers, he and our tears and repentance, that must do it. ”

“ By this righteousness the believer is exalted above the world, Rev. xii.I. The woman clothed with the sun, has the moon under her feet; which may not only point at the believer's duty to soar heavenward in his affections, but also his privilege in Christ to trample both upon the frowns and flatteries of this lower world; according to that of the apostle, This is the victory whereby we overcome the world, even our faith. ”

“ Sirs, mingle faith with a word, and you will find it will have the same efficacy with you, as it had with the poor woman with the bloody issue, that was healed with a touch of the hem of his garment, who had spent all her living on Doctors. ”

“ For, when the commandment came, sin revived, and he died. Others are exalting themselves in a moral kind of righteousness: they not only cease to do evil, but do many things that are materially good: They are sober, temperate, just, in their dealings, libral to the poor, good peaceable neighbours; they love every body, and every body loves them ”

“ Isaiah's lamentation may but too justly be continued with respect to the greatest part of the hearers of the gospel, Who hath believed our report? 2dly, God's Israel are a happy people, because they walk in the light of his countenance, in the close of the 15th verse: they are privileged with the special intimations of his love, which puts more gladness in their hearts, that when corn, wine, and oil doth abound. 3dly, Whatever discouragement they may meet with from the world, yet still they have ground of rejoicing in their God. ”

“ If it were by our own doings or obedience that we are exalted, we have nothing whereof to glory in ourselves. There are three questions that the apostle asks, which many silence all flesh, and put all boasters to an eternal blush, I Cor. ”

“ The righteous Lord loveth righteousness. Sometimes for his rectoral equity, or distributive justice, which he exerciseth in the government of the world, rewarding the good, and punishing evil-doers, Psal. ”

“ And therefore thou mayst roll that word like a sweet morsel under thy tongue, Hos. xiii. 14. 'I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plague ”