Thomasgoodwinvol

Thomasgoodwinvol

NIOHOL S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES,

PUEITAN PEBIOD,

THE

WOBKS OF THOMAS GOODWIN, D.D,

VOL. IV.

COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION.

W. LINDSAY ALEXANDEK, D.D., Professor of Theology, Congregational

Union, Edinburgh.

JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh.

THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University, Edinburgh.

D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh.

WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church

History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby terian Church, Edinburgh.

(Seneral (Sfct tor.

REV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., EDINBURGH.

THE WORKS

THOMAS GOODWIN, D.D.,

SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE, OXFORD. itjr (Stmral

BY JOHN C. MILLER, D.D.,

LINCOLN COLLEGE; HONORARY CANON OF WORCESTER; RECTOR OF sx MARTIN S, BIRMINGHAM. twr

BY ROBERT HALLEY, D.D.,

PKIKCIPAL OF THE INDh.PEM>JiNT NEW COLLEGE, LJNDOX.

VOL. IV.

-&.! yf CONTAINING :

CHRIST SET FORTH

THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN TOWARDS SINNERS ON EARTH

AGGRAVATION OF SIN ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH

THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL A DISCOURSE OF THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL-

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST.

EDINBURGH : JAMES NICHOL. LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN r W. ROBERTSON.

M.DCCC.LXII.

KDTNBCROH

PRINTED BY JOHN GREIG AND SO*

OLI> PHYSIJ GA.HDEXS.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHRIST SET FORTH, on Rom. viii. 34, . . . . 1

THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN TOWARDS SINNERS ON EARTH, . 93

AGGRAVATION OF SIN, . . . . . .151

Aggravations of Sinning against Knowledge, Aggravations of Sinning against Mercy,

ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH

Sermon I. on Col. I. 26, 27, .... 227

THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL, . . . . .225

Sermon II. on do., .... 241

A DISCOURSE OF THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL, . . . 259

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, 347

Book I. Of the Godhead, and the three Persons within it self. That there is but one God. That in the divine nature, or one Godhead, there are three Persons conversing with, speaking to, and glorifying one another. Which any mere creature. ..... 849 union and communion of the three Persons between them selves is peculiar to the Deity, and incommunicable to Book II. Of the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity. What his person is, considered in himself. He is the eternal Son of the Father, one God in essence with him. The Son, the second person, took the man Jesus into joined into one person, ...... 404 personal union with himself; and so Christ is God-man

Book III. Of the glories and royalties that belong unto Jesus

Christ, considered as God-man in one person (besides what accrued to him from his performance of the work of our redemption), and which were appointed for him, by

VI CONTENTS. his Father, from all eternity. The apparent manifestation of the divine attributes in the person of Jesus Christ Godman. The designation of him in God s first decrees, as the end for whom all the creatures were made. The part that he bore as God-man in the creation, as by him all things were created. The appointment of him by God to be one Lord over all, under him one God ; and to be in a more special respect the head of the elect, on whom they were to hold the tenure of all the blessings bestowed on them above the dues of creation, . .454

CHRIST SET FORTE

VOL. IV.

[OEIGINAL TITLE ]

CHRIST SET FORTH

f Death, \ /CAUSE

Resurrection, of Justification, 7-7-1 Ascension, In kis

As the

] Sitting at God s f

] B J E c T right hand, of Justifying \ Intercession, / \ Faith.

Upon ROM. 8. VEE. 34.

TOGETHER WITH A TREATISE

DISCOVERING

The Affectionate tenderness of

CUEISTS HEAET now in Hea

ven, unto Sinners on Earth.

Bij Tuo : GOODWIN", B. D.

LONDON, Printed by J. G. for R. Dawlman, 1651.

TO THE EEADEE.

WHAT the scope of this treatise itself is, the title-page and the table that follows will sufficiently inform you: I shall only here acquaint you with what was mine, in a few words. I have by long experience observed many holy and precious souls, who have clearly and wholly given up themselves to Christ, to be saved by him his own way, and who a their first conver sion (as also at times of desertion) have made an entire and immediate close with Christ alone for their justification, who yet in the ordinary course and way of their spirits have been too much carried away with the rudiments of Christ in their own hearts, and not after Christ himself; the stream of their more constant thoughts and deepest intentions ranaiing in the channel of reflecting upon, and searching into the gracious dispositions of their own hearts, so to bring down, or to raise up (as the apostle s words are, Rom. x. 8), and so get a sight of Christ by them. Whereas Christ himself is nigh them (as the apostle there speaks), if they would but nakedly look upon himself through thoughts of pure and single faith..

And although the use of our own graces, by way of sign and evidence of Christ in us, be allowed us by God, and is no way derogatory from Christ,, if subordinated to faith ; and so as that the heart be not too inordinate and immoderate in poring too long or too much on them, to fetch their comfort from them, unto a neglect of Christ : yet as pleasures that are lawful are unlawfully used when our thoughts and intentions are too long, or too fre quent, or too vehement in them, so as to dead the heart, either to the pre sent delighting in God, or pursuing after him, with the joint strength of our : so an immoderate recourse unto signs souls, as our only chiefest good (though barely considered as such), is as unwarrantable, when thereby we are diverted and taken off from a more constant actual exercise of daily thoughts of faith towards Christ immediately, as he is set forth to be our righteousness, either by the way of assurance (which is a kind of enjoyment of him), or recumbency and renewed adherence in pursuit after him.

And yet the minds of many are so wholly taken up with their own hearts, that (as the Psalmist s&js of God) Christ is scarce in all their thoughts. But let these consider what a dishonour this must needs be unto Christ,

4 TO THE EEADER. that his train and favourites (our graces) should have a fuller court and more frequent attendance from our hearts than himself, who is the King of Glory. And likewise what a shame also it is for believers themselves, who are his spouse, to look upon their husband no otherwise but by reflec tion and at second hand, through the intervention and assistance of their own graces, as mediators between him and them.

Now to rectify this error, the way is not wholly to reject all use of such evidences, but to order them, both for the season, as also the issue of them.

For the season, so as that the use of them go not before, but still should follow after an address of faith first renewed, and acts thereof put forth upon Christ himself. Thus whensoever we would go down into our own hearts, and take a view of our graces, let us be sure first to look wholly out of our selves unto Christ, as our justification, and to close with them* immediately; and this as if we had no present or by-past grace to evidence our being in him. And if then, whilst faith is thus immediately clasping about Christ, as sitting upon his throne of grace, we find either present or fore-past graces coming in as handmaids, to attend and witness to the truth of this adherence unto Christ (as after such single and absolute acts of faith it oftentimes falls out) ; the Holy Ghost (without whose light they shine not) bearing wit ness uith our spirits, that is, our graces, as well as to our spirits ; and then again, for the issue of them, if in the closure of all, we again let fall our viewing and comforting ourselves in them, or this their testimony, and begin afresh (upon his encouragement) to act faith upon Christ immediately with a redoubled strength ; if thus (I say) we make such evidences to be subservient only unto faith (whilst it makes Christ its Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all), this will be no prejudice at all to Christ s glory, or the workings of faith itself; for by this course the life of faith is still actually maintained and kept upon wing in its full use and exercise towards Christ alone for justification. Whereas many Christians do habi tually make that only but as a supposed or taken for granted principle, which they seldom use, but have laid up for a time of need ; but actually live more in the view and comfort of their own graces, and the gracious workings thereof in the duties towards Christ.

The reason of this defect, among many others, I have attributed partly to a barrenness (as Peter s phrase is) in the knowledge of the Lord

Jesus Christ, and of such things revealed about him, as might be matter: as also to a want of skill (whilst men want assurance) to bend and bow, and subjugate to the use of a faith for mere adherence, all those things that they know and hear of Christ as made for faith to work and feed upon justification unto us. It being in experience a matter of the greatest diffi culty (and yet certainly most feasible and attainable), for such a faith as can yet only rely and cast itself upon Christ for justification, yet rightly to take in, and so to make use of all that which is or may be said of Christ, his being made righteousness to us, in his death, resurrection, &c., as to quicken and strengthen itself in such acts of mere adherence, until assurance

* Qu. him ? ED.

TO THE READER. itself comes, for whose use and entertainment all truths lie more fair and directly to be received by it. They all serve as a fore-right wind to assu rance of faith, to fill the sails thereof, and carry on with a more full and constant gale (as the word used by the apostle for assurance * imports), whereas to the faith of a poor recumbent, they serve but as a half side wind, unto which yet, through skill, the sails of such a faith may be so turned and applied towards it, as to carry a soul on with much ease and quietness unto Christ the desired haven ; it notwithstanding waiting all that while for a more fair and full gale of assurance in the end.

Now to help or instruct believers in that latter, namely, the use of such a skill, is not directly the drift of this treatise, I having reserved that part (if God assist me and give leisure, and this find acceptance) unto another about the Acts ofjustifying faith, wherein this art now mentioned is to be the main scope. That which I have here endeavoured, is, to set forth to all sorts of believers (whether they have assurance or not) Christ as he is the object of our faith as justifying, and as the cause of justification to us ; and so I send forth this as a premise and preparatory to that other. And to that pur pose I have run over some few articles of our faith or creed, as I found them put together in one bundle by the great Apostle, namely Christ, in his death, resurrection, ascension, sitting at God s right hand, and interces sion, and have handled these no further than as in all these he is made justification unto us, therein having punctually kept unto the apostle s scope. By all which you may (in the mean time) see, what abundant pro vision God hath laid up in Christ (in the point of justification) for all sorts of believers to live upon : every thing in Christ, whatsoever he was, or whatsoever he did, with a joint voice speaking justification unto us. You may see also that God hath in Christ justified us over and over ; and thereby come to discern what little reason you have to suffer your hearts to be carried aside to other comforters, and so be spoiled and bereft of these more immediately prepared, and laid up for us in Christ himself. To have handled all those considerations, which his obedience unto death affords unto the justification of a believer, and his comfort therein, in this small tractate, would have made that part too disproportioned to the rest : it alone deserves, and will require a distinct tract, which therefore I have cast into another method ; and so in this treatise have touched only upon what may for the present be sufficient to furnish that part, to keep company with its fellows. Only when I had thus presented Christ along from his death, resurrection, and ascension, unto his sitting in heaven, and there performing that great part of his priesthood, the work of intercession, I judged it both homogeneal to all these, and conducing to the greater encouragement of believers in the exercise of their faith, to subjoin that other treatise, How

Christ s Heart, now he is in Heaven, stands affected to us Sinners here below. And a better token (take the argument itself, if I could have fully repre sented it) how to present unto his spouse I know not, than a true character of her Husband s heart, now he is in glory: and (but for method s sake) I

6 TO THE HEADER. would have placed it first, it being more suited to vulgar capacities, whose benefit I aim at. Now in that discourse I confess I have not aimed to keep so strictly unto the matter of justification only, as in the other I have done; but have more generally discussed it, and shewn how his heart stands towards us, under all sorts of infirmities whatsoever, either of sin or misery, yet so as it will serve for the matter of justification also. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ grant us according to the riches of his glory, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, and that we may know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge

THO. GOODWIN.

CHRIST SET FORTH.

SECTION I.

SHEWING BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION THAT CHRIST IS THE EXAMPLE

AND OBJECT OF JUSTIFYING FAITH.

Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. ROM. VIII. 34.

CHAPTER I.

The scope of these words : that they were Christ s originally. Christ the highest example of believing. Encouragements to our faith from thence.

THESE words are a triumphing challenge uttered by the apostle in the name of all the elect ; for so he begins it in ver. 33 foregoing, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God s elect ? It is God that justifies. And then follow these words, Who shall condemn ? namely, God s elect. It is Christ that died, &c. This challenge we find first published by Jesus

Christ himself, our only champion, Isa. 1. (a chapter made of and for Christ), ver. 8, He is near that justifies me ; who will contend with me ?

They were Christ s words there, and spoken of God s justifying him : and these are every believer s words here, intended of God s justifying them.

Christ is brought in there uttering them as standing at the high priest s tribunal, when they spat upon him, and buffeted him, as ver. 4, 5 ; when he was condemned by Pilate, then he exercised this faith on God his Father, He is near that justifies me. And as in that his condemnation he stood in our stead, so in this his hope of his justification he speaks in our stead also, and as representing us in both. And upon this the apostle here pro nounces, in like words, of all the elect, * It is God that justifies ; who shall accuse ? Christ was condemned, yea, hath died ; who therefore shall condemn ? Lo, here the communion we have with Christ in his death and condemnation, yea in his very faith ; if he trusted in God, so may we, and shall as certainly be delivered. Observe we first from hence, by way of premise to all that follows,

8 CHRIST THE EXAMPLE OF FAITH. [SECT. I.

06s. That Christ lived by faith as well as we do. In John i. 16, we are said to receive of his fulness grace for grace ; that is, grace answerable and like unto his ; and so (among others) faith. For explication hereof.

First ; in some sense he had a faith for justification like unto ours, though not a justification through faith, as we have. He went not, indeed, out of himself, to rely on another for righteousness, for he had enough of his own (he being the Lord our righteousness ) ; yet he believes on God to justify him, and had recourse to God for justification: He is near (says he) that justifies me. If he had stood in his own person merely, and upon his own bottom only, there had been no occasion for such a speech ; and yet consider him as he stood in our stead, there was ; for what need of such a justification, if he had not been some way near a condemnation ? He therefore must be supposed to stand here (in Isaiah) at God s tribunal, as well as at Pilate s, with all our sins upon him. And so the same prophet

God made the iniquities of us to meet on him. He was now made sin, and a curse, and stood not in danger of Pilate s con demnation only, but of God s too, unless he satisfied him for all those sins. And when the wrath of God for sin came thus in upon him, his faith was tells us, chap. liii. 6, put to it, to trust and wait on him for his justification, for to take off all those sins, together with his wrath from off him, and to acknowledge him self satisfied and him acquitted. Therefore, in Ps. xxii. (which was made for Christ when hanging on the cross, and speaks how his heart was taken up that while), he is brought in as putting forth such a faith as here we speak of, when he called God his God, My God ! my God ! then, when as to his sense, he had forsaken him, Why hast thou forsaken me ? Yea, he helped his faith with the faith of the forefathers, whom upon their trust in him God had delivered ; Our fathers, saith he, trusted in thee ; they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. Yea, at ver. 5, we find him laying himself at God s feet, lower than ever any man did. I am a worm, says he, (which every man treads on, and counts it a matter of nothing for to kill), and no man, as it follows ; and all this, because he bare our sins. Now his deliverance and justification from all these, to be given him at his resurrection, was the matter, the business he thus trusted in God for, even that he should rise again, and be acquitted from them. So Ps. xvi. (a psalm made also for Christ, when to suffer, and lie in the grave), ver. 8, 9, 10 : The Lord is at my right hand, I shall not be moved : Therefore my heart is glad, my flesh also resteth in hope, or, as in the original, dwells in confident sureness. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, that is, under the load of these sins, and thy wrath laid on me for them ; * neither wilt suffer thy holy One (in my body) to see corruption. This is in substance all one with what is here said in this one word, He is near that justifies me, for Christ s resurrection was a justification of him, as I shall hereafter shew.

Neither, 2, did he exercise faith for himself only, but for us also, and that more than any of us is put to it, to exercise for himself; for he in dying, and emptying himself, trusted God with the merit of all his suffer ings aforehand, there being many thousands of souls to be saved thereby a long while after, even to the end of the world. He died and betrusted all that stock into his Father s hands, to give it out in grace and glory, as those for whom he died should have need. And this is a greater trust (considering the infinite number of his elect as then yet to come) than any man hath occasion to put forth for himself alone. God trusted Christ before he came into the world, and saved many millions of the Jews upon his bare

CHAP. I.] CHRIST THE EXAMPLE OF FAITH. word. And then Christ, at his death, trusts God again as much, both for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles, that were to believe after his death. In Heb. ii. 12, 13, 14, 15-, it is made an argument that Christ was a man like us, because he was put to live by faith like as we are (which the angels do not); and to this end, the apostle brings in these words prophesied of him, as spoken by him of himself, I will put my trust in him, as one proof that he was a man like unto us. Now for what was it that he trusted God ? By the context it appears to be this, that he should be the salvation of his brethren and children, and that he should have a seed and a genera tion to serve him, and raise up a church to God to praise him in. For this is made his confidence, and the issue of his sufferings, in that fore -cited

Ps. xxii., from ver. 22 to the end.

Use. How should the consideration of these things both draw us on to faith, and encourage us therein, and raise up our hearts above all doubtings and withdrawings of spirit in believing

! For in this example of Christ we have the highest instance of believing that ever was. He trusted God (as we have seen) for himself, and for many thousands besides, even for all his elect ; and hast not thou the heart to trust him for one poor soul ? Yea, Christ thus trusted God upon his single bond ; but we, for our assurance, have both Christ and God bound to us, even God with his surety Christ (for he is God s surety as well as ours). A double bond from two such persons, whom would it not secure ? If God the Father and God the Son thus mutually trusted one another for our salvation, whom would it not induce to trust them both, for one s own salvation, whcnas otherwise they must be damned that will not ?

1. This example of Christ may teach and incite us to believe. For did Christ lay down all his glory, and empty himself, and leave himself worth nothing, but made a deed of surrendering all he had into his Father s hands, and this in a pure trust that God would justify many by him (as it is in Isa. liii.) ? And shall not we lay down all we have, and part with whatever is dear unto us aforehand, with the like submission, in a dependence and hope of being ourselves justified by him ? And withal ;

2. It may encourage us to believe, especially against the greatness of sins. Hast thou the guilt of innumerable transgressions coming in and discouraging thee from trusting in him ? Consider but what Christ had, though not of his own ; Christ was made (as Luther boldly, in this sense that we speak of him, speaks), the greatest sinner that ever was, that is, by imputation ; for the sins of all God s chosen met in him. And yet he trusted God to be justified from them all, and to be raised up from under the wrath due to them. Alas ! thou art but one poor sinner, and thy faith hath but a light and small load laid upon it, namely, thy own sins, which to this sum he undertook for, are but as an unit to an infinite number. God laid upon him the iniquities of us all. Christ trusted God for his own acquittance from the sins of all the world, and when that was given him, he yet again further trusted him, to acquit the world for his satisfaction s sake.

But thou wilt say, Christ was Christ, one personally united to God, and BO knew that he could satisfy him ; but I am a sinful man. Well, but if thou believest, and so art one of those who are one with Christ, then Christ speaking these words in the name both of himself and of his elect, as hath been shewed, thou hast the very same ground to utter them that he had, and all that encouraged him may embolden thee, for he stood in thy stead. It was only thine and others sins that put him in any danger of condemna-

10 CHKIST THE EXAMPLE OF FAIT0:. [SECT. I. tion ; and thou seest what his confidence beforehand was, that God would justify him from them all. And if he had left any of them unsatisfied for, he had not been justified ; and, withal, in performing his own part under taken by him, he performed thine also, and so in his being justified thou wert justified also. His confidence, then, may therefore be thine now ; only his was in and from himself, but thine must be on him : yet so as by reason of thy communion with him in his both condemnation and justifica tion, thou mayest take and turn all that emboldened him to this his trust and confidence, to embolden thee also in thine, as truly as he did for him self. Yea, in this thou hast now a farther prop and encouragement to thy faith, than he had ; for now (when thou art to believe), Christ hath fully performed the satisfaction he undertook, and we now see Jesus crucified, acquitted, yea crowned with glory and honour, as the apostle speaks ; but he, when he took up this triumph, was (as Isaiah here foretold and prophesied it of him), but as then entering upon that work. The prophet seeing the day of his arraignment and agony, utters these words as his ; shewing what thoughts should then possess his heart, when Pilate and the Jews should condemn him, and our sins come in upon him, God is near that justifies me ; who therefore shall contend with me ? But now this comes to be added to our challenge here, that Christ hath died, and is also risen again ; that he was condemned and justified; who therefore shall condemn? may we say, and say much more.

