Holy Week with Jeremy Taylor: "For this it was that he was born and died"

For after that Christ had done all this by the direct actions of his Priestly Office, of sacrificing himself for us, he hath also done very many things for us which are also the fruits of his first love and prosecutions of our redemption. I will not instance in the strange arts of mercy that our Lord uses to bring us to live holy lives; things are so ordered, and so great a value set upon our souls since they are the images of God, and redeemed by the Blood of the holy Lamb, that the salvation of our souls is reckoned as a part of Christ's reward, a part of the glorification of his humanity. Every sinner that repents causes joy to Christ, and the joy is so great that it runs over and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks of Cherubims and Seraphims, and all the Angels have a part of that banquet; Then it is that our blessed Lord feels the fruits of his holy death, the acceptation of his holy sacrifice, the graciousness of his person, the return of his prayers. For all that Christ did or suffer'd, and all that he now does as a Priest in heaven, is to glorify his Father by bringing souls to God: For this it was that he was born and died, that he descended from heaven to earth, from life to death, from the cross to the grave; this was the purpose of his resurrection and ascension, of the end and design of all the miracles and graces of God manifested to all the world by him.

'Christ's Advent to Judgement, Part II' in XXV sermons preached at Golden-Grove being for the Winter half-year