But thou wilt yet say, He knew himself to be the Son of God, but so do not I. Well, do thou but cast thyself upon him, to be adopted and justified by him, with a giving up thy soul to his saving thee his own way, and, though thou knowest it not, the thing is done. And as for that so great and usual discouragement unto poor souls from doing this, namely, the greatness and multitudes of sins, this very example of his faith, and the consideration of it, may alone take off, and help to remove it, more than any I have ever met with ; for he, in bearing the sins of his elect, did bear as great and infinitely more sins than thine, yea, all sorts of sins whatever, for some one of his elect or other, for he said upon it, that all (that is, all sorts of) sins shall be forgiven unto men, and therefore were first borne by him for them ; and yet you see how confident aforehand he was, and is now clearly justified from them all. And by virtue of his being justified from all sorts of sins, shall all sorts of sinners in and through him be justi fied also ; and, therefore, why mayest not thou hope to be from thine ?

Certainly for this very reason our sins, simply and alone considered, can be supposed no hindrance.

Thus we have met with one great and general encouragement at the very portal of this text, which comes forth to invite us ere we are entered into it, and which will await upon us throughout all that shall be said, and have an influence into our faith, and help to direct it in all that follows.

CHAPTER II.

The scope and argument of this discourse is, either direction to Christ as the object of faith, or encouragement to believers, from all those particulars in Christ mentioned in the text.

Faith and the supports of it, or rather Christ, as by his death and re surrection, &c., he is the foundation of faith and the cause of our justifica-

CHAP.. III.] CHRIST THE OBJECT OF FAITH. H

tion, is the main subject of these words. All which therefore, to handle more largely, is the intended subject of this discourse. And therefore, as we have seen Christ s faith for us, so now let us see what our faith is to be towards him: only take this along with you, t for a right bounding of all that follows, that the faith (the object and support of which I would dis course of), is only faith as justifying ; for justification was properly here the matter of Christ s faith for us, and is also answerably here held forth by Paul, as that faith which believers are to have on him. Now faith is called justifying, only as it hath justification for its object, and as it goes out to Christ for justification ; so that all that shall be spoken must be confined to this alone, as the intendment of the text. And concerning this, the text doth two things

1. It holds forth Christ the object of it, Who shall condemn ? Christ hath died, &c. And he being the sole subject of those four particulars that follow, as encouragements to faith, must needs be therefore the object here set forth unto our faith.

2. In Christ we have here all those four things made matter of triumph to believers, to assure them they shall not be condemned, but justified : in that Christ (1.) died, (2.) rose again, (3.) is at God s right hand, (4.) inter cedes.

So that (for the general), I am to do two things ; and therein I shall fulfil the text s scope.

1. Direct your faith to Christ, as to its right object. 2. To encourage your faith from these several actions of Christ for us, and shew how they all contain matter of triumph for faith in them, and also teach your faith how to triumph from each of them. And herein I am to keep close to the argument propounded, namely, faith as justifying ; or to shew how faith, seeking justification in Christ, may be exceedingly raised from each of these particulars, and supported by them, as by so many pillars of it. So as although Christ s death, resurrection, &c., may fitly serve to encourage our faith in many other acts it useth to put forth (as in point of sanctification to be had from Christ, into which his death and resurrection have an influence), yet here we are limited to the matter of justification only ; It is God that justifies ; who shall condemn, seeing Christ hath died? and herein to shew how his death, resurrection, &c., may and do afford matter of comfort and triumphing in point of justification from all these. And thus you have the sum of these words, and of my scope in this ensu ing treatise.

CHAPTER III.

First, Directions to Christ as the object of faith. How in a threefold consideration Christ is the object ofjustifying faith.

But ere I come to encourage your faith from these, let me first direct and point your faith aright to its proper and genuine object, Christ. I shall do it briefly, and only so far as it may be an introduction to the encouragements from these four particulars, the things mainly intended by me.

1. Christ is the object of our faith, in joint commission with God the Father.

12 CHEIST THE OBJECT OF FAITH. [SECT. I.

2. Christ is the object of faith, in opposition to our own humiliation, or graces, or duties.

3. Christ is the object of faith, in a distinction from the promises. 1. First, Christ is the object of faith, in joint commission with God the < Christ that died. They are both of them set forth as the foundation of a believer s confidence. So * it is God that justifies, and Father. So here, elsewhere, faith is called a believing on him (namely, God), that justifies the ungodly, Kom. iv. 5 ; and a * believing on Christ, Acts xvi. 31. Where fore faith is to have an eye unto both, for both do alike contribute unto the justification of a sinner. It is Christ that paid the price, that performed the righteousness by which we are justified ; and it is God that accepts of it, and imputes it unto us : therefore justification is ascribed unto both. And this we have, Eom. iii. 24, where it is attributed unto them both together, Being justified freely b}

T his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus

Christ. Where we see that God s free grace and Christ s righteousness do concur to our justification. Christ paid as full a price, as if there were no grace shewn in justifying us (for mercy bated Christ nothing) ; and yet that it should be accepted for us, is as free grace, and as great as if Christ had paid never a farthing. Now as both these meet to justify us, so faith in justification is to look at both these. So it follows in the next verse, Rom. iii. 25, Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood. And though it be true, that God justifying is the ultimate object of our faith, for Christ leads us by the hand (as the word is, Eph.

by Christ to believe on God who raised him, that so our faith and hope might be on God ; yet so, as under the New Testament, Christ is made the more immediate object of ii. 18), unto God ; and 1 Pet. i. 21, we are said faith ; for God dwelling in our nature is made more familiar to our faith than the person of the Father is, who is merely God. Under the Old Tes tament, when Christ was but in the promise, and not as then come in the flesh, then indeed their faith had a more usual recourse unto God, who had promised the Messiah, of whom they then had not so distinct, but only confused, thoughts ; though this they knew, that God accepted and saved them through the Messiah. But now under the New Testament, because Christ as mediator exists not only in a promise of God s, but is come and manifest in the flesh, and is set forth by God (as the apostle s phrase is), to transact all our business for us between God and us ; hence the more usual and immediate address of our faith is to be made unto Christ ; who as he is distinctly set forth in the New Testament, so he is as distinctly to be apprehended by the faith of believers. Ye believe in God (saith Christ to his disciples, whose faith and opinion of the Messiah was till Christ s resurrection, of the same elevation with that of the Old Testament believers), believe also in me, John xiv. 1. Make me the object of your trust for salvation, as well as the Father. And, therefore, when faith and repentance come more narrowly to be distinguished by their more imme diate objects, it is repentance towards God, but faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, Acts xx. 21 ; not that God and Christ are* the objects of both, but that Christ is more immediately the object of faith, and God of : so that we believe in God through believing in Christ first, and turn to Christ by turning to God first. And this is there spoken, when repentance they are made the sum of Christian doctrine, and of the apostles preach ing. And, therefore, the faith of some being much enlarged to the mercies of God and his free grace, and but in way of supposition unto Christ, or in * Qu. are not ? ED.

CHAP. III.] CHRIST THE OBJECT OF FAITH

a taking for granted that all mercies are communicated in and through Christ, vet so as their thoughts work not so much upon, nor are taken up ahout Christ ; although this may be true faith under the New Testament, in that God and his free grace is the joint object of faith, together with Christ and his righteousness, and the one cannot be without the other, and God ofttimes doth more eminently pitch the stream of a man s thoughts in one channel rather than in another, and so may direct the course of a man s thoughts towards his free grace, when the stream runs less towards Christ, yet it is not such a faith as becomes the times of the gospel ; it is of an Old Testament strain and genius ; whereas our faith now should, in the more direct and immediate exercises of it, be pitched upon Jesus Christ, that through him, first apprehended, our faith might be in God (as the ultimate object of it), as the apostle speaks, 1 Pet. i. 21. And so much for the first.

2. The second is, that Christ is to be the object of our faith, in opposi tion to our own humiliation, or graces, or duties.

(1.) We are not to trust, nor rest in humiliation, as many do, who quiet their consciences from this, that they have been troubled. That promise, * Come to me, you that are weary and heavy laden, and you shall find rest, hath been much mistaken ; for many have understood it, as if Christ had spoken peace and rest simply unto that condition, without any more ado, and so have applied it unto themselves, as giving them an interest in Christ ; whereas it is only an invitement of such (because they are most apt to be discouraged) to come unto Christ, as in whom alone their rest is to be * weary acd heavy laden, and not come to Christ for it, they sit down besides Christ for it, found. If therefore men will set down their rest in being they sit down in sorrow. This is to make John (who only prepared the way for Christ) to be the Messiah indeed (as many of the Jews thought), that is, to think the eminent work of John s ministry (which was to humble, and so prepare men for Christ) to be their attaining Christ himself. But if you be weary, you may have rest indeed, but you must come to Christ

been still in our sins, (as it is 1 Cor. xv. 17), so though we die by sin, as slain by it, first. For as, if Christ had died only, and not arose, we had (as Paul was, Rom. vii. 11, 12, 18, in his humiliation), yet if we attain not to the resurrection of faith (so the work of faith is expressed, Phil. iii. 12, 13), we still remain in our sins.

(2.) Secondly, we are not to rest in graces or duties ; they all cannot satisfy our own consciences, much less God s justice. If righteousness could have come by these, then Christ had died in vain, as Gal. ii. 21. What a dishonour were it to Christ, that they should share any of the glory of his righteousness

! Were any of your duties crucified for you ? Graces and duties are the daughters of faith, the offspring of Christ ; and they may in time of need indeed nourish their mother, but not at first beget her.

3. In the third place, Christ s person, and not barely the promises of forgiveness, is to be the object of faith. There are many poor souls humbled for sin, and taken oft from their own bottom, who, like Noah s dove, fly over all the word of God, to spy out what they may set their foot upon, and eying therein many free and gracious promises, holding forth forgiveness of sins, and justification, they immediately close with them, and rest on them alone, not seeking for, or closing with Christ in those promises. Which is a common error among people ; and is like as if Noah sdove should have rested upon the outside of the ark, and not have come to Noah wiihin the ark ; where though she might rest for a while, yet could she not ride out

14 CHRIST THE OBJECT OF FAITH. [SECT. I. all storms, but must needs have perished there in the end. But we may observe, that the first promise that was given, was not a bare word simply promising forgiveness, or other benefits which God would bestow ; but it was a promise of Christ s person as overcoming Satan, and purchasing those benefits, The seed of the woman shall break the serpent s head. So when the promise was renewed to Abraham, it was not a bare promise of blessed ness and forgiveness, but of that seed, that is, Christ (as Gal. iii. 16), in whom that blessedness was conveyed. In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. So that Abraham s faith first closed with Christ in the promise, and therefore he is said to see Christ s day, and to rejoice in embracing him. And so all the succeeding fathers (that were believers) did, more or less, in their types and sacraments, as appears by 1 Cor x.

1, 2. And if they, then much more are we thus to look at Christ, unto whom he is now made extant, not in promises only, but is really incarnate, though now in heaven. Hence our sacraments (which are the seals added to the word of faith) do primarily exhibit Christ unto a believer, and so, in him, all other promises, as of forgiveness, &c., are ratified and confirmed by them. Now there is the same reason of them, that there is of the pro mises of the gospel, for they preach the gospel to the eye, as the promise doth to the ear, and therefore as in them the soul is first to look at Christ, and embrace him as tendered in them, and then at the promises tendered with him in them, and not to take the sacraments as bare seals of pardon and forgiveness ; so, in like manner, in receiving of, or having recourse to a promise, which is the word of faith, we are first to seek out for Christ in it, as being the foundation of it, and so to take hold of the promise in him. Hence faith is still expressed by this its object, Christ, it being called faith on Christ. Thus Philip directs the eunuch, Acts viii. 35.

* Believe on the Lord Jesus.

The promise is but the casket, and Christ the jewel in it ; the promise but the field, and Christ the pearl hid in it, and to be chiefly looked at. The promises are the means by which you believe, not the things on which you are to rest. And so, although }^ou are to look at forgiveness as held forth in the promise, yet you are to believe on Christ in that promise to obtain this forgiveness. So Acts xxvi. 18, it is said of believers by Christ himself, that they may obtain forgiveness of sins, by faith which is on me. And to clear it farther, we must conceive, that the promises of forgiveness are not as the pardons of a prince, which merely contain an expression of his royal word for pardoning, so as we in seeking of it do rest upon, and have to do only with his word and seal, which we have to shew for it ; but God s promises of pardon are made in his Son, and are as if a prince should offer to pardon a traitor upon marriage with his child, whom in and with that pardon he offers in such a relation ; so as all that would have pardon, must seek out for his child ; and thus it is in the matter of believing. The reason of which is, because Christ is the grand promise, in whom, all the promises are yea and amen, 2 Cor. i. 20, and therefore he is called the Covenant, Isa. xlix. 8. So that, as it were folly for any man to think that he hath an interest in an heiress s lands, because he hath got the writings of her estate into his hands, whereas the interest in the lands goes with her person, and with the relation of marriage to her, otherwise, without a title to herself, all the writings will be fetched out of his hands again ; so is it with all the promises: they hang all upon Christ, and without him there is no interest to be had in them.

He that hath the Son hath life, 1 John v. 12, because life is by God s appointment only in him, as ver. 11. All

the promises are as copyhold land, which when you would interest your selves in, you inquire upon what lord it holds, and you take it up of him, as well as get the evidences and deeds for it into your hands ; the lord of it will be acknowledged for such in passing his right into your hands. Now this is the tenure of all the promises ; they all hold on Christ, in whom they are yea and amen ; and you must take them up of him. Thus the apostles preached forgiveness to men, Acts xiii. 38, Be it known that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. And as they preached, so we are to believe, as the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. xv. 11. And without this, to rest on the bare promise, or to look to the benefit promised, without eying Christ, is not an evangelical, but a Jewish faith, even such as the formalists among the Jews had, who without the Messiah closed with promises, and rested in types to cleanse them, without looking unto Christ the end of them, and as propounded to their faith in them. This is to go to God without a mediator, and to make the promises of the gospel to be as the promises of the law, Nehushtan (as Hezekiah said of the brazen serpent), a piece of brass, vain and ineffectual ; like the waters of Bethesda, they heal not, they cleanse not, till this angel of the covenant come down to your faith in them. Therefore at a sacrament, or when you meet with any promise, get Christ first down by faith, and then let your faith pro pound what it would have, and you may have what you will of him.

There are three sorts of promises, and in the applying of all these, it is Christ that your faith is to meet with.

1. There are absolute promises, made to no conditions ; as when Christ is said to come to save sinners, &c. Now in these it is plain, that Christ is the naked object of them ; so that if you apply not him, you apply nothing, for the only thing held forth in them is Christ.

2. There are inviting promises ; as that before mentioned, Come to me, you that are weary. The promise is not to weariness, but to coming to Christ ; they are bidden Come to him, if they will have rest.

3. There are assuring promises ; as those made to such and such quali fications of sanctification, &c. But still what is it that is promised in them, which the heart should only eye ? It is Christ, in whom the soul rests and hath comfort in, and not in its grace ; so that the sight of a man s grace is but a back-door to let faith in at, to converse with Christ, whom the soul loves. Even as at the sacrament, the elements of bread and wine are but outward signs to bring Christ and the heart together, and then faith lets the outward elements go, and closeth, and treats immediately with Christ, unto whom these let the soul in ; so grace is a sign inward, and whilst men make use of it only as of a bare sign to let them in unto Christ, and their rejoic ing is not in it, but in Christ, their confidence being pitched upon him, and not upon their grace ; whilst men take this course, there is and will be no danger at all in making such use of signs. And I see not, but that God might as well appoint his own work of the new creation within, to be as a sign and help to communion with Christ by faith, as he did those outward elements, the works of his first creation ; especially, seeing in nature the effect is a sign of the cause. Neither is it more derogatory to free grace, or to Christ s honour, for God to make such effects signs of our union with him, than it was to make outward signs of his presence.

1G CHRIST, THE OBJECT AND SUPPOKT [SECT. II.

SECTION II.

CHRIST, THE OBJECT AND SUPPORT OF FAITH FOR JUSTIFICATION,

IN HIS DEATH.

Who shall condemn ? Christ hath died. ROM. VIII. 34.

CHAPTER I.

How not Christ s person simply, but Christ as dying, is the object of faith as justifying.

To come now to all these four particulars of or about Christ, as the object of faith here mentioned ; and to shew both how Christ in each is the object of faith as justifying ; and what support or encouragement the faith of a believer may fetch from each of them in point of justification, which is the argument of the main body of this discourse.

First, Christ as dying is the object of justifying faith, Who shall con demn ? Christ hath died. For the explanation of which, I will

1. Give a direction or two.

2. Shew how an encouragement, or matter of triumph, may from hence be fetched.

1. (1.) The first direction is this, that in seeking forgiveness or justifica tion in the promises, as Christ is to be principally in the eye of your faith, so it must be Christ as crucified, Christ as dying, as here he is made. It was the serpent as lift up, and so looked at, that healed them. Now this direction I give to prevent a mistake, which souls that are about to believe do often run into. For when they hear that the person of Christ is the main object of faith, they thus conceive of it, that when one comes first to believe, he should look only upon the personal excellencies of grace and glory which are in Jesus Christ, which follow upon the hypostatical union- ; and so have his heart allured in unto Christ by them only, and close with him under those apprehensions alone. But although it be true, that there is that radical disposition in the faith of every believer, which if it were drawn forth to view Christ in his mere personal excellencies, abstractively considered, would close with Christ for them alone, as seeing such a beauty and suitableness in them ; yet the first view which an humble soul always doth, and is to take of him, is of his being a Saviour, made sin, and a curse, and obeying to the death for sinners. He takes up Christ in his first sight of him, under the likeness of sinful flesh, Rom. viii. 3, for so the gospel first represents him, though it holds forth his personal excel-

CHAP. I.J OF FAITH, IN HIS DEATH. 17 lencies also ; and in that representation it is that he is made a fit object for a sinner s faith to trust and rest upon for salvation ; which in part distinguisheth a sinner s faith whilst here on earth, towards Christ, from that vision or sight which angels and the souls of men have in heaven of him. Faith here views him not only as glorious at God s right hand (though so also), but as crucified, as made sin, and a curse, and so rests upon him for pardon ; but in heaven we shall see him as he is, and be made like unto him. Take Christ in his personal excellencies simply considered, and so with them propounded as an head to us, and he might have been a fit object for angels and men even without sin to have closed withal ; and what an addition to their happiness would they have thought it, to have him for their husband ! But yet, so considered, he should have been, and rather is, the object of love, than of faith or affiance. It is therefore

Christ that is thus excellent in his person, yet farther considered as clothed with his garments of blood, and the qualifications of a mediator and recon ciler ; it is this that makes him so desirable by sinners, and a fit object for their faith, which looks out for justification, to prey and seize upon, though they take in the consideration of all his other excellencies to allure their hearts to him, and confirm their choice of him.

Yea I say farther, that consider faith as justifying, that is, in that act of it which justifies a sinner ; and so Christ, taken only or mainly in his personal excellencies, cannot properly be called the object of it. But the formalis ratio, the proper respect or consideration that maketh Christ the object of faith as justifying, must necessarily be that in Christ, which doth indeed justify a sinner ; which is, his obedience unto death. For the act and object of every habit or faculty are always suited, and similar each to other ; and therefore Christ s justifying must needs be the object of faith justifying. It is true, that there is nothing in Christ with which some answerable act of faith in us doth not close ; and from the differing con siderations under which faith looks at Christ, have those several acts of faith various denominations : as faith that is carried forth to Christ and his personal excellencies may be called uniting faith ; and faith that goes forth to Christ for strength of grace to subdue sin may, answerably to its object, be called sanctifying faith ; and faith as it goes forth to Christ, as dying, &c., for justification, may be called, justifying faith. For faith in that act looks at what in Christ doth justify a sinner ; and therefore Christ con sidered as dying, rising, &c., doth in this respect become the most pleasing and grateful object to a soul that is humbled; for this makes Christ suitable to him as he is a sinner, under which consideration he reflects upon him self, when he is first humbled. And therefore thus to represent Christ to believers under the law, was the main scope of all the sacrifices and types therein. All things being purged with blood, and without blood there being no remission, Heb. ix. 22. Thus did the apostles also in their sermons. So Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, seemed by the matte* of his sermon to have known nothing but Christ, and him as crucified, 1 Cor. ii. 2, as Christ above all, so Christ as crucified above all in Christ, as suiting their condition best, whom he endeavoured to draw on to faith on him. Thus, in his Epistle to the Galatians, he calls his preaching among them the preaching of faith, iii. 2. And what was the main scope of it, but the picturing out (as the word is) of Christ crucified before their eyes ? ver. 1. So he preached him, and so they received him, and so they * began in the spirit, ver. 3. And thus also do the seals of the promises (the sacraments) present Christ to a believer s eye ; as they hold forth VOL. IV. B

18 CHEIST, THE OBJECT AND SUPPORT [SECT. II.

Christ (as was in the former direction observed), so Christ, as crucified; their * shew forth his death till he come, 1 Cor. xi. 26, the bread scope being to signifying Christ s body broken in the sufferings of it ; and the cup signi fying the sufferings of his soul, and the pouring of it forth unto death. And hence likewise, as faith itself is called faith on Christ, as was before observed, so it is called faith on his blood, Eom. iii. 25, because Christ, as shedding his blood for the remission of sins, is the object of it. So the words there are, whom God hath ordained to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins. And look how God hath ordained and set forth Christ in the promise: under that picture of him doth faith at first close with him. And one reason similar to the former may be grounded on the 24th verslj*of that 3d to the * Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is

Romans, in Christ. And as I shewed before, in the reason of the former direction, that all promises hold of his person, as being heir of all the promises ; so the special tenure upon which forgiveness of sins doth hold of him is by purchase, and by the redemption that is in him. So that, as the promise of forgiveness refers to his person, so also to this redemption that is in him.

Thus, both in Eph. i. 7 and Col. i. 14, In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, his person gives us title to all the promises, and his blood shews the tenure they hold on ; a purchase, and a full price, avri Xurgov, and adequate price, 1 Tim. ii. 6. And as sin is the strength of the law, and of the threatenings thereof, so Christ s satisfaction is the strength of all the promises in the gospel. In a word, an humbled soul is to have recourse to that Christ who is now alive and glorified in heaven, yet to him as once crucified and made sin. He is to go to Christ now glorified, as the person from whom he is to receive forgiveness, &c., but withal to him as crucified; as through whom, considered in that condition he then was in, he is to receive all.

CHAPTER II.

What in Christ s death, faith seeking justification, is especially to eye and look at.

(2.) Now then a second direction for faith towards Christ as dying, is, faith is principally and mainly to look unto the end, meaning, and intent of God and Christ in his sufferings, and not simply at the tragical story of his death and sufferings. It is the heart, and mind, and intent of Christ in suffering, which faith chiefly eyeth, and which draweth the heart on to rest on Christ crucified. When a believer sees that Christ s aim in suffer ing for poor sinners agrees and answers to the aim and desires of his heart, and that that was the end of it, that sinners might have forgiveness, and that Christ s heart was as full in it, to procure it, as the sinner s heart can be to desire it ; this draws his heart in to Christ, to rest upon him. And without this, the contemplation and meditation of the story of his sufferings, and of the greatness of them, will be altogether unprofitable. And yet all, or the chief use which the papists and many carnal protestants make of Christ s sufferings, is to meditate upon, and set out to themselves the grievousness of them, so to move their hearts to a relenting, and compassion to him, and indignation against the Jews for their crucifying of him, with an admiring of his noble and heroical love herein ; and if they can but get

CHAP. II. J OF FAITH, IN HIS DEATH. 19 their hearts thus affected, they judge and account this to be grace; whenas it is no more than what the like tragical story of some great and noble personage, full of heroical virtues and ingenuity, yet inhumanely and ungrately used, will work, and useth ordinarily to work in ingenuous spirits, who read or hear of it, yea, and this ofttimes, though if it be but in the way of a fiction ; which, when it reacheth no higher, is so far from being faith, that it is but a carnal and fleshly devotion, springing from fancy, which is pleased with such a story, and the principles of ingenuity stirred towards one who is of a noble spirit, and yet abused. Such stories use to stir up a principle of humanity in men unto a compassionate love ; which Christ himself at his suffering found fault with, as being not spiritual, nor raised enough, in those women who went weeping to see the Messiah so handled. Weep not for me, says he ; that is, weep not so much for this, thus to see me unworthily handled by those for whom I die.

And therefore, accordingly as these stirrings are but fruits of the flesh, so human inventions, as crucifixes, and lively representations of the story of Christ s passion unto the sight of fancy, do exceedingly provoke men to such devotional meditations and affections ; but they work a bare historical faith only, a historical remembrance, and an historical love, as I may so call them. And no other than such doth the reading of the story of it in the word work in many, who yet are against such crucifixes. But saving, justi fying faith chiefly minds, and is most taken up with the main scope and drift of all Christ s sufferings ; for it is that in them which answers to its own aim and purpose, which is, to obtain forgiveness of sins in Christ crucified. As God looks principally at the meaning of the Spirit in prayer, Eom. viii. 27, so doth faith look principally to the meaning of Christ in his sufferings. As in all other truths a believer is said [to have the mind of Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 16, so especially he minds what was the mind and heart of Christ in all his sufferings. And therefore you may observe, that the drift of all the apostles epistles, is to shew the intent of Christ s sufferings ; how he was therein set forth to be a propitiation for sin ; to bear our sins upon the tree ; to make our peace, &c. ; he was made sin, that we might be made righteousness of God in him ; as in like manner the scope of the evangelists is to set forth the story of them, for that is necessary to be known also. And thus did that evangelical prophet Isaiah chiefly set forth the intent of Christ s sufferings for justification, Isa. liii., throughout the chapter, as David before had done the story of his passion, Ps. xxii. And thus to shew the use and purpose of his sufferings, was the scope of all the apostles sermons, holding forth the intent of Christ s passion to be the justification and salvation of sinners.

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came into the world to save sinners, 1 Tim. i. 15 ; and they still set forth what the plot was, at which God by an ancient designment aimed at in the sufferings of Christ, which was an end higher than men or angels thought on, when he was put to death. And thus faith takes it up and looks at it. And upon this doth Peter (in his sermon, Acts ii.) pitch their faith, where having set forth the heinousness of their sin in murdering the Lord of life, then to raise up their hearts again (that so seeing God s end in it, they might be drawn to believe), he

all this was done by the determinate counsel of God, ver. 23, and that for a farther end than they imagined, even for the remis sion of sins through mVname, as in the closure of that sermon he shews. It was not the malice of the Jews, the falseness of Judas, the fearfulness of tells them, that Pilate, or the iniquity of the times he fell into, that wrought his death, so

20 CHRIST, THE OBJECT AND SUPPORT [SECT. II. much as God his father complotting with Christ himself, and aiming at a higher end than they did. There was a farther matter in it ; it was the execution of an ancient contrivement and agreement, whereby God made

* was in Christ, not im

* sin, and laid our sins upon him. God

Christ puting our sins to us, but making him sin, 2 Cor. v. 20. Which covenant

Christ came, at his time, into the world to fulfil. Sacrifice and burnt offering thou wouldst not have, Heb. x. 5. * Lo, I come to do thy will, and that will was to take away sins, verses 4, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16. These words Christ spake when he took our nature, and when he came into the * God sent his Son in world, clothed with infirmities like unto us sinners. the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, Rom. viii. 3. Mark that phrase for sin; iregt is there put for propter, as John

not for a good work. That is, not because of x. 33, oil fl-gg/ xaXoD egyou, a good work, or for a good work s sake. So here, for sin, that is, because of sin. Sin was the occasion of his taking the likeness of sinful flesh. What, to increase it ? No, but to condemn it, as it follows : that is, to cast and overthrow it in its power and plea against us, that instead of sin s con demning us, he might condemn sin, and that we might have the righteous ness of the law, verse 5. This phrase for sin is like unto that in Rom. vi. 10, he died unto sin, that is, for sin s cause ; for so the opposition that follows evinceth, In that he liveth, he liveth unto God, that is, for God and his glory. So he died merely for sin, that sin might have its course in justice, and for its sake suffered death, so putting to silence the clamour of it. The death of Christ was the greatest and strangest design that ever God undertook and acted, and therefore surely had an end pro portionable unto it. God, that willeth not the death of a sinner, would not for any inferior end will the death of his Son, whom he loved more than all creatures besides. It must needs be some great matter for which God should contrive the death of his Son, so holy, so innocent, and separate from sinners ; neither could it be any other matter, than to destroy that which he most hated, and that was sin ; and to set forth that which he most delighted in, and that was mercy. So Rom. iii. 25, 26. And accordingly Christ demeaned himself in it, not at all looking at the Jews, or their malice, but at his Father s command and intent in it. And therefore when he was to arise to go unto that place where he should be taken, and carried to slaughter, As the father gave me commandment, says he, so do I ; arise, let us go hence, John xiv. 31. And when Judas went out at Christ s own provocation of him, W

That thou doest, do quickly, says he, the Son of man goeth as it was determined ; he looked to his Father s purpose in it. When he went out to be taken, it is said, Jesus knowing all things that should befall him, went forth, John xviii. 4. And when he was in his agony in the garden, whom doth he deal with but his Father ? Father, he says, if it be possible, let this cup pass ; and God made his passion of so great necessity, that it was even impossible that that cup should pass. Indeed, had Christ stood in his own stead, it had been an easy request, yea, justice to grant it ; and so he tells Peter, that he could command millions of angels to his rescue ; but he merely submits unto his Father, * Not my will, but thy will be done, for God had laid upon him the iniquities of us all, Isa. liii. Let our faith therefore look mainly to this design and plot of God, and of Christ in his suffering to satisfy for our sins, and to justify us sinners. When we consider him as born flesh and blood, and laid in a manger, think we withal that his meaning was to condemn sin in our flesh, Rom. viii. 4.

CHAP. III.] OF FAITH, IN HIS DEATH

So when we read of him fulfilling all, or any part of righteousness , take we his mind in withal to be, that the law might be fulfilled in us, as it fol lows there, who were then represented in him, and so the fulfilling of it is accounted ours. Behold we him in his lifetime, as John the Baptist did, even as * the Lamb of God, bearing and taking away the sins of the world ; and when upon the cross, let our faith behold the iniquities of us all met in him. Surely he hath borne our sorrows, bearing our sins in his body on the tree, and thereby once offered to bear the sins of many, Heb. ix. &c. This intent of Christ in all that he did and suffered, is that welcome news, and the very spirit of the gospel, which faith preys and seizeth on.

CHAPTER III.

What support or matter of triumph Christ s death affords to faith for justification.

2. Now, having thus directed your faith to the right object, Christ, and Christ as dying ; let us, secondly, see what matter of support and encourage ment faith may fetch from Christ s death for justification. And surely that which hath long ago satisfied God himself for the sins of many thousand souls now in heaven, may very well serve to satisfy the heart and conscience of any sinner now upon earth, in any doubts in respect of the guilt of any sins that can arise. We see that the apostle here, after that large discourse of justification by Christ s righteousness, in the former part of this Epistle to the Romans, and having shewed how every way it abounds, chap, v., he now in this 8th chapter doth as it were sit down like a man overconvinced, as ver. 31, What then shall we say to these things ? He speaks as one satisfied, and even astonished with abundance of evidence ; having nothing to say, but only to admire God and Christ in this work ; and therefore pre sently throws down the gauntlet, and challengeth a dispute in this point with all comers. Let conscience and carnal reason, law and sin, hell and devils, bring in all their strength.

* Who is he shall lay any thing to

Who shall condemn ? Paul dares to answer them all, and carry it with these few words, It is God that justifies, it is the charge of God s elect ?

* we are more than conquerors in

Christ that died. And (as in ver. 37) all these. It was this that brought in the prodigal, that in his father s house there was bread enough. And so likewise he (whoever he was) who was the author of the 130th Psalm, when his soul was in deep distress by reason of his sins, verses 1, 2, yet this was it that settled his heart to wait upon God, that there was plenteous redemption with him. Christ s re demption is not merely dvr/Xyrgov, a price or ransom equivalent, or making due satisfaction according to the just demerit of sin, but it is * plenteous redemption ; there is an abundance of * the gift of righteousness, Rom. v. 17, and unsearchable riches of Christ, Eph. iii. 8. Yea, 1 Tim. i. 14, the grace of our Lord, that is, of Christ, as verse 12, iwrsior Xsatfi, we

it was overfull, redundant, more than enough. And yet (says Paul, verse 13) I had sins translate it, was abundant, but the word reacheth farther, enough to pardon, as one would think, that might exhaust it, I was a blasphemer, &c. But I found so much grace in Christ, even more than I knew what to do withal.

I shall not insist so largely on this first head of Christ s dying, as upon those three following, because it is the main subject of another discourse,

22 CHRIST, THE OBJECT AND SUPPORT [SECT. II. which, through God s grace, I intend to publish, though in another method.

Only, for a taste, to instance in some few particulars, shewing how Christ s satisfaction may be opposed, and set against the guilt of a poor sinner s offences. What is there that can be said to aggravate sin in the general, or any man s particular sins, that may not be answered out of this, Christ hath died ? and something be considered in it, which the conscience may oppose thereto ? So that whatever evil, which according to the rules of spiritual reason, (which the righteous law proceedeth by, and containeth as the foundation of its righteousness in condemning or aggravating sin), a man s conscience may suggest to be in sin ; oppositely hereunto may a man s faith, according to the like rules of true spiritual reason, shew a more transcendent goodness to have been in Christ s death, which the gospel reveals, and so many oppose the one to the other, and have as good reason to shew why sin should not condemn, from Christ s death, as conscience can have, that the law may condemn.

(1.) As first, is sin the transgression of the law ? Christ dying, the law maker, was subjected to the law ; and will not that make amends ? Is sin the debasement of God s glory, manifested in his word and works ? Christ s dying was the debasement and emptying of the brightness of his glory in the highest measure, who was God personally manifested in the flesh. The one of them is but as the darkening the shine or lustre of the sun upon a wall, but the other is as the obscuring of the sun itself. Sin s highest evil lies in offending God, but Christ s righteousness is (oppositely) the right eousness of God himself, or Jehovah made our righteousness. So that God in our sin is considered but as the object against whom ; but God in this our righteousness, is the subject from whom and in whom this right eousness comes and is seated. And so his Godhead answerably gives a higher worth to it, by how much the alliance which the subject hath to an action of its own, that proceeds from it, is nearer than that which an object hath, against which the action is committed.

(2.) Or secondly, what peculiar aggravations or circumstances are there in thy sins, to weigh thee down, with which some circumstances in Christ s obedience and death may not be paralleled, to lift thee up again ? As first, is it the greatness of thy sin in the substance of the fact com mitted ? Hath there been lewdness in thy wickedness, as the prophet speaks ? Consider what guilt, of how heinous crimes, God suffered to be laid to Christ s charge by profane men, when he was made an offering for sin. He died as a traitor to his prince, and a blasphemer of God in the highest kind of blasphemy, as making himself equal with God ; an impostor, a seducer, yea, a devil, yea, a prince of devils, than whom a murderer was esteemed more worthy to live. Which imputations, though by men unjustly charged on him, yet by God were so ordered as just, in respect of his bear ing our sins. For him who was holiness itself to be made the greatest of * made sin, and the worst of sins, and accordingly to sinners, yea, to be suffer from God and men, what greater satisfaction for the taking of sins away can be desired or imagined ?

Or secondly, dost thou aggravate thy sins by the naughtiness of thy heart in sinning, and sayest that the inward carriage thereof hath been much worse than the outward ? Look thou into the heart of Jesus Christ dying, and behold him struggling with his Father s wrath, thou wilt find the suffer ings of his soul more than those of his body, and in them to lie the soul of his sufferings.

Thirdly, may thy sin be aggravated, in that thou didst commit it with so

great delight and greediness, and pouredst out thy heart unto it ? Consider that Christ offered himself more willingly than ever thou didst sin. Lo, I come, says he, Ps. xl., I delight to do thy will ; and how am I straitened

! Luke xii. 56. And though to shew how great an till it be accomplished evil and misery it was in itself, he shewed an averseness to it ; yet as it was his Father s will for our salvation, he heartily embraced and drank off that cup unto the bottom.

Fourthly, didst thou sin with much deliberation, when thou mightest have avoided it ? There was in this circumstance in Christ s sufferings to answer that, that he knew all he was to suffer, and yet yielded up himself, as John xviii. 4.

Fifthly, hast thou sinned presumptuously, and made a covenant with death and hell ? Christ in like manner offered up himself by a covenant and complot with his Father so to do.

! Sixthly, are there any especial circumstances of time and place, &c., that aggravate thy sins ?

As first, that so great a person in the church should scandalize the name of God in sinning. Why, how great a person was Christ ? Even equal with God the Father ; and yet how greatly humbled, even to the death ; his offices of King, Priest, and Prophet being debased with him. How great a name had he ! as Heb. i. 4, which notwithstanding was dishonoured more than ever any man s.

Or secondly, that thou sinnedst at such a time, or in such a company, which sometimes serve to make a sin the more heinous. Consider how God contrived to have the shame and affliction of his Son s death aggravated by all these circumstances. It was of deaths the most accursed, at a time most solemn, in a place most infamous, with company most wretched.

Thus might we find out that in Christ s suffering and satisfaction made, that would fitly answer to anything in our sins ; and so thereby we should be the more relieved. And though the whole body of his sufferings do stand and answer for the whole bulk of our sinnings, yet the consideration of such particulars will much conduce to the satisfying of an humbled and dejected soul, about the particulars of its sinnings.

Therefore (to conclude) get your hearts and consciences distinctly and particularly satisfied in the allsufficiency of worth and merit which is in the satisfaction that Christ hath made. As it is a fault and defect in hu miliation, that men content themselves with a general apprehension and notion that they are sinners, and so never become thoroughly humbled ; so it is a defect in their faith, that they content themselves with a superficial and general conceit, that Christ died for sinners, their hearts not being particularly satisfied about the transcendent allsufficiency of his death. And thence it is, that in time of temptation, when their abounding sinfulness comes distinctly to be discovered to them, and charged upon them, they are then amazed and their faith nonplussed, as not seeing that in Christ which might answer to all that siniulness. But as God saw that in Christ s death which satisfied him, so you should endeavour by faith to see that worth in it which may satisfy God, and then your faith will sit down as satisfied also. If a man were to dispute for his life some hard and diffi cult controversy, wherein are many great and strong objections to be taken away, he would be sure to view, and study, and ponder all that might be said on that other part which he were to hold, in way of answer to them, and to get such a clear and convincing light as might make the truth of his position apparent and manifest through those clouds of objections that hang

24 CHRIST THE OBJECT AND SUPPOET OF FAITH. [SECT. II. in the way. Now you will all be thus called one day to dispute for your souls, sooner or later ; and therefore such skill you should endeavour to get in Christ s righteousness, how in its fulness and perfection it answereth to all your sinfulness ; that your hearts may be able to oppose it against all that may be said of any particular, in or about your sins ; that in all the conflicts of your spirits, you may see that in it which would clear your whole score ; and that if God would but be pleased to impute it to you, you might say, I durst presently come to an account with him, and cut scores with his law and justice.

Thus much of the first thing made the object of faith, namely, Christ as dying.

SECT. III.l FAITH SUPPORTED BY CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 25

SECTION III.

FAITH SUPPORTED BY CHRIST S RESURRECTION.

. . . . Yea rather, that is risen again. ROM. VIII. 34.

CHAPTER I.

Christ s resurrection supporteth faith tico icays: 1. By being an evidence of our justification ; 2. By having an influence into our justification. The necessity of Christ s resurrection, for the procuring our justification.

THE next thing to be looked at in Christ, as he is the object of justifying faith, and from whence our faith may seek and fetch support and comfort in the matter of justification, is Christ s resurrection: upon which we see here, the apostle putteth a rather, Yea rather, that is risen again. There must therefore be some special thing in the resurrection of Christ, which it contributes to our faith and justification, for which it should have a rather put upon it, and that comparatively to his death. Now to shew wherein this should lie, consider how the resurrection of Christ serveth to a double use and end, in the matter of justification.

First, as an evidence to our faith, that God is fully satisfied by Christ s death ; his resurrection may give us full assurance of it.

Secondly, it had, and hath an influence into our justification itself ; yea, and as great an influence as his death had. In both these respects it deserves a rather to be put upon it, and Paul had them both in his eye, when he wrote these words. So as first, if you ask an account of his faith, and a reason of his so triumphant assurance, he allegeth his resurrection to confirm it, Christ is risen. Or, Secondly. If you would have a reason of the thing, how it comes to pass that we who are believers cannot be condemned ; * Christ is risen, saith he. He allegeth it as a cause, that hath such an influence into justifica tion itself, as it makes all sure about it.

1. By way of evidence. Although Christ s obedience in his life and his death past do alone afford the whole matter of our justification, and make np the sum of that price paid for us (as hath been shewn), so as faith may see a fulness of worth and merit therein, to discharge the debt; yet faith hath a comfortable sign and evidence to confirm itself in the belief of this, from Christ s resurrection after his death. It may fully satisfy our faith, that God himself is satisfied, and that he reckons the debt as paid. So that our faith may boldly come to God, and call for the bond in, as having Christ s resurrection to shew for it, that the debt is discharged. And hence the apostle cries victory over sin, hell, and death, upon occasion of, and as

26 THE SUPPORT OF FAITH [SECT. III. the coronis and conclusion of that, his large discourse ahout Christ s resur rection, 1 Cor. xv. 55-57, death, where is thy sting? that is, sin, and the power of it ; for so it follows, the sting of death is sin ; and grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks be to God who hath given us victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord, namely, as risen again ; for of his resur rection, and of that chiefly, had he spoken throughout that chapter.

2. But surely this is not all, that it should only argue our justification by way of evidence. This alone would not have deserved such a rather to be put upon it, if Christ s resurrection had not had some farther real causal influence into justification itself, and been more than simply an evi dence of it to our apprehensions. Therefore, secondly, in justification, although the materiale, or matter of it, be wholly the obedience and death of Christ ; yet the act of pronouncing us righteous by that his obedience (which is the foi-male of justification), doth depend upon Christ s resurrec tion. Ordinarily there hath been no more expressed concerning this dependence, than that the resurrection of Christ justifies by working actual faith, to lay hold upon what Christ hath done in his life and death, which is called the applying of it, of which more anon. But that speech of Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 17, seems to import more, If Christ be not risen again, ye are yet in your sins, and your faith is in vain ; that is, although you could suppose faith to be wrought in you upon the merit of Christ s dying, yet it would be in vain if Christ were not risen again ; for your titb to justifica tion itself would be void ; you were yet in your sins. Which is said, because his resurrection was it, whereby sins (though satisfied for in his death) were taken off, and they acquitted from them ; which I take to be the meaning also of that, Bom. iv. 25, * He was delivered for our sins, and rose again for our justification. When the apostle says, for our sins he was delivered, he means his laying down that which was the price for them, a satisfaction for them, which his death was. And in that sense, 1 he died for our sins ; that is, his death stands instead of our death, and so satisfies for sin. But yet still that upon which the act of God s justify ing us, and his discharge given us from our sins, and whereby he reckoneth us justified, that depends upon his resurrection.

He rose again for our justification. Note that justification there imports the act of imputation, and reckoning us just, which he had spoken of in the verses immediately foregoing, ver. 22, 23, 24.

In a word, to the full discharge of a debt, and freeing the debtor, two: 1. The payment of the debt ; 2. The tearing or can things are requisite celling of the bond, or receiving an acquittance for the freeing of the debtor. Now the payment was wrought by Christ s death, and the acquittance to free from the death was at and by his resurrection.

CHAPTER II.

For the explanation of both these is shewn, how Christ sustained a double relation: first, of a surety given for us ; secondly, of a common person in our stead.

The difference of these two, and the usefulness of these two considerations r for the explaining all the rest that follows, in this whole discourse.

Now the better to explicate both these, you must consider how that Christ, in almost all that he did for us (as the phrase is here, and is to be annexed to each particular) did stand in a double relation for us unto God.

CHAP. II.] FROM CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 27

1. Of a surety, bound to pay the debt for us, and to save our souls.

2. Of a common person, or as an attorneyat-law in our stead. And both these, as they have a distinct and differing consideration in themselves, so those several considerations of them will conduce to the understanding of those two things forementioned, as ways and arguments to shew how the resurrection of Christ may support our faith, both by way of evidence that the debt is paid, and by way of influence that we are thereby acquitted, and cannot be condemned. The notion of his being risen, who is our surety, clears the first, and that of his rising as a common person, illus trates the other. And I shall here a little the largelier insist upon the explication of these two relations, because their consideration will be of use through all the rest that follows, to illustrate thereby the influence that his ascension, and sitting at God s right hand, &c., have into our justification ; and so I shall carry them along throughout this discourse.

1. A surety is one that undertakes, and is bound to do a thing for another ; as to pay a debt for him, or to bring him safe to such or such a place, or the like ; so as when he hath discharged what he undertook andwas bound for, then the party for whom he undertook is discharged also.

2. A common person with, or for another he goes for, is one who repre sents, personates, and acts the part of another, by the allowance and war rant of the law ; so as what he doth, as such a common person, and in the name of the other, that other whom he personates is by the law reckoned to do ; and, in like manner, what is done to him, as being in the other s stead and room, is reckoned as done to the other. Thus, by our law, an attorney appears for another, and money received by him is reckoned as received by him whom it is due unto. Thus the giving possession of an estate, a re-entry made, and possession taken of land, &c., if done by and to a man who is his lawful attorney, it stands as good in law unto a man, as if in his own person it had been done. So ambassadors for princes represent their masters : what is done to them is reckoned as done to the prince ; and what they do, according to their commission, is all one as if the prince, whose person they represent, had done it himself. In like man ner also, the marriages of princes are transacted and solemnized by proxy, as a common person representing his lord, and in his name, is married to a princess in her father s court ; and the laws of men authorize it, and the marriage is as good as if both princes themselves had been present, and had performed all the rites of it. And thus to be a common person is more than simply to be a surety for another : it is a farther thing ; and there fore these two relations are to be distinctly considered, though they seem to be somewhat of a like nature. Thus an attorney is a different thing from a surety. A surety undertakes to pay a debt for another, or the like ; but a common person serves to perform any common act, which by the law is reckoned and virtually imputed to the other, and is to stand as the other s act, and is as valid as if he had done it ; so as the good and benefit which is the consequent of such an act, shall accrue to him whom he personated, and for whom he stood as a common person. Adam was not a surety for all mankind ; he undertook not for them in the sense forementioned, but he was a common person representing all mankind ; so as what he should do was to be accounted as if they had done it. Now the better to express and make sure our justification in and by Christ, according to all sorts of laws (the equity of all which God usually draws up into his dispensations), God did ordain Christ both to be a surety for us, and also a common person repre senting us, and in our stead. That as Christ took all other relations for us,

28 THE SUPPORT OF FAITH [SECT. III. as of an Husband, Head, Father, Brother, King, Priest, Captain, &c., that so the fulness of his love might be set forth to us, in that what is defective in any one of these relations, is supplied and expressed by the other ; even thus did God ordain Christ to take and sustain both these relations, of a surety and a common person, in all he did for us, thereby to make our justification by him the more full and legal ; and justify, as I may so speak, our justification itself or his justifying of us, by all sorts of legal considera tions whatever, that hold commonly among men in like case ; and that which the one of these relations or considerations might not reach to make good, the other might supply ; what fell short in the one the other might make up ; and so we might be most legally and formally justified, and made sure never to be condemned.

CHAPTEK III.

The first head: The evidence ofjustification which Christ s resurrection affords to faith, explained by two things. 1. By shewing how Christ was made a Surety for us. 2. How his resurrection as a Surety holds forth this evidence.

1. Concerning the first of those two heads at first propounded, namely, the evidence which Christ s resurrection affords unto our faith in point of noncondemnation, I have two things to handle in this chapter to make this out : First, how Christ was made a Surety for us, and what manner of Surety he did become ; secondly, what the consideration hereof will contribute to that evidence which faith hath from Christ s resurrection.

(1.) For the first, Christ was appointed by God (and himself also under took) to be our Surety. This you have, Heb. vii. 22, He was made Surety of a better testament or covenant, namely, of the new. The Hebrew word for covenant the Septuagint still translated A/o&w, testament: the word in the Hebrew being of a large signification, and comprehending both a covenant and testament ; and so in the New Testament it is used pro miscuously for either ; and indeed this * new covenant of grace is both. Of this covenant Christ is the iyyvog, the plighter of his troth for it, the Surety, the Promiser, the Undertaker. The verb this comes of is Jy/uaw, promittere, which comes from Iv yviotg, in manibus, striking hands, or giving one s hand, as a sign of a covenant ; and so to bargain with, or make up a covenant. Prov. xxii. 26, * Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts : which whole verse the Septuagint reads, Give not thyself sig tyyvriv, to suretyship ; the same word that is here used by the apostle. It was the manner both of the Jews and Romans also, to make covenants by striking of hands. And in testaments, the heir and executor shook hands, or the executor gave his hand to fulfil it. And the word iyyvvjaaedat is used, not only in promising to pay a debt for another, but also in becoming a pledge for another, for to undergo death or a capital punishment in another s room, as in that famous story of friends, namely, Evephenus and Eucritus : Eucritus did ri%iaosv lyyvfoatfai* willingly be come a surety for Evephenus, when condemned to die by Dionysius the * It is remarkable that Goodwin has, through inadvertence, mistaken the mean ing of this expression. It was Evephenus, who, having sent for Eueritus, $%iuffS9 syyvfaaadai, asked him to stand surety for him. The mistake does not affect the argument, which depends upon the meaning of syyuffatrtJa/, and not upon that of

CHAP. III.] FROM CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 29 tyrant. This very word is used by Polyaenus,* the historian of that fact. Now such a Surety every way did Christ become unto God for us, both to pay the debt, by undergoing death in our stead, and so to satisfy God ; and then as the Heir, to execute his will and testament. He became a Surety of the whole covenant, and every condition in it, take it in the largest sense ; and this of all, both on God s part, and on ours. For us he undertook to God to work all our works, and undergo all our punishments ; to pay our debts for us, and to work in us all that God required should be done by us, in the covenant of grace. And thus to be a surety is much more than simply to be an intercessor or mediator (as Pareus well observes). God did (as it were) say to Christ, What they owe me, I require it all at your hands ; and Christ assented, and from everlasting struck hands with God, to do all for us that God could require, and undertook it under the penalty that lay upon us to have undergone.

Yea, Christ became such a Surety in this for us, as is not to be found among men. On earth, sureties are wont to enter into one and the same bond with the creditors,f so as the creditor may seize on which of the two he will, whether on the debtor or on the surety, and so (as usually) on the debtor first, for him we call the principal. But in this covenant God would have Christ s single bond ; and hence Christ is not only called the Surety of the covenant for us, but * The Covenant, Isa. xlix. 8, and elsewhere. God making the covenant of grace primarily with him, and with him as for us, thereby his single bond alone was taken for all, that so God might be sure of satisfaction : therefore he laid all upon Christ, protesting that he would not deal with us, nor so much as expect any payment from us, such was his grace. So Ps. Ixxxix. 19, where the mercies of the covenant made between Christ and God, under the type of God s covenant with David, are set forth, Thou spakest in vision to thy holy One, and saidst, I have laid help on one who is mighty. As if God had said, I know that these will fail me, and break, and never be able to satisfy me ; but you are a mighty and substantial person, able to pay me, and I will look for my debt of you. And to confirm this, than which nothing can give stronger consolation, or more advanceth God s free grace, when God went about the reconciling the world in and by Christ, and dealt with Christ about it, the manner of it is expressed to have been, that God took off our sins from us, and discharged us, as it were, meaning never to call us to an account for them, unless Christ should not satisfy him, and laid them all on Christ, so as he would require an account of them all from him first, and let him look to it ; and this he did to make the covenant sure. Thus, 2 Cor. v. 19, it is said (the apostle speaking of God s transaction of this business with Christ) that God was in Christ, namely, from everlasting, reconciling the world (of elect believers)

to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them ; and made him sin who knew no sin. Observe, that as he laid our sins on Christ, so withal he discharged us in his compact between Christ and him self, not imputing their trespasses to them. So then, all laid upon Christ, and he was to look to it, or else his soul was to have gone for it. This is not the manner of other creditors : they use to charge the debt on both the surety and the debtor ; but in this covenant (of grace, namely) Christ s single bond is entered ; he alone is The Covenant, so as God will have nought to say to us, till Christ fails him. He hath engaged himself first to require satisfactions at Christ s hands, who is our Surety.

(2.) Now then for to make use of this notion, for the clearing of the point

* Stratagems, Book V. chap. ii. ED. f Qu. debtors ? ED.

30 THE SUPPORT OF FAITH [SECT. III. in hand. It might afford us matter of unspeakable comfort, only to hear of Christ s having been arrested by God for our debt, and cast into prison, and his bond sued, and an execution or judgment served on him, as the phrases are, Isa. liii. 8. For thereby we should have seen how God had begun with our Surety, as minded to let us alone, and that it lay on him to discharge the debt, who was so able to do it. And thereby we might also see how he was made sin for us, and therefore we might very well have quieted our hearts from fearing any arrests, or for God s coming upon us, till we should hear that our surety were not sufficiently able to pay the debt, as you have heard he is.

But yet our hearts would still be inquisitive (for all that) to hear whether indeed he hath perfectly satisfied God or no ; and would be extremely soli citous to know whether he hath satisfactorily performed what he undertook, and how he got clear of that engagement, and of being * made sin for us. And therefore the apostle comforts believers with this, that Christ shall the next time appear without sin. Unto them that look for him he shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation, Heb. ix. 28. One would think it no great matter of comfort to us to hear that Christ should appear without sin ; for who would imagine that it could be otherwise with The Holy One, < The Lord of Glory ? There is no wonder in that. Ay, but, says the apostle, your very salvation is interested in this, as nearly as is possible. It is well for you that Christ is now without sin ; for he hav ing as your Surety undertook to satisfy for sin, and having accordingly been once made sin when on earth, and arrested for it by God at his death ; in that now he is got clear of that engagement which could be no way but by satisfaction, which he undertook this doth plainly evince it, and ascer tain you, that you shall never be condemned for it ; for by the law, if the surety hath discharged the debt, the debtor is then free. And therefore no news would or could be more welcome to sinners, than to have a certain and infallible evidence given, that their Surety were well come off, and had quitted all, to satisfaction.

Now then to evidence this serveth his resurrection ; Christ is risen.

Nothing so sure. Therefore certainly the debt is discharged, and he hath paid it to the full, and so is now without our sin, and fully got clear of it. For God having once arrested Christ, and cast him into prison, and begun a trial against him, and had him to judgment, he could not come forth till he had paid the very utmost farthing. And there is the greatest reason for it, to ascertain us, that can be. For he was under those bonds and bolts, which if it had * been possible, would have * detained him in the grave, as Acts ii. 24. The strength of sin, and God s wrath, and the curse against sin (Thou shalt die the death) did as cords hold him, as the Psalmist s phrase is. Other debtors may possibly break their prisons ; but Christ could not have broke thrbugh this, for the wrath of the all-powerful God was this prison, from which there was no escaping, no bail ; nothing would be taken to let him go out but full satisfaction. And therefore to hear that Christ is risen, and so is come out of prison, is an evidence that God is satisfied, and that Christ is discharged by God himself; and so is now

without sin, walking abroad again at liberty. And therefore the apostle proclaims a mighty victory, obtained by Christ s resurrection, over death, the grave, the strength of sin, the law, 1 Cor. xv. 55, 56, and cries out, Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord, ver. 57. You may now rest secure indeed : Christ is risen ; who therefore shall condemn ?

CHAP. IV.] FROM CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 31

CHAPTEE IV.

The second head propounded, the influence Christ s resurrection hath into justi fication. Two branches of the demonstration of this : First, that Christ was a common person, representing us in all he was, or did, or suffered, handled at large ; more especially a common person in his resurrection.

2. Now secondly, to come to that other head propounded, the influence

Christ s resurrection hath into our justification. The demonstration or making out of which depends on two things put together ; the first, how

Christ was appointed by God, and himself acted the part of a common per son, representing us in what he did, and more particularly in his resurrec tion. Of this in this chapter. The second is, how from that consideration ariseth, not only an evidence to our faith, but a real influence into our justification and non-condemna tion. So as, Who shall condemn? because Christ is risen again, as a common person, representing us therein.

(1.) For the first of these, to illustrate and prove it in the general, that instance of Adam serves most fitly, and is indeed made use of in the Scrip ture to that end. Adam, as you all know, was reckoned as a common public person, not standing singly or alone for himself, but as representing all mankind to come of him. So as by a just law, what he did was reckoned to his posterity whom he represented. And what was by that law threat ened, or done to him for what he did, is threatened against his posterity also. Now this man was herein a lively type of our Lord Christ, as you have it, who was the type of him who was to come, Bom. v. 14. Unto which purpose, the titles which the apostle gives these two, Christ and Adam, 1 Cor. xv. 47, are exceeding observable ; he calls Adam

the first man ; and Christ our Lord, the second man ; and both for that very pur pose and respect which we have in hand. For, first, he speaks of them as if there had never been any more men in the world, nor were ever to be for time to come, except these two. And why ? but because these two between them had all the rest of the sons of men hanging at their girdle ; because they were both common persons, that had the rest in like (though opposite) considerations included and involved in them. Adam had all the sons of men, born into this world, included in himself, who are therefore called

earthly men, ver. 48, in a conformity to him the earthly man, ver. 47 ; and Christ the second man had all his elect who are the first born, and whose * names are written in heaven, and therefore, in the same verse, are * heavenly men included in him. You see how he sums up the number of all men in two, and reckons but two men in all ; these oppositely called two, in God s account, standing for all the rest. And farther observe, that because Adam was in this his being a common person unto us, the shadow and the lively type of Christ, who was to come after him ; that therefore he is called the first man of these two, and Christ the second man, as typified out by him.

Now if you ask wherein Christ was a common person, representing us, and standing in our stead ; I answer, if in anything, then in all those con ditions and states wherein he was, in what he did, or befell him, whilst here on earth especially. For he had no other end to come down into this world, but to sustain our persons, and to act our parts, and to have what was to have been done to us acted upon him.

32 THE SUPPOET OF FAITH [SECT. III.

[1.] Thus, first, in their two several conditions, qualifications, and states, they both were common persons. That is, look what state or condition the one or the other was made in, is by a just law to be put upon those whom they represented. So the apostle reasons from it, ver. 48, as is the earthly man (namely, the first man, Adam), such are the earthly, namely, to be earthly men as well as he ; because he who is a common person represent ing them, was in his condition but an earthly man. And oppositely, by the same law, it follows, * as is the heavenly man (namely, the second man, Christ), such are and must be the heavenly, who pertain to him, because he also is a common person, ordained to personate them ; and Adam, who came after him, was therein but his type.

[2.] And as thus, in this place to the Corinths, the apostle argues Christ to be a common person, in respect of his condition and state, by an argu ment of parallels taken from his type, Adam ; so, secondly, in that 5th to the Romans, he argues Christ to have been a common person, in his actions which he did on earth : and this also from the similitude of Adam, whom, ver. 14, he therein makes to have been Christ s type. And he speaks of Adam there as a common person, both in respect of what he did, namely, his sin ; and also in respect of what befell him for his sin, namely, death and condemnation. And because he was in all these not to be considered as a single man, but as one that was all men, by way of representation ; hence, both what he did, they are said to do in him ; and what condemnation or death was deserved by his sin, fell upon them all, by this law of his being a public person for them.

First, For what he did. He sinned, you know, and, ver. 12, all are said to have sinned, namely, in his sin ; yea, and according to those words in the Greek, Iv <Z> * which are added there, you may render that sentence (and the original bears it, and it is also varied in the margin) thus, in whom all have sinned, namely, in Adam, as in a public person. Their act was included in his, because their persons were included in his. And Secondly, For what befell him for sin, that befell them also by the same law of his being a person representing them. Hence, ver. 12, death is said to pass upon all men, namely, for this, that Adam s sin was considered as theirs, as it there follows. It is said to pass, even as a sentence of death passeth upon a condemned malefactor. And, ver. 18, judgment is said to come by that one man s offence, upon all men, to condemnation. Now in Gen. ii. 17, the threatening was spoken only to Adam, as but one man, In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And Gen. iii.

19, that sentence seems only to pass upon him alone, Unto dust thou

Bhalt return. Yet in threatening Adam, God threatened us all ; and in sentencing Adam to death, he sentenced us| also. The curse reacheth us too ; death passed upon all men then, and therefore by a just law death reigns over all, as Rom. v. 14 and 17, because Adam was in all this a com mon person representing us, and so in our stead ; and so all this concerns us as truly and as nearly as it did him. I say by a just law ; for, indeed, the Scripture, upon the equity of this rule, pronounceth a statute out against all men that they should die, Heb. ix. 27. Statutum est, it is appointed by a statute law that all should die. Now if you search for this statute, when and where enacted, you will find that the original record and roll is that in Gen. iii. 19, spoken only of Adam, but holding true of us, * to dust thou ehalt return.

This reading, Iv y, for ep o>, which the author quotes, and which our trans lators must have had before them, is not given by Griesbach. ED.

CHAP. IV.] FKOM CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 33 (3.) Just thus the matter stands in the point of our justification and salvation between Christ and elect believers ; for Adam was herein his type. Christ was considered and appointed of God as a common person, both in what he did and in what was done to him. So as by the same law, what he did for us is reckoned or imputed to us, as if we ourselves had done it ; and what was done to him, tending to our justification and salvation, is reckoned as done to us. Thus when Christ died, he died as a common person, and God reckoneth that we died also. When Christ arose, he rose as our head, and as a common person, and so then God accounts that we rose also with him. And by virtue of that communion which we had with him in all those actions of his, it is, that now when we are born again, we do all rise both from the guilt of sin and from the power of it : even as by virtue of the like communion we had with (or being one in) Adam, we come to be made sinful, when we begin first to exist as men, and to be first born.

Thus in his death he was considered as a common person, and God reckoned us dying then, and would have us reckon so also. So, Kom. vi.

10, the apostle, speaking of Christ, saith, In that he died, he died unto sin once ; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Then, ver. 11, speaking of us, he says, * Likewise reckon you yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The meaning whereof is plainly this, that whereas regenerate men are for the present in the reality but imperfectly mortified and dead to sin, as considered in themselves, and in respect of the work of it, as wrought in them ; yet that being considered in Christ as their head, and a common person representing them, they may Xoy/ ^g/t/, they may truly, by a way of faith, reason or reckon themselves wholly dead, in and through Jesus Christ our Lord, in that once he died perfectly unto sin, as a common person representing them. So as what yet is wanting in the work of mortification, in their sense and experience of it, they may supply by faith, from the consideration of Christ their head, even themselves to have died when he died. The apostle, I say, would have them by reason conclude or infer (for so the word Xoyitfdi signifies, as chap. iii. 28, Therefore we conclude, &c., it is the same word) from Christ s death, that they are dead ; which conclusion cannot be made unless this be one of the propositions in this argument, that we died in Christ when he

dead to sin, nor died ; and so though in ourselves we are not yet wholly

through Jesus Christ your Lord and Head perfectly alive to God, yet

* in that (as ver. 10) he died and now

(says he), reckon yourselves so,

Hves, and you were included in him. And, indeed, this consideration the apostle suggests unto our faith, both as the greatest encouragement against imperfect mortification begun ; that yet we may comfort ourselves by faith, as reckoning ourselves wholly dead in Christ s death, and so may assure ourselves we shall one day be perfectly dead in ourselves by virtue of it ; and withal, as the strongest argument also and motive unto mortification, to endeavour to attain to the highest degree of it ; which, therefore, he car ries along in his discourse throughout that whole chapter. He would have them by faith or spiritual reasoning take in, and apprehend themselves long since dead to sin in Christ, when he died ; and so should think it the greatest absurdity in the world to sin, even the least sin, we being dead long since, and that wholly, when Christ our head died : ver. 2, and how shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein ? and, ver. 7, he that is dead is free from sin ; and how then shall we do the least service to it ? Now all this he puts upon Christ s dying, and our dying then with him : ver. 6, Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, even

VOL. IV. C

34 THE SUPPORT OF FAITH [SECT. III. when he was crucified, that it might be destroyed one day in us, fully and perfectly ; Christ s body representing therein, as a public person, the elect, and their body of sin conjunct with them. So as thus by faith they are to reason themselves wholly dead to sin in Christ, and to use it as a reason and motive to stir up themselves not to yield to the least sin. I use this expression of being wholly dead, because if he had spoken merely of that imperfect mortification begun in us, the argument would not have been a perfect motive against the least sins. We who are dead, how shall we live in sin, or yield unto the least sin ? For it might be said, alas ! we are but imperfectly dead ; and from an imperfect death could but an imper fect argument have been drawn. But the Scripture elsewhere tells us, that Christ by his death hath perfected for ever all that are sanctified ; so Heb. x. 14 ; so as in his death they may reckon themselves perfectly dead by faith, and perfectly sanctified, though yet the work be not actually and fully perfected.

And all this communion with Christ as a common person, representing them in his death, he there instructs them to be represented and sealed up to them by their baptism ; so ver. 3, 4. How, I shall shew afterwards.

(4.) Now as this place holds forth Christ as a common person in his death representing us, so other places hold forth the like of his resurrec tion. In 1 Cor. xv. 20, the apostle argues, that elect believers must and shall rise, because now Christ is risen from the dead, and is become the first-fruits of them that sleep. See the force of this argument founded upon this notion and consideration, that Christ was a common person repre senting all the rest ; and this strongly presented in that expression of his being the first-fruits, in allusion to the rite in the Levitical law. All the sheaves in a field being unholy of themselves, there was some one sheaf in the name and room of all the rest (which was called the first-fruit), which was lift up, and waved before the Lord ; and so all the sheaves abroad in the field, by that act done to this one sheaf, were consecrated unto God, Lev. xxiii. 10, &c., by virtue of that law. The meaning of which rite, the apostle expounding, allegeth, Bom. xi. 16, If the first-fruits be holy, all the lump is holy also. Thus, when we were all dead, Christ as the firstfruits riseth, and this in our name and stead, and so we all rise with him and in him. And although the saints departed are not, in their own per sons, as yet risen (as we all who are now alive are not in our own persons yet dead), yet, in the mean time, because thus they are risen in Christ, as their first-fruits, hence, in the very words following, he saith, they are but asleep, He is become the first-fruits of them that sleep, because they remain alive in Christ their head, and shall rise one day, because in him they virtually are already risen ; and this in God s account in as true and just a sense as we, though personally alive, are yet all reckoned dead in Adam, because he, as a common person, had the sentence of death pronounced on him, by virtue of which we must die ; and this by the force of the same law, even of that which we have inculcated, of being a common person repre senting us. And indeed, so it follows (which argues this to be the apostle s meaning), ver. 21, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. His argument lies thus : Adam was the first-fruits of them that died ; Christ, of them that rise. Hence, therefore, we are elsewhere said (though in respect to another life) to be risen with Christ, Ephes. ii.

5, 6, and, which is yet more, to sit together with him in heaven ; because he, as a common person representing us, sits there in our name and stead, as you shall hear when I come to it in the text in the next section.

CHAP. V.j FROM CHRIST S RESURRECTION

CHAPTER V.

The second branch : How Christ s representing us as a common person in his resurrection, hath an influence into our justification, made forth by two things : (1.) How Christ at his resurrection u-as justified from our sin ; (2.) That we were all then justified in him as a common person.

2. Now, then, to come to the other branch of the demonstration, namely, how this relation to us as a common person representing us in his resur rection, hath a real influence into our justification. And this is the point I drive at ; and for the clearing of which that large and general discourse by way of digression in the former chapter was but to make way for.

I shall absolve and despatch this branch by shewing two things (1.) That Christ himself was justified, and that at his resurrection.

(2.) That he was justified then as a common person, representing us therein, as well as that he rose as a common person ; and so that we were then justified in him and with him ; and by this means it is that by that act then done to him, our justification is made irrepealable for ever.

(l.) sFor the explicating of the first: As Christ was in his death made sin for us, and so sustained our persons in his satisfying for sin by his death (which is the matter of our righteousness), so in and upon his resur rection he was justified and acquitted from our sins by God, as having now fully in his death satisfied for them, which I make forth by these three things put together

[l.J First, in reason, if that Christ were made sin for us, and satisfied for it, there must then some act pass, whereby Christ should be pronounced acquit of our sins, and fully clear of them, and so be himself formally justi fied in respect of those sins, for which he undertook to satisfy. For, according to the course of all proceedings, if a charge of guilt be formally laid, there must be as formal an act of acquitting, and of giving a quietus est. There is no man but for his own discharge and security would desire it ; nor is there any wise man that pays a debt for which he is legally sued, that will not have, upon the payment of it, as legal an acquittance. Paul, when he was cast into prison by a public act of authority, he stood upon it to have a public act of release from the same magistrates, and would not go forth of prison privily, though themselves sent to him so to go out, Acts xvi. 37. Now God himself did lay the iniquities of us all upon Christ, Isa. liii. 6, and * had him to prison and judgment for them, ver. 3. There must, therefore, some act pass from God, legally to take them off from him, and declaring him discharged, to deliver him from prison and judgment.

And, defacto, it is evident that there was some such act passed from God ; for, as we read, that Christ, while he lived, and also in his death, was made sin, and did bear the sin of many, as the phrase is, Heb. ix. 28. So we read in the very next words, that he shall appear the second time without sin, which must needs be spoken in a direct opposition to his having borne our sins, and appearing then with all our sins laid to his charge. He appeared charged with them then, but now he shall appear, as apparently and manifestly to be without those sins, for of our sins it must needs be meant, and so to be discharged of them as fully as ever he appeared charged with them. For it is said, he shall appear without sin ;* and therefore to the judgments of all it shall be made manifest, that that

36 THE SUPPORT OF FAITH [SECT. III.

God that once charged him with them, hath now fully discharged him of them. The apostle speaks of it as of a great alteration made in this respect between Christ whilst on earth, and Christ as he is to appear the second lime, and is now in heaven. And this alteration or discharge must neces sarily be made by God ; for he is the creditor who followed the suit, and therefore he alone can give the acquittance.

[2.] Now, secondly, from hence it will follow, that there must be some time when this alteration was first made, and discharge given, when Christ, from being sin, as he was made, should become without sin, through God s acquitting of him ; and this, say I, was at his resurrection. It is not deferred as then to be first done, when he is to appear the second time, though then it appears indeed, but it is really done before ; for he comes then to judge others for sin. Now in reason when should this acquittance or justi fication from our sins be first given to Christ, and legally pronounced on him, but when he had paid the last farthing of the debt, and made his satis faction complete ? which was then done when he began to rise ; for his lying in the grave was a part of his humiliation, and so of his satisfaction, as gene rally orthodox divines hold. Now, therefore, when he began to rise, then ended his humiliation ; and that was the first moment of his exaltation. His acquittance, therefore, bears date from thence, even from that very hour.

condemned, so that he was * justified. Thus, 1 Tim. iii. 16, God is said to be manifest in the flesh, and then that this God-man was justified in the Spirit. That [3.] Hence, thirdly, we read, as that Christ was is, whereas God was manifest or appeared in flesh to condemn sin in the flesh, as Eom. viii., that same God-man was also justified in the Spirit from all those sins, and so * received up to glory, as it follows there. And not to go far, the very words of this my text, * it is God that justifies, are taken out of Isa. 1. 8, 9, and as there they are first spoken by Christ of himself, then, when he

gave his back to the smiters, in his death (as in the verses

condemned man, he comforts himself with this, He is near that justifies me ; who shall condemn ? And when was that done, or to be done, but at his resurrection ? So the phrase in Timothy imports, if you compare it with another in Peter, 1 Pet. iii. 18. before), and was put to death as a Being put to death in the flesh, and quickened in (or by) the Spirit. Paul, he says, justified in the Spirit; Peter, he says, quickened in the Spirit : both mean one and the same thing. By Spirit is meant the power of his Godhead and divine nature, whereby he was at once both raised from the grave, and from under the guilt of sin together. He was at once both quickened, or raised, and justified also. And that by Spirit they mean his divine nature, the opposition in both places evidently implies ; for it is opposed to his flesh, or human nature. Now, because he was quickened, or raised, by the power of the Godhead, and at that raising him he was justified also by God, and declared justified by that resurrection, as he had been declared condemned by his death ; hence, to be justified is put for his resurrection ; for that was his justification, to declaration of all the world, that he was justified from all the sins laid to his charge. And that other place I cited out of Isaiah hath the same meaning also ; for Christ there comforts himself against the Jews condemning him, and put ting jiim to death, with the hopes of God s justifying of him, when he should have gone through that work. And Christ s meaning there is this, * God will raise me up and acquit me, though you condemn and kill me. In the other prophets you shall find Christ still comforting himself against bis condemnation at his death, with the thoughts of his resurrection, which

he foresaw as shortly to follow after it ; as here, in Isaiah, he comforts himself with these hopes of his being justified after their condemnation of him. For instance, Ps. xvi. 9, My flesh shall rest in hope: thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. Which words, you know, Peter, in the Acts, doth twice interpret of Christ s resur rection. In like manner here, in Isaiah, against his death and condemnation, he comforts himself with the hopes of God s justification of him at his resur rection, He is near who justifies me (and he shall help me) ; who shall condemn ?

And further, to confirm and strengthen this notion, because his resurrec tion was the first moment of this his justification from our sins, therefore it is that God calls it his first begetting of Christ, This day have I begotten thee, speaking manifestly of his resurrection, Acts xiii. 33. And the reason of his so calling it, is, because all the while before he was covered with sin, and the likeness of sinful flesh ; but now, having flung it off, he appears like God s Son indeed, as if newly begotten. And thus also he* cometh to be the fuller conformity between Christ s justification and ours. For as our justification is at our first being born again, so was Christ s also at this his first glorious begetting. He was under an attainder before ; here was the act of restitution first passed. And as at our conversion (which is to us a resurrection) we pass from death to life, that is, from an estate of death and condemnation, unto justification of life, so did Christ also at his resurrection, which to him was a re-begetting, pass from an estate of death and guilt laid on him, to an estate of life and glory, and justification from guilt ; and so shall appear, as the word is, HelD. ix. 28 (as he doth now in heaven), without sin ; for he became to be without sin from that very moment. Thus I have shewn how Christ was justified at his resurrec tion.

(2.) Now then, in the second place, I am to shew that this his justifica tion, and pronouncing him without sin, thus done at his resurrection, was done to him as the first-fruits, and as to a common person bearing our persons, and so in our names. From whence will necessarily follow, as the conclusion of all, that the persons of all the elect believers have been justified before God in Christ, as their head, at or from the time of his resurrection ; and so that act of justification to have been so firmly passed as it cannot be revoked for ever. Now this is proved, First, by the very same reason or respect that he was said to be the * first-fruits of them that sleep, as representing the rest in his resurrection, which I shewed at large in the former chapter ; upon the same ground he is to be so looked at also in this his justification pronounced upon him at his resurrection, even as the first-fruits also of them that are justified. And so in the same sense, and by the same reason that we are said to be risen with Christ, in his resurrection ; we must also be said to be justified with him, in this his justification, at his resurrection.

, And indeed (to enlarge this a little), as there is the same reason and ground for the one that there is for the other, he being a public person in both, so the rule will hold in all other things which God ever doth to us, or for us, which are common with Christ, and were done to him ; that in them all Christ was the first-fruits, and they may be said to have been done in us, or to us, yea, by us, in him, and with him. Yea, whatever God meant to do for us and in us, whatever privilege or benefit he meant to bestow upon us, he did that thing first to Christ, and (some way) bestowed the * Qu.

< there ? ED.

88 THE SUPPORT OF FAITH [SECT. III. like on him as a common person, that so it might be by a solemn formal act ratified, and be made sure to be done to us in our persons in due time, having first been done to him representing our persons ; and that by this course taken, it might (when done to us) be effected by virtue of what was first done to him. Thus God meaning to sanctify us, he sanctifies Christ first, in him as a common person sanctifying us all ; For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through thy truth, John xvii. 19. He sanctifies the human nature of Christ personal, (that is his body), and him first, as a common person representing us, that so we, being virtually and representatively sanctified in him, may be sure to be sanctified afterwards in our own persons, by means of his sanctification. And so in * justified in the Spirit ; because we were like manner for our sakes he was to be justified, and so to be justified first in him, and with him as a common person. Now this rule holds in all blessings else bestowed ; for Paul pronounceth of them all, that God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus, Eph. i. 3, which God did so order, that, as he speaks of ordaining salvation to be by faith, Rom. iv. 16, that all those blessings might be sure to all the seed. For this formal investiture of estating us into all blessings by such solemn acts done to Christ as our head and representer of us, makes what he intends to bestow sure beforehand, by an irrepealable act and sentence, which hath its warrant in all laws of men, as I have shewn, and shall anon again urge. And, Secondly, by the equity of the same law that in Adam we were all con demned, Adam being a type of him in this, by the same law, I say, we were all justified in Christ*when he was justified, else the type were not therein fialfilled. Now the sentence of condemnation was first passed upon Adam alone, yet considered as a common person for us ; therefore also this acquittance and justification was then passed towards Christ alone, as a public person for us. Yea, in this his being justified, Christ must much rather be considered as a common person representing us, than Adam was in his condemnation. For Christ in his own person, as he had no sin, so he had no need of any justification from sin, nor should ever have been condemned. And therefore this must be only in a respect unto our sins imputed to him ; and if so, then in our stead. And so herein, he was more purely to be considered as a common person for us, than ever Adam was, in his being condemned. For Adam, besides his standing as a common person for us, was furthermore condemned in his own person ; but Christ in being justified from sin, could only be considered as standing for others. Thus, Rom. v. 18, Therefore as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation ; even so (or in like manner) by the righteousness of that one man Christ, the free gift came upon all men (namely, in Christ) unto justification of life. He parallels both with a so, only with this difference between Adam s being a common person for us, and so between the ground of our being condemned in him, and Christ his being a common person for us, and our acquittance in him, that the condemnation came upon all by a necessary, natural covenant, for by such a covenant was Adam appointed a common person for us ; but Christ his being appointed thus a common person for us, it was by a free gift of grace ; and therefore in like manner by a free gift of grace it is that the imputation of that which he did, or was done to him, is reckoned ours. As then in Adam all died, when he sinned, as the apostle speaks, so in Christ were all justified, when he was justified. For as in his death Christ was a public person for* tis, and in all that befell him ; so in his resurrection, and in all that was

CHAP. VI.] FROM CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 39 then done to him ; and so, in this his being then justified. And as when he died, the just was put to death for the unjust (as Peter speaks), so when he arose and was justified, the just that needed no justification was justified for the unjust, who else had been condemned ; and so we were then justified with him.

CHAPTER VI.

How our faith may raise from hence just matter of triumph about our justifica tion. An explication how we are justified by faith, although justified in Christ at his resurrection.

And hereupon is grounded this triumph of faith here, from Christ s resurrection, Who shall condemn ? It is Christ that is risen. The mean ing whereof is, that he was justified at his resurrection (justified in the Spirit and quickened in the Spirit being all one), and we in him. Yea, and a rather is put upon this, rather than put upon his death ; for this act was a solemn discharge from all sin and condemnation ; it was a legal acquittance given to Christ for all our sins, and so to us also considered as in him. His death was but the satisfaction and payment ; but this is the first act of absolution. Yea, and this is the original act, which is upon record between God and Christ ; and our justification and atonement (when we are justified by faith in Christ) is but a copy fetched from this roll, and court-sentence then pronounced.

And such a way and course to ratify and make acts good and legal, even to have them done by another representing one s person, is common among men, as those instances I formerly gave do shew. An attorneyat-law receives a debt, or an acquittance for a debt, paid or given for another man, and it is as legal as if the man himself or creditor had done it, and the debtor had received the acquittance himself. Yea, acts of the greatest and highest concernment are ofttimes no otherwise transacted ; as the marriages of princes are by proxy solemnized, their ambassadors representing their persons, and contracting and marrying their wives in their stead, which acts are thereby made as irrevocable, and irrepealable, as if themselves had in person done them. And so if we were justified when Christ did rise and was justified, our justification then cannot be reversed, but stands as legal and warrantable as any act that God or man ever ratified or confirmed. And who shall condemn ?

Only, for farther explication s sake, lest there be a mistake, let me add this, that it is necessary that we be justified in our own persons by faith, (notwithstanding this former act thus legally passed), whereby we lay hold upon what God did thus before for us in Christ, to the end that God upon our believing may, according to his own rules, justify his justifying of us unto all the world ; which, until we do believe, he could not do. For according to the revealed rules of his word, which he professeth to proceed by at the latter day, there is a curse and a sentence of condemnation pronounced against us, under which we stand till he shall take it off by giving us faith ; unto which he hath, in the same word, made the promise of justifying us in our own persons, as before he had done in Christ. Yet still notwithstanding, so as although, when we first believe, then only justification is actually and personally applied to us, yet at Christ s resurrection, and in his being then iustified, this act and sentence was virtually pronounced upon us ; and so

40 THE SUPPORT OF FAITH [SECT. III. doth necessarily require, and exaci at God s hands, the bestowing faith upon us ; that so by virtue of this former act passed, we come to be actually justified in our own consciences, and before all the world. And so our justification, which was but secretly wrought and passed upon us in Christ, is never made void, but stands irrepealable ; and so ratified, that our per sonal justification by faith doth always infallibly second and succeed it. And (to illustrate it a little) our condemnation in Adam, and this our justi fication in Christ, do in this hold parallel together, that as in Adam we were all virtually condemned, in Adam all die, and that legal enough too, for thereupon came out that statute-law, statutum est, It is appointed that all should die, and yet we are not actually in our own persons condemned till we are born of him ; nor do we personally die, until we lay down our flesh, even so it is in the matter of our justification: it was done virtually in

Christ, and afterwards, when we believe, is actually passed in and upon our selves. Now I call this former but a virtual justification, even as by the sentence of condemnation passed upon a malefactor, he is called a dead man, that is, he is so virtually and in law (as we say), though naturally he die not many days after, but in that respect may be still alive ; so by Christ s being justified, we are all virtually and in law justified, through a secret yet irrepealable covenant between God and Christ, who only did then know who were his. And for a confirmation even of this also, that God accounts all the elect justified in his justifying of Christ, we shall not need to go any further than the words of this text, if we do but diligently compare their standing here with that of theirs in that place out of which they are taken, an where we find them first recorded and spoken, namely, in that 50th of Isaiah, 7, 8, He is near that justifies me; who is he that shall condemn? Now there (as , interpreters agree, and as the context shews), those words are spoken by Christ himself ; for, ver. 5, he speaks of God s boring his ear to do his will (the same expression that is used of Christ, Ps. xl. 6), and farther says, I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that pulled off the hair, and I hid not my face from shame and spitting (all which you may read in Christ s sufferings, Mat. xxvi. 67 and xvii. 26). And he spake before (in ver. 4), of God s having

given him the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to him that is weary, which you may read done by Christ, Mat. xi. 28. Now those words were spoken by Christ, to comfort himself against the Jews condemning him, as considering that God would justify him ; as at his resurrection, you have heard, he did. Now mark it, those very words which Isaiah brings in Christ speaking as of himself alone, those very words Paul here boldly applies, in the like triumph, to all the elect of Christ, Who shall condemn ? It is God that justifies ; and this because Christ is dead, and risen, and acquitted by God. Christ spake those words as a public person in the name of all his elect, whom he in his death and in his justification represented ; and for that very respect Paul speaks the like words over again, of of all elect believers, as being as truly and really intended of them, when spoken by Christ, as of himself, and of his own person. He is near that justifies me (says Christ) ; who shall condemn ? namely, me, or mine elect, whose persons I sustain. And Who shall lay anything to the charge of God s elect ? says Paul.

It is God that justifies; who shall condemn ? for Christ hath died, and been condemned for them, and Christ was justified from that condemnation, and they in him. And because the justi fication of himself, which Christ spake of, as looked for from God, was to

CHAP. VII.] FROM CHRIST S RESURRECTION

be made at his resurrection, as hath been said, therefore Paul here puts a rather upon his resurrection.

And farther to establish this, as you heard before out of Rom. vi. 11, that in respect of sanctification we were dead with Christ, even then when he died ; so in Col. ii. 13, we are said to be * risen with him, in respect of our justification, which is the thing in hand. The words are, * And you being dead in your sins, namely, the guilt of your sins, and the cir cumcision of your flesh, that is, in respect of the power of corrupt nature, * hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all your tres passes. See here, the forgiveness of our sins, or our justification, is called a quickening or a raising up of us (as the 12th verse hath it), * together with him, in a conformity and relation to that justification from our sins, which at his resurrection he received in our names. His meaning is, he was justified then, and in our names ; and so we are now justified through the virtue of that our communion with him therein. For if you mark the connection of the words with what follows, ver. 14, you will find this forgiving of their trespasses (ver. 13) through their being quickened together with him, not only to have been done when they believed, and so when they had that justification personally first applied to them, of which, it is true, the words in the 12th verse are to be understood, but also then * when he having (as it follows in the 14th verse) blotted out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us, nailing it to his cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers, and got the victory, namely, in to have been done, * had made a show of them openly (in his ascending to his rising again, heaven), triumphing over them ev auru in himself (as the margin hath it) ; of which words I shall farther speak in the next head. So as then when Christ did this in himself, then were our sins forgiven, then were we acquitted with him, and triumphed with him, he doing all this in our stead, representing us.

CHAPTER VII.

How all this, both the support of our faith and our justification by Christ s resurrection, is sealed up to us in baptism. The conclusion. How faith may make use of Christ s resurrection in its pleas to God.

And all this our communion with Christ in his resurrection, both in respect of sanctification, which the 6th of the Romans holds forth, and of justification, which this place in the.Colossians holds forth, is lively (as both places declare) set out, and sealed up to us, in the sacrament of baptism. Romans vi. 3, 4, we are said to be * buried with him in baptism, &c. ; and Colossians ii. 12, * buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him. The eminent thing signified and represented in baptism is not simply the blood of Christ as it washeth us from sin ; but there is a farther representation therein of Christ s death, burial, and resurrection, in the baptized s being first buried under water, and then rising out of it ; and this not in a bare conformity unto Christ, but in a representation of a com munion with Christ in that, his death and resurrection. Therefore it is said, we are buried with him in baptism ; and wherein you are risen with him. It is not simply said, like as he was buried, and rose, but with him. So as our communion and oneness with him in his resurrection, is represented to us therein, and. not only our conformity or likeness unto him

42 THE SUPPOKT OF FAITH [SECT. III. therein. And so baptism representeth this to us, that Christ having once in himself sustained the persons of all the elect, in his burial and resurrection, that now, upon the party himself who is baptized, is personally, particularly, and apparently re-acted the same part again, in his baptism ; thereby shewing what his communion with Christ before was, in what was then done to Christ ; that he then was buried with Christ, and rose with him ; and upon that ground is now in this outward sign of baptism, as in a show or representation, both buried and also riseth again.

And moreover, hence it is, that the answer of a good conscience, which is made the inward effect of this ordinance of baptism, 1 Pet. iii. 21, is there also attributed unto Christ s resurrection, as the thing signified and represented in baptism, and as the cause of that answer of a good con

Even baptism, saith he, doth now also save us, as being the ordinance that seals up salvation, science.

not the putting away of the filth of the * but the answer of a good con flesh, or the washing of the outward man; science towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To open these words : Our consciences are that principle in us which are the seat of the guilt of all the sins of the whole man ; unto whose court they all come to accuse us, as unto God s deputy ; which conscience is called good or evil, as the state of the man is. If his sin remain unpardoned, then as his estate is damnable, so his conscience is evil. If his sins be forgiven, and his person justified, his conscience is said to be good ; conscience having its denomination from the man s state, even as the urine is called good or bad, as the state of the man s body is healthful or unsound whose urine it is. Now in baptism, forgiveness of sins and justification being sealed up to a believer s faith and conscience, under that lively representation of his communion with Christ in his resurrection ; hence this is made the fruit of baptism, that the good conscience of a believer, sealed up in baptism, hath wherewithal from thence to answer all accusations of sin that can or do at any time come in upon him ; and all this, as it is here added, by virtue of the resurrection of Jesus Christ ; namely, in this respect, that his com munion with Christ in his resurrection hath been represented in his baptism as a ground of his faith, and of that answer unto all accusations. So that indeed the same thing that Paul says by way of triumph and de fiance to all accusations, Who shall condemn ? Christ is risen ; the very same thing Peter here mentions, though not by way of defiance, yet of a believer s answer and apology, that if sins do come to condemn or accuse, a good conscience is ready to say, Christ is risen, and I was then * justified in him. There is my answer, which nothing in heaven or hell is able to reply unto. This is the arswr of a good conscience, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now to crown this second pillar of faith with this coronis or conclusion, by way of application or direction to a believer s faith, how to make use of Christ s resurrection in point of non-condemnation. You heard before, out of Romans vi., that in respect of mortification (as the apostle there reasoneth) we may be truly said to have been perfectly dead to all sin in Christ s dying unto sin once; and through his representing us therein as dying unto sin, in and with him. So as although we be for the present but imperfectly mortified in ourselves, yet when corruptions arise, the apostle bids us help ourselves against them by faith, reasoning ourselves to stand wholly dead to sin, when Christ died; and so to conclude from thence, that we shall one day be fully dead to sin, because we then did perfectly die in Christ unto it ; which kind of reasoning also God would

have us use as a motive (and of all motives that are in the gospel it is the * Shall I that am dead strongest) against any corruption whenas it ariseth. to sin in Christ, and so am freed from it, * shall I live any longer therein? ver. 2. Now as God would have our faith make this use of our communion with Christ in his death, in point of sanctification, just so, when guilt of sin ariseth in thy conscience to accuse or threaten condemnation, reason thou thyself (as the apostle s word in that other case), or reckon thyself (as our translation hath it) justified in Christ, in his justification, which was done at his resurrection. Yea, and seeing God would have thee use thy communion with Christ in his death, as an argument to move thee to mortify sin, bidding thee to reckon thyself dead to sin in Christ, do thou desire him, in like manner, to reckon thee as justified at Christ s resurrec tion (for the ground of both is the same), and return that as an argument to him to move him to justify thee. And this is that answer of a good conscience which Peter speaks of ; this is the meaning of Paul s challenge, Who shall condemn ? Christ is risen. And should thy heart object and say, But I know not whether I was one of those that God reckoned justified with Christ when he arose ; then go thou to God, and ask him boldly, whether he did not do this for thee, and whether thou wert not one of them intended by him. Put God to it, and God will (by virtue of Christ s resurrection for thee) even himself answer thy faith this question ere thou art aware. He will not deny it. And to secure thee the more, know that however Christ will be sure to look to that for thee; so as that thou having been then intended, as, if thy heart be drawn to give itself up to Christ, thou wert, shalt never be condemned.

44 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. IV.

SECTION IV.

FAITH SUPPORTED BY CHRIST S ASCENSION, AND SITTING AT GOD*S

RIGHT HAND.

Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ, . . . who is even at the right hand of God. BOM. VIII. 34.

CHAPTER I.

A connection of this third head with the two former ; shewing how it affords a farther degree of triumph. Two things involved in it : 1. Christ s ascension;

2. Christ s power and authority in heaven.

I COME next to this third great pillar and support of faith, Christ s being at God s right hand ; and to shew how the view and consideration hereof may strengthen faith seeking justification and pardon of sin ; * Who is he that condemneth? Christ is even at God s right hand.

In the opening of which, I shall keep to the begun method, both by showing how justification itself depends upon this, and the evidence thereof to us ; both which the apostle had here in his eye, and from both which our faith may derive comfort and assurance. And I mean to keep punctually to the matter of justification only, as in the former.

These two latter that remain here in the text Christ sitting at God s right hand, and his interceding for us are brought in here by the apostle, as those which have a redundant force and prevalency in them, for the noncondemnation of the elect ; that although the two former abundantly served to secure it, yet these two added to the former, do make the, triumph of faith more complete and full, and us more than conquerors, as it after follows. Nor doth this place alone make mention of Christ s

sitting at God s right hand, which I now am first to handle, in this its relation, and influence into our justification, and the assurance of faith about it ; but you have it to the same end, use, and purpose, alleged by that other great apostle, 1 Peter iii. 1822. And if the scopes of these two apostles in both places be compared, they are the same. Here the resurrection of Christ, and his sitting at God s right hand, are brought in as the ground of this bold challenge and triumph of faith ; and there, in Peter, is mentioned the answer or plea of a good conscience in a believer justified, which it puts into the court, and opposeth against all condemning guilts, (so it is called, verse 12), the apostle alleging the resurrection of Jesus Christ as one ground of it, the answer of a good conscience, by the resurrection of Jesus

Christ. And then further to back and strengthen this plea or answer of a good conscience, the apostle puts his ascension and sitting at God s right

CHAP. I.] FROM CHEIST S ASCENSION. 45 hand into the bill, as further grounds confirming it ; so it follows, who is gone to heaven, and is at the right hand of God, angels, and authorities, and powers, being made subject to him. All which the apostle here expresseth in one word (as enough to carry it) that Christ is even at God s right hand, The soul hath sufficient answer against condemnation in Christ s death and resurrection, full enough though it should stop there ; yea therein can faith triumph, though it went no further ; for it can shew a full satisfaction given in his death, and that accepted by God for us, and Christ acquitted, and we in him. Therefore, faith (you see) comes to a rather there. But then, let it go on, to consider Jesus sitting at God s right hand, and making intercession for us ; and then faith will triumph and insult over all accusers, be more than a conqueror ; then it comes not to a rather only, as here, but to a muck more shall we be saved by his life, thus Rom. v. 10. And the meaning thereof is, that if his death had power to pay all our debts, and justify us at first, then much more hath his life this power. So that his death is but the ground and foundation of our faith herein, and the lowest step of this ladder, but these other are the top and full triumph of faith therein. And our spirits should rise, as the apostle here riseth. Faith upon these wings may not only fly above the gunshot of all accusations and condemners, but even clean out of their sight, and so far above all such thoughts and fears, as it may reach to a security that sins are forgotten and shall be remembered no more. What joy was there in the disciples, when they saw Christ risen ! John xx. There fore in the primitive times it was used as a voice of joy ; and to this day the Grecian Christians so entertain each other, at that time of the year with these words, * The Lord is risen, your Surety is out of prison, fear not. But (as Christ said in another case, so say I) what will you say, if you see your Surety ascended up to heaven, and that, as far above angels and prin cipalities (as the apostle speaks, Eph. i.) as the heavens are above the earth ? Will you not in your faiths and hopes proportionably ascend, and climb up also, and have thoughts of pardon, as far exceeding your ordinary thoughts as the heavens are above the earth ? Therefore, first view him as ascending into heaven, ere ever he comes to be at God s right hand, and see what matter of triumph that will afford you ; for that you must first sup pose, ere you can see him at God s right hand, and so is necessarily in cluded, though not expressed here. But that place fore-quoted out of Peter (1 Peter iii.) gives us both these two particulars included in it : 1. His ascension (who is gone into heaven) ; and 2. his power and authority there (is at God s right hand, and hath all power and authority subject to him), and prompts both these, as fit matter to be put into a good conscience, its answer and apology why it should not be condemned ; and therefore both may here as well come in into faith s triumph, and that as being in tended also by the apostle, and included in this one expression. He speaks with the least, to shew what cause faith had to triumph, for the least ex pression of it ; his purpose being but to give a hint of faith, or that which comprehensively contains many things in it, which he would have us dis tinctly to consider for our comfort.

46 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. IY.

CHAPTER II.

Sliewing first what evidence for our justification Christ s ascension into heaven affords unto our faith, upon that first forementioned consideration of his bring a Surety for us.

1. First, then, to see what triumph his ascending into heaven will add unto our faith in matter of non-condemnation.

(1.) And herein, first, there is not nothing* in it to consider what he then did, and what was his last act when he was to take his rise, to fly up to heaven. He blessed his disciples, and thereby left a blessing upon earth with them, for all his elect, to the end of the world. The true reason and mind of which blessing them was, that he being now to go to execute the eternal office of his priesthood in heaven, (of which God had sworn, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec ) ; as Melchisedec in the type blessed Abraham, and in him all the faithful as in his loins, therefore the apostle said that Levi paid tithes unto Melchisedec in Abraham s loins, therefore he was blessed in his loins, so did Christ begin this new and second part of his priesthood with blessing the apostles, and in them all the elect to the end of the world. This was the last thing that Christ did on earth, yea this he did whilst ascending, he was taken up whilst he did it. So Luke xxiv. 50, 51. And thus solemnly he now did this, to shew that the curse was gone, and that sin was gone, and that action speaks thus much, as if Christ himself had said it ; my brethren (for so he styled his dis ciples after his resurrection), I have been dead, and in dying made a curse for you ; now that curse I have fully removed, and my Father hath acquitted me and you for it ; and now I can be bold to bless you, and pronounce all your sins forgiven, and your persons justified. For that is the intendment and foundation of blessing. Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven him, and therefore that was the true meaning of his blessing them ; which he reserved thus as his last act, to shew how by his death he had redeemed them from the curse of the law, and now going to heaven, was able to bless them with all the spiritual blessings that are there, and which heaven can afford, for heavenly they are called in that respect, Eph. i. 3. And as in Abraham (blessed by Melchisedec) all the faithful were blessed, so, in these apostles, all the elect to come are blessed. As when God individually blessed Adam and Eve at the first creation, yet he in them, blessed all that were for ever to come of them ; so Christ in blessing them, blessed us, and all that shall believe through their word, to the end of the world. And that they were thus then to be considered as common persons, receiving this blessing for us all, appeareth by Christ s words then uttered, I am with you to the end of the world (i. e., with you and all your successors, both ministers and other believers), Mat. xxviii. 20. And Christ herein did as God did before him. When God had done his work of creation, ho looked upon all he had done, and saw that it was good, and he blessed it. Thus did Jesus Christ ; now that he had by that one offering perfected for ever all the elect, he comfortably vieweth and pronounceth it perfect, and them blessed ; and so goes to heaven, to keep and enjoy the Sabbath of all there.

(2.) Now, secondly, let us see him ascending, and see what comfort that will also afford our faith, towards the persuasion of justification. The apostles stood gazing on him ; and so do you lift up your hearts to gaze on * That is, there is something, or 4 it is not useless. ED.

CHAP. II.] FROM CHRIST S ASCENSION. 47 him by faith, and view him in that act, as he is passing along into heaven, as leading sin, hell, death, and devil in triumph, at his chariot-wheels. And therewith let your faith triumph, in a further evidence of justification. Thus, Eph. iv. 8, out of Ps. Ixviii. 18, the apostle saith, * When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive (to which Hebraism the Latin phrase, mncere victoriam, to win a victory, doth answer): then he led captive all our spiritual enemies, that would have captived us, they being now captived. Now leading of captives is always after a perfect victory. And therefore, whereas at his death he had conquered them, at his rising scattered them, now at his ascension he leads them captive. And so that Psalm in the type begins, ver. 1, Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: let them flee before him; so at his resurrection they did. And then he ascends in triumph (as here) in token of victory, he is ascended up on high, ver. 18. He ascends, as David after his victory, up to Mount Sion (for the celebrating of which that Psalm seems to have been made by David), whereof this was the intended type.

And two actus triwnphales, triumphing acts there were, here mentioned : [1.] Leading the captives bound to his chariot-wheels ; as the manner of the Roman triumph was, when the conqueror went up to the Capitol ; and other heathens in David s time ; as Achilles led Hector captive, who tied his feet to his chariot-wheels, and dragged him dead round about the walls of Troy. Now thus did Christ then deal with our sins and all other enemies.

[2.] The second act is casting abroad of gilts, He gave gifts to men.

It was the custom at their triumphs to cast new coins (missilia) abroad among the multitude ; so doth Christ throw the greatest gifts for the good of men, that ever were given. Therefore, who shall condemn ? Sins and devils are not only dead, but triumphed over. Compare with this that other place, Col. ii. 15, Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in himself. So I read it, and the Greek bears it, and so it is in the margin varied. It is a manifest allu sion unto the manner of triumphs after victories among the Romans, even unto two of the most notable parts thereof : the first, of spoiling the enemy upon the place, ere they stirred out of the field ; and this was done by Christ on the cross. Having spoiled them first, as ver. 14 hath it. He speaks it of the devils, our enemies and accusers ; they had all God s threatenings in his law, and the ceremonial law (the bond for our debt unto the moral law) to shew for it ; in these lay the power of the devil over us, that he could boldly come to God and accuse us, and sue our bond. And there fore, Heb. ii. 14, he is said to have the power of death. Now Christ first took away all his power, and spoiled him of all his ensigns, weapons, and colours ; which he did on the place where the battle was fought, namely, on the cross ; and * nailed our bond thereto, and, having paid the debt, left the bond cancelled, ere he stirred off the cross. But then, having thus spoiled these enemies on the cross, he further makes a public triumphal show of them in his own person, which is a second act ; as the manner of the Roman emperors was, in their great triumphs, to ride through the city in the greatest state, and have all the spoils carried before them, and the kings and nobles whom they had taken they tied to their chariots, and led them as captives. And this did Christ at his ascension (for of his triumph ing at his ascension I take this triumph in this epistle to the Colossians ta be understood, and so to be interpreted by that fore-cited 4th of the Ephesians) ; he plainly manifesting by this public open show of them at his ascension, that he had spoiled and fully subdued them on the cross. That

48 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. IV. which hath diverted interpreters from thinking this of Col. ii. to have been the triumph of his ascension hath been this, that the triumph is said to have been made sv avr&, which they interpret

in it, as if it referred to the cross (mentioned ver. 14), as the place of it ; whenas it may as well be translated in himself, i. e., in his own power and strength, noting how he alone did this, which other conquerors do not : they conquer not in themselves, and by themselves, which Christ did. And yet it was the law, that if the Roman emperors or generals themselves took anything in war, they had a peculiar honour to dedicate it in triumph more peculiarly. Now

Christ conquered in himself, and therefore triumphed in himself, and him self alone. And thus it became our Redeemer (like another Samson) not only to break sin s bars, and fling off hell-gates, and come out of that prison he was in ; but, as in sign of a trophy, to take them on his back, and carry them up the hill, as Samson (the type of him) did the gates of the city to an high hill, himself triumphantly carrying them on his own shoulders.

Now did Christ then, who was your Surety, thus triumph ? Then let your faith triumph likewise ; for this was not only done by your Surety, but in your stead ; seeing this for us here is to be put to each thing mentioned. The apostle calls for this at our hands here. We are more than con querors, says he, ver. 37.

(3.) Then, thirdly, see him entering into heaven : when he comes first to court after this great undertaking, how doth God look on him ? Is God satisfied with what he hath done ? As, you know, when a general comes home, there useth to be great observing how the king takes his service, as performed according to commission. Christ as a Surety undertook for sinners fully to conquer all our enemies ; and God bade him look that he did it perfectly, or never see his face more, Heb. v. 8, 9. He was to be * perfect through sufferings, and those sufferings to be such as * to perfect us also, Heb. x. 14. Now, behold, your Surety is like a conqueror entered heaven : let that convince you that he hath satisfied the debt, and performed his commission to a tittle. God would never have suffered him to come thither else ; but as soon as ever his head had peeped into heaven, have sent him

again to perform the rest. But God lets him enter in, and he comes boldly and confidently, and God lets him stay there. Therefore be con vinced that he hath given God full satisfaction. Christ himself useth this * convince the world argument, as the strongest that could be brought to that this righteousness (which he had in his doctrine taught them) was the righteousness which men were only to be saved by, the true righteousness of God indeed. Johnxvi. 9, 10, He

shall convince the world of righteous ness ; that is, work faith in the hearts of men, to believe and lay hold on my righteousness, as the true righteousness that God hath ordained ; and this because (says he) I go to my Father, and you shall see me no more. That is, by this argument and evidence it is and shall be evinced, that I who undertook to satisfy for sin, and to procure a perfect righteousness, have perfectly performed it ; and that it is a righteousness which God s justice doth accept of, to save sinners by ; in that I, after my death, and finishing this work, will ascend up to my Father, into heaven, and keep my standing there, and you shall see me no more : whereas, if I had not fulfilled all righteousness, and perfectly satisfied God, you may be sure there would be no going to heaven for me, nor remaining there. God would send me down again, to do the rest, and you should certainly see me with shame sent back again ; but I go to heaven, and you shall see me no more.

CHAP. III.] FEOM CHRIST S SITTING AT GOD S EIGHT HAND. 49

CHAPTER III.

Shewing what evidence also Christ s sitting at God s right hand, having been our Surety, affords to ourfaith for justification.

2. Now then, in the next place, for his being or sitting at God s right hand, which is the second particular to be spoken of. As soon as Christ was carried into heaven, look, as all the angels fell down and worshipped him, so his Father welcomed him, with the highest grace that ever yet was shewn. The words which he then spake we have recorded, Ps. ex., Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. You may by the way observe, for the illustration of this, how upon all the several parts of performance of his office, either God is brought in speaking to Christ, or Christ to his Father. Thus, when he chose him first to be our Mediator, he takes an oath, Thou art a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec. Again, when Christ came to take upon him our nature, the words he spake are recorded, Lo, I come to do thy will, a body hast thou fitted me : so Heb. x. 5, out of the 40th Psalm. Likewise, when he hung upon the cross, his words unto God are recorded, Ps. xxii. 1, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? In like manner, when he rose again, God s words used then to him are recorded, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, Ps. ii. (which place is expounded of the resur rection, Acts xiii. 33), which is as much as if he had said, Thou never appearedst like my Son till now ; for whereas I chose a Son to be glorified with power and majesty, hitherto thou hast appeared only as a son of man (Enosh, sorry man) ; hitherto thou hast been made sin, and a curse ; not like my Son, but hast appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh, and of a servant/ all besmeared with blood ; therefore this is the first day wherein

I have begotten thee ; even now, when thou first beginnest to appear out of that sinful hue and likeness of sinful flesh : now I own thee for my Son indeed. And in him he o\vned us all thus at his I make account resurrection. And then, last of all, when he comes into heaven, the first word God speaks to him is, Son, * sit thou at my right hand ; thou hast done all my work, and now I will do thine ; (he gives him a Quietus est) rest here ; sit here, till I make all thy enemies thy footstool. And now, what say you, are ye satisfied yet, that God is satisfied for your sins ? What superabundant evidence must this Christ s sitting at God s right hand give to a doubting heart ? It argues, first, that Christ, for his part, hath perfectly done his work ; and that there is no more left for him to do by way of satisfaction. This the word sitting implies. Se condly, it argues that God is as fully satisfied on his part: this his sitting at God s right hand implies.

(1.) For the first; the phrase of sitting doth betoken rest, when work is fulfilled and finished. Christ was not to return till he had accomplished his work, Heb. x. 11. The apostle comparing the force and excellency of Christ s sacrifice, with those of the priests of the old law, says, that those priests stood daily offering of sacrifices, which can never take sins away. Their standing implied that they could never make satisfaction, so as to say, * we have finished it. But Christ (says he, ver. 12), * after he had offered up one sacrifice for ever, sat doim, &c. Mark how he opposeth then* standing to his sitting down. He sat as one who had done his work. Thus, Heb. iv. 10, * he that is entered into his rest speaking of Christ, VOL. IV. D

50 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. IV.

hath ceased from his work, as God from

as I have elsewhere shewn

his.

(2.) Secondly, this, his being at God s right hand, as strongly argues that God is satisfied ; for if God had not been infinitely well pleased with him, he would never have let him come so near him, much less have advanced him so high as his right hand. And, therefore, in that place even now cited (Heb. x. ver. 10, 11, 12, compared with the former verses), this is alleged as an evidence that Christ had for ever taken sins away (which those priests of the law could not do, who therefore

* often offered the same

this man, after he had offered one sacrifice sacrifice, as ver. 11). That for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God, as thereby shewing (and that most manifestly) that he had at that once offered up such a satis factory sacrifice as had pleased God for ever ; and thereupon took up his place at God s right hand as an evidence of it ; so possessing the highest place in court. This setting him at God s right hand, is a token of special and highest favour. So kings, whom they were most pleased with, they did set at their right hands, as Solomon did his mother, 1 Kings ii. 19; and so Christ, the church his queen, Ps. xlv. 9, and it was a favour which God never after vouchsafed to any, Heb. i. 13.

To which of all the angels did he say, Sit thou at my right hand ? Therefore, Phil. ii. 9, it is not only said that he

exalted him, but, siiperexaltamt, he highly exalted him, so as never any was exalted ; for he was made thereby higher than the heavens. Thus much for the first head.

CHAPTER IV.

Demonstrates, in the second place, what influence Christ s ascension hath in a believer s non-condemnation, upon that second premised consideration of Christ s being a common person for us. The security tliat faith may have from thence.

We have thus seen what triumphing evidence and demonstration, both Christ s ascension and sitting at God s right hand, do afford us for this, that Christ being considered as our Surety, hath therefore undoubtedly sub dued our enemies and sins, and satisfied God. Let us now consider further, what force, efficacy, and influence these two (both his ascending and sitting at God s right hand as an head and common person for us) have in them towards the assured working and accomplishment of the salvation of be lievers, his elect. And from the consideration of this, which is a second head, our faith may be yet further confirmed and strengthened in its confi dence. Who shall condemn ? It is Christ that is at God s right hand. I shall take in (as in the former) both his ascension and sitting at God s right hand.

1. And first for his ascending ; consider these two things in it which may uphold our confidence. (1.) That the great end and purpose of that his * to prepare and ascending, the errand, the business he ascended for, was provide a place for us, and to make way for our coming thither. This he assures his disciples of, Johnxiv. 2, In my Father s house are many man sions : I go to prepare a place for you ; as Joseph was secretly sent before by God s intendment to prepare a place in Egypt for his brethren, whom God s providence meant to bring after him, so more openly doth Christ ascend to heaven, professedly declaring that to be his business : I go to

CHAP. IV.] FROM CHRIST S SITTING AT GOD S RIGHT HAND. 51 prepare a place for you, and it is my Father s house, saith he, where I can provide for you and make you welcome. You heard before, what welcome God gave Christ when he first arrived there, and what he said to him, and Christ said (as it were) again to God : I come not alone, I have much com pany, many of my brethren and followers to come after (for it was the declared and avowed end of his coming to prepare a place for them), I prayed when I was on earth, that where I am they might be also, John xvii. 24 ; and now I am come hither, my train must come in too, I am not complete without them ; if you receive me you must receive them also, and I am come to take up lodgings for them. Thus the Captain of our salva tion, being made perfect through sufferings, and then crowned with glory and honour, in bringing of many sons to glory, as Heb. ii. 10, of which company he was Captain, is brought in saying to God, ver. 13, Behold I and the children which God hath given me, he speaks it when brought to glory. I am their Captain,, and they must follow me ; where I am they must be. Lo ! I am here, and am not to come alone, but to bring to glory all the children which thou hast given me. They shall be all welcome (says God), there is room enough for them, many mansions ; so that we need not fear, nor say in our hearts doubting and despairing, * Who shall ascend up to heaven for us, to bring us thither ? (as Rom. x. 6). Christ hath done it ; that is the first thing, but that is not all.

(2.) He entered into heaven in our very names, and so is to be con sidered in that act as a common person (as well as in his death and resurrec tion), and so representing us, and also taking possession in our right, and we in him, as a guardian takes possession for heirs under age. Heb. vi. 20, The forerunner is for us entered into heaven ; * the forerunner for us, that is, our forerunner. A forerunner is a forerunner of followers, and of such as stay not long behind, and usually goes before as a harbinger, to provide and take up lodgings for them that are to come, and writes the names of those who are to come over the doors of such and such rooms, that they may not be taken up by any other. And so, Heb. xii. 23, the names of * written in heaven, or enrolled there ; and, 1 Pet. i. 4, their places or mansions in heaven are said to be * the first-born are said to be i reserved for them ; they stand empty as it were, yet taken up, so as none shall take them from them ; their names and titles to them being entered and super scribed. And so he truly entered, pro nobis, for us, that is, in our stead and in our names, as a common person ; and therefore the high priest (in the type) entered into the holy of holies, with all the names of the tribes on his breast ; even so doth Christ with ours, even as a common person in our names, thereby shewing.

,that we are likewise to come after him ; and this is more than simply to prepare a place, it is to take possession of a place, and give us a right thereto.

So that your faith, through this consideration, may see yourselves as good as in heaven already ; for Christ is entered as a common person for you. Justification hath two parts: first, acquittance from sin and freedom from condemnation, as here, Who shall condemn ? and secondly, justifica tion of life, as it is called, Rom. v. 18, that is, which gives title to eternal life. Now dying and rising as a common person for us, procures the first, sets us perfectly enough in that state of freedom from condemnation. But then, this Christ, his entering into heaven as a common person, sets us far above that state of non-condemnation. It placeth us in heaven with him. You would think yourselves secure enough if you were ascended into heaven. As Heman said of his condition, that he was free among the dead, Ps.

52 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. IV,

Ixxxviii. 5, that is, he reckoned himself (in his despair) free of the company in hell, as well as if he had been there ; thinking his name enrolled among them and his place taken up. So you may * reckon yourselves (as the word is, Rom. vi.) free of the company of heaven, and your places taken up there ; so that when you come to die, you shall go to heaven as to your own place, by as true a title, though not of your own, as Judas went to hell, which is called his own place, as (Acts i.) the apostle speaks. What a start is this ! How far have you left below you pardon of sins and noncondemnation ! You are got above. How securely may you say, * Who shall condemn ? Christ hath ascended and entered into heaven. This is the first branch of the second head : the influence that Christ s ascension hath into our justification and salvation.

[CHAPTER V.

Demonstrated in like manner ichat influence Christ s sitting at God s right hand hath into our justification, upon that second consideration of his being a common person. And the security faith may havefrom thence.

The consideration of his sitting at God s right hand may, in respect of the influence that it must needs have into our salvation, yet add more security unto our faith, if we either consider the power and authority of the place itself, and what it is to sit at God s right hand ; or secondly, the relation, the person he bears and sustains in his sitting there, even of a common person in our right. And both these being put together will add strength mutually each to other, and unto our faith ; both to consider how great a prerogative it is to sit at God s right hand, and what such a one as sits there hath power to do ; and then that Christ (who is invested with this power, and advanced to it), he possesseth it all as our head, and in our right, as a common person representing us. And (1.) Consider the prerogatives of the place itself; they are two : [1.] Sovereignty of power, and might, and majesty.

[2.J Sovereignty of authority and judgment ; either of which may secure us from non-condemnation.

[1.] Sovereignty of power and might ; this the phrase sitting at God s right hand implies, Mat. xxvi. 64, where Christ himself expounded the purport of it : Hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power. And so, Ephes. i. 20, 22, this is made the privilege of God s setting him at his right hand, ver. 20, that * he hath put all things under his feet, ver 22 a phrase importing the highest sovereignty and power, not used of any creatures, angels, or men ; none of them have other things under their feet i.e., in so low a subjection as to be their vassals ; especially, not all things ; and therefore by that very phrase, the putting all things under his feet, the apostle argues in Heb. ii., that that man of whom David in the 8th Psalm (there cited by him) had spoken, was no other but Christ ; not Adam, nor the angels, for to neither of these hath God subjected all things, ver. 5, but to Christ only, ver. 8, who sits in the highest throne of majesty. And to make his seat the easier, hath a world of enemies made his footstool, even all his enemies (so Ps. ex.) ; which is the highest triumph in the world. Now to what end hath God committed this power to him, but that himself may be his own executor, and adminis trator, and perform all the legacies which he made to those whom he died

CHAP. V.] FEOM CHRIST S SITTING AT GOD S RIGHT HAND. 53 for ? As the expression is, Heb. ix. 15th, 16th, and 17th verses, that none of his heirs might be wronged. Fairer dealing than this could there ever be, nor greater security given to us. This to have been God s very end of investing Christ with this sovereign power, is declared by Christ himself, John xvii. 2, Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And accordingly at his ascension, to comfort his disciples, in the fruit of their ministry, Mat.

All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. What holy confidence may this breed in us ! He is at God s right hand, and we are in his hands, John x. 28, and all his enemies are under his xxviii. 18, he says, * I have the keys of hell and death. The key is still in the Scripture phrase the ensign of feet, who then can pull us out ? Rev. i. 18, says Christ, power and authority. Now Christ hath both the keys of death, the postern gate out of this world, and of hell, even of the broad gates of that eternal prison ; so as none of his can be fetched out of this world by death, but Christ he must first open the door ; much less can any go to hell without his warrant. Yea, Mat. xvi. 19, he hath the keys of the kingdom of heaven also, to open to whom he will. By his resurrection, we may see and rest assured that he hath the keys of death and hell (for he unlocked the doors, and came out from thence), and by his ascension and sitting at God s right hand, that he hath the keys of heaven, whose door he hath unlocked, and now set open. What need we then fear hell, when Christ our Redeemer hath the keys of it ?

[2.] Secondly, to sit at God s right hand, imports all judgment to be committed to him ; for sitting was a posture of judges ; a phrase used to note out their authority. So Prov. xx. 8, A king that sitteth on the throne of judgment, scattereth the wicked with his eye; and so doth Christ his and our enemies. See what Christ says, John v. 21, 22, The Son of man raiseth up whom he will ; for the Father judgeth no man, but hath com mitted all judgment to the Son. Now if he who loved us so, and died for us, be the Judge himself, then, Who shall condemn? Christ sits on God s right hand. This is the very inference that after folioweth, ver. 24, of that 5th chapter of John, He that believes shall not come into condemnation.

Christ utters it upon his having said he had all judgment committed to him, in the foregoing, ver. 22, on purpose that he might from that consideration ascertain believers of their non-condemnation. For what need we fear any underofficers, when we have the Judge thus for us ?

(2.) But then, in the last place, add that second particular mentioned to all these, that Christ sits there as an head, as a common person for us.

First as an head; so Eph. i., when the apostle had so hyperbolically set forth his power, of being advanced unto God s right hand, ver. 21, far above all principalities and powers, and above every name that is named, not only in this world, but that which is to come ; and how God put all things under his feet ; he adds, and hath given him to be head over all things to the church. Observe now, he is said to sit there over all things, not in his own pure personal right simply, as it is his inheritance, as he is the Son of God (as Heb. i. 3, 4, 5, it is affirmed of him), but he sits thus over all as a head to the church. That same over all things comes in there, between his being a head, and to the church, on purpose to shew that he is set over all, in relation to his church. So that we see that our rela tion is involved, and our right included, in this exaltation of his, and so put into his commission ; for this prerogative is there said to be given him. He its not simply as a Son, but as an head ; and he sits not as an head with-

54 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. IV. out a body, and therefore must have his members up to him. Wherefore

which is his body, yea, his fulness ; so as in the next verse it is added, Christ is not complete without all his members, and would leave heaven if any one were wanting. It were a lame, maimed body, if it wanted but a toe. Christ is our element,* and he being ascended, we are sparks that fly upwards to him. He took our flesh, and carried it into heaven, and left us his Spirit on earth, and both as pawns and earnests that we should follow.

Nay, further yet, he is not only said .to sit as our head, but we are also said to sitjtogether with him. That is made the upshot of all in the next chapter, Eph. ii. 6. So that as we arose with him, he being considered as a common person, and ascended with him, as was said ; so yet further, we

sit together with him in the highest heavens (as there), ev ro?g sKovgavioig, in superccelestibus, in his exalted estate above the heavens, as is the meaning of that phrase ; not that Christ being at God s right hand (if taken for that sublimity of power) is communicable to us ; that is Christ s prerogative only. So Heb. i. 5, * To which of all the angels did he ever say, Sit thou at my right hand ? Yet so as his sitting in heaven, as it is indefinitely expressed, is understood to be as in our right and stead, and as a common person, and so is to assure us of our sitting there with him, in our pro portion; so, Eev. iii. 21, it is expressly rendered as the mind and intendment of it, Him that overcometh, I will grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also am set down with my Father in his throne. There is a proportion observed, though with an inequality ; we sit on Christ s throne, but he only on his Father s throne ; that is, Christ only sits at God s right hand, but we, on Christ s right hand ; and so the church is said to be at Christ s right hand, Ps. xlv. 9. Yea, further (and it may afford a farther comfort to us in the point in hand), this represents, that at the latter day we shall sit as assessors on his judgmentseat, to judge the world with him. So Mat. xix. 28, and Luke xxii. 30, When the Son of man shall sit in his glory, ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the tribes of Israel. So as this our sitting with him, it is spoken in respect to judgment, and to giving the sentence of it ; not a sentence shall pass without your votes. So as you may by faith not only look on yourselves as already in heaven, sitting with Christ, as a common person, in your right, but you may look upon yourselves as judges also; so that if any sin should arise to accuse or condemn, yet it must be with your votes. And what greater security can you have than this ? For you must con demn yourselves, if you be condemned ; you may very well say, Who shall accuse ? Who shall condemn ? for you will never pronounce a fatal sentence upon your own selves.

As then Paul triumphed here, so may we ; for at the present we sit in heaven with Christ, and have all our enemies under our feet. As Joshua made his servants set their feet on the necks of those five kings ; so God would have us by faith to do the like to all ours ; for one day we shall do it. And if you say, We see it not, I answer, as Heb. ii., the apostle saith of Christ himself, Now we see not yet all things put under him, ver. 8., now not under him, for he now sits in heaven, and expects, by faith, when his enemies shall be made his footstool, as Heb. x. 12th and 13th verses ; * but we see for the present Jesus crowned with glory and honour, ver. 9, and so may be sure that the thing is as good as done ; and we may, in seeing * The reference is to the old idea of the four elements occupying their several places, one above the other ; which was supposed to be the reason why stones fall, and rivers run into the sea, and flames rise. ED.

CHAP. V.] FKOM CHKIST S SITTING AT GOD S EIGHT HAND. 55 him thus crowned, see ourselves sitting with him, and quietly wait and expect, as Christ himself doth, till all be accomplished, and our salvation finished and fully perfected.

His intercession now remains only to be spoken of, which yet will afford further considerations to strengthen our faith. His sitting at God s right hand notes out his power over all, from God ; but his intercession, all power and favour with God for us ; so as to effect our salvation for us, with God s highest contentment and good will, and all yet further to secure

* Who shall condemn? &c. us.

56 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V.

SECTION V.

THE TEIUMPH OF FAITH FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION.

Who also maketh intercession for us. KOM. VIII. 34.

CHAPTEK I.

A connection of this with the fowner ; and how this adds a further support.

Two things out of the text propounded to be handled : First, the con currency of influence that Christ s intercession hath into our salvation.

Secondly, the security that faith may have therefrom for our justification.

WE have seen Christ sitting at God s right hand as a judge and king, having all authority of saving or condemning in his own hands ; and having all power in heaven and earth to give eternal life to them that believe ; and the confidence that this giveth us.

Let us now come to his intercession, and the influence which it hath into our justification and salvation ; which as it strikes the last stroke to make all sure, so as great a stroke as any of the former ; therefore, as you have neard that there was an allsufficiency in his death. Who shall condemn?

* yea rather, is risen

It is Christ that died a rather in his resurrection again a much rather [croXXwaXXov], that he lives and is at God s right hand, Eom. v. 10. The apostle riseth yet higher to an sis TO ramX6f, a * Wherefore he is able to save to the utmost, seeing he ever lives to make intercession. So that if you could suppose there were anything which none of all the former three could do or effect for us, yet his intercession could do it to the saving to the utmost, put upon his intercession; Heb. vii. 25, utmost, for itself is the uttermost and highest. If money would purchase our salvation, his death hath done it, which he laid down as a price and an equivalent ransom (as it is in 1 Tim. ii. 6). If power and authority would effect it, his sitting at God s right hand, invested with all power in heaven and earth, shall be put forth to the utmost to effect it. If favour and entreaties added to all these (which ofttimes doth as much as any of those other) were needful, he will use the utmost of this also, and for ever make intercession. So that if love, money, or power (any of them, or all of them) will save us, we shall be sure to be saved, saved to the utmost, sis rb wavTzXig, all manner of ways, by all manner of means; saved over and over.

For the clearing of this last general head, the intercession of Christ, and the influence and security it hath into our faith and justification, I shall handle two things, and both proper to the text.

1. First, shew how unto all those other forementioned acts of Christ for us, this of intercession also is to be added by him for the effecting our

CHAP. II.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 57 salvation, and the securing our hearts therein. This that particle also in the text calls for, Who also maketh intercession fcr us.

2. Then secondly, to shew the security that faith may assume and fetch from this intercession of Christ, or his praying for us in heaven ; Who shall condemn ? It is Christ that maketh intercession for us.

CHAPTER II.

The first head explained by two things : First, Intercession one part of Christ s priesthood, and the most excellent part of it.

1. Towards the explanation of the first of these, two things are to be done.

(1.) First, To shew how great, and necessary, and how excellent a part of Christ s priesthood his intercession and praying for us in heaven is.

(2.) Secondly, To shew the peculiar influence that intercession hath into our salvation, and so the reasons for which God ordained this work of inter cession for us, and that in heaven, to be added to all the former.

(1.) For the first I will proceed therein by degrees.

[l.j It is one part of his priesthood. You must know that Christ is not entered into heaven simply as a forerunner (which hath been explained) to take up places for you, but as a priest also : made a priest, after the order of Melchisedec, which is more than simply a forerunner. Yea, his sitting at God s right hand is not only as a king armed with power and authority to save us, but he sits there as a priest too : Thus, Heb. viii. 1, 4 We have such an High Priest, who is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

In the old Levitical priesthood, the high priest s office had two parts, both which concurred to make them high priests.

First, Oblation, or offering the sacrifice.

Secondly, Presentation of it in the holy of holies, with prayer and inter cession unto God, to accept it for the sins of the people. The one was done without, the other within the holy of holies. This tyou see in many places, especially Lev. xvi. 11, 15, 16, where you have the law about the high priest s entering into the holy of holies ; he was not to come into the holy place till first he had offered a sacrifice for himself and the people, ver. 11 and 15, and this without. Then, secondly, when he had killed it, he was to enter with the blood of it into the holy of holies, and sprinkle the mercy-seat therein with it, ver. 14, 17, and to go with incense, and cause a cloud to arise over the mercy-seat. And this you have also, Heb. xiii. 11, * the blood of those beasts that were burnt without the camp was brought into the sanctuary by the high priest ; and in that 16th of it is said, that Leviticus you shall find the atonement made as well by the blood, when brought into the holy place, ver. 16, as by the killing of the beast, ver. 11. Both these were acts of the high priesthood for atonement.

And this was done in a type and* priestly office of Christ, and the parts thereof. So, Heb. ix. 23, he calls all those transactions under the ceremo

the patterns of things heavenly ; instancing in this part of nial law, * is not entered into the holy places made with hands, as that was, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us. Now, * Qu. of the ? ED.

Christ s office, ver. 24, For Christ, says he,

58 THE TEIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V. then, in answer to this type, there are two distinct parts of Christ s priest hood.

offering himself a sacrifice up to death, as Heb. ix. 26, which First, The answers to the killing of the sacrifice without the holy of holies ; for answerably he was crucified without the city, Heb. xiii. 12.

Secondly, He carried this his blood into the holy of holies, namely, the heavens, Heb. ix. 12, where he appears, ver. 24, and there also prays in the force of that blood. And the type of those prayers was that cloud of incense made by the high priest ; so it is expressly interpreted, Rev. viii.

* much incense to offer with

3, &c. The angel Christ is said to have had the prayers of all the saints. Which incense is his own prayers in heaven, which he continually puts up when the saints pray on earth, and so per fumes all their prayers, and procures all blessings for them.

Both these parts of his priesthood the apostle John mentions in his first

Epistle, chap. ii. ver. 2, where, as he calls Jesus Christ a propitiation for our sins (that is, an oblation or sacrifice offered up for us) ; so likewise ho calls him our advocate, both going to make up this his office. And, indeed, this latter of intercession, and bringing his blood into the holy of holies (or heaven), is but the same action continued. That blood which he offered with tears and strong cries on the cross, where he likewise inter ceded, the same blood he continues virtually to offer up with prayers in the heavens, and makes atonement by both, only with this difference ; on earth, though he interceded, yet he more eminently offered up himself ; in heaven, he more eminently intercedes, and doth but present that offering.

[2.] Secondly, this was so necessary a part of his priesthood, that with * If he were on earth he should not be a priest ; that is, if he should have abode on out it he had not been a complete priest. Thus, Heb. viii. 4, earth he should not have been a complete priest. Paul saith not, that if he had offered that his sacrifice on earth, he had not been a priest, for that was necessary ; but that if he had staid still on earth, after he had offered it, he had not been a priest, that is, a perfect priest ; for he had then left his office imperfect, and had done it but by halves, seeing this other part of it (the work of intercession) lay still upon him to be acted in heaven. Thus the high priest, his type, if he had only offered sacrifice without the holy of holies, had not been a perfect high priest ; for to enter into the holy of holies, and to act the part of a priest there, was the proper, peculiar work of the high priest as such. Which shews, that Christ had not been an high priest if he had not gone to heaven, and priested it there too, as I may so speak, as well as upon earth. Yea, if Christ had not gone to heaven, and were not now become a priest there, then the Levitical priest hood were still in force, and should share the honour with him ; and the high priest must continue still to go into the holy of holies. To this pur pose you may observe, that so long as Christ was on earth, though risen, the types of the law held in force, and were not to give way, till all the truth signified by their ministry was fully accomplished ; and so, not until Christ was gone into heaven as a priest, and there had begun to do all that which the high priest had done in the holy of holies, and as his type fore-signified. And this is plainly the meaning of what follows (in that Heb. viii. ver. 4) as the reason or demonstration why that Christ should not have been a priest, if he had not gone to heaven, not only as a king, but as a priest too, as he had affirmed, ver. 1, * Seeing, says he, that there are priests upon earth that do offer gifts according to the law. The force of the reason lies thus : there are already priests, and that of a tribe

CHAP. II.] FKOM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 59 he was not of, that offer gifts on earth, before he came into the world.

And, therefore, if that had been all his priesthood, to be a priest on earth, they would plead possession before him, having been priests before him. And then he further backs his reason by this, that those priests served (as it follows, ver. 5), unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. And, therefore, it is only a real priesthood in heaven which must put them out of place ; and till such a priesthood comes, they must serve still, for the truth, which these serve to shadow out, is not till then fulfilled. This you have also, chap. ix. 8. The first tabernacle was to stand until a priest went into heaven, and did act that office there ; so that, if Christ will be a priest alone, he must become a priest interceding in heaven ; or else high priests must come up again, and share that office with him ; and so he should as good as fall from his office, and lose all that he had done.

[3.] Yea, thirdly, this part of his priesthood is of the two the more emi nent, yea, the top, the height of his priesthood. And this is held forth to us in the types of both those two orders of priesthood that were before him, and figures of him, both that of Aaron and Melchisedec : First, This was typified out in that Levitical priesthood of Aaron and his fellows : the highest service of that office was the going into the holy of holies, and making an atonement there ; yea, this was the height of the high priest s honour, that he did this alone, and did constitute the difference between him, as he was high priest, and other priests ; for they killed and offered the sacrifices without as well as he, every ordinary priest did that ; but none but the high priest was to approach the holy of holies with blood, and this but once a-year. Thus, Heb. ix. 6, 7, the priests, namely those < into the first tabernacle, or court of priests, which was without the holy of inferior priests, went always, that is, daily, morning and evening, holies, accomplishing the service of God ; namely, that offering of the daily sacrifice ; but into the second, namely, the holy of holies, went the high priests alone every year. So, then, this was that high and trans cendent prerogative of that high priest then, and which indeed made him high priest; and answerably the height of our high priest s office, although he alone also could offer a satisfactory sacrifice, as the apostle shews, Heb. ix. and x., yet comparatively lay in this, that he entered into the heavens by his blood, and is set down on the majesty on high, and in the virtue of his sacrifice there doth intercede. I know but one

Great High Priest (higher before than Aaron), and that is Heb. iv. 14, 16. And then it is in this respect that he is place that calleth him the passed into the heavens, as it follows there.

Secondly, The excellency of this part of his priesthood was likewise typi fied out by Melchisedec s priesthood, which the apostle argueth to have been much more excellent than that of Aaron s, inasmuch as Levi, Aaron s father, paid tithes to this Melchisedec in Abraham s loins. Now Melchi sedec was his type, not so much in respect of his oblation, or offering of sacrifice (that work which Christ performed on earth), but in respect of that work which he ever performs in heaven : therefore that same clause for ever still comes in, in the quotation and mention of Melchisedec s priest hood in that Epistle ; because in respect of that his continual interces sion in heaven, Melchisedec was properly Christ s type. And accordingly you may observe, Ps. ex., when is it that speech comes in, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec, but then, when God had him sitting at his right hand? ver. 1. So that, as the transcendent excel-

60 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. Y. lency of Christ s priesthood was typified out by Melchisedec s rather than Aaron s, as heing the better priesthood of the two, so this, the most excellent part thereof, was typified out thereby, namely, that which Christ for ever acteth in heaven.

And, thirdly, to confirm this, you shall find this to be made the top notion of this Epistle to the Hebrews, and the scope of it chiefly, to discourse of Christ s eternal priesthood in heaven, and to shew how therein Melchisedec was a type of him. This is not only expressed both in Heb. vii. 21 and 25, where this same for ever is applied to his intercession, ver. 25, but more expressly in chap. viii. 1, where the apostle puts the emphasis upon this part of his priesthood, saying, that * of the things which we have spoken, or which are to be spoken, for the word i<iel ro7g Xsyo//,i/o/s will bear either, this is, says he, the sum or argument of all : the word is xspd Xaiov, and signifies as well the head, the chief, the top of all, and above all, as it doth the sum of all. And what is it that he thus professeth to be both the main subject and argument of this epistle, and the top and emi nent thing in Christ he intends to discourse of? It follows, that * we have such an high priest as is set down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. And of the priestly office he alone discourseth both before and after ; and in the following verses calleth his ministry or office (in respect of this) a more excellent ministry, ver. 6, he being such a priest as was higher than the heavens, as he had set him out in the latter part of the former chapter. And therefore you may observe, how in his preface to this Epistle to the Hebrews, in chap. i. ver. 3, he holds up this to our eye as the argument of the whole saying, When he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Yea, to conclude this, all his priesthood would have been ineffectual, if he had not acted the part of a priest in heaven, by intercession there ; for by his death he did but begin the execution of his office : in heaven he ends it ; and if he had not fulfilled his office in both, the work of our salvation had not been fully perfected ; it was therefore as necessary as oblation itself. Not but that his death was a perfect oblation ; it was perfect for an oblation, to which as such nothing can be added. There needed no more, nor any other price to be paid for us ; by that one offering, he perfects us for ever, as Heb. x. 14, and became himself perfect thereby, Heb. v. 9. And in the 9th chapter ver. 12, By his own blood he entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Mark how before he entered by his blood into heaven, he had fully obtained a redemption, and that eternal, that is, for ever sufficient ; which done, he became through his intercession in heaven an applying cause of eternal salvation, as Heb. v. 10, 11, hath it. So that as in his death he paid the full sum of all he owed ; unto which payment nothing can be added, no not by himself, though he would come and die again ; it was made at that once as perfect, that is, for an oblation, as ever himself could make. But yet still by God s ordination there remained another further action of another kind that was to be added to this of oblation, and that is, intercession, or praying for us in heaven ; otherwise our salvation by his death were not perfected ; for if his priesthood be imperfect, our salvation then must needs be so. The presenting of that his sacrifice in heaven, was the consummation of his priesthood, and the performance of that part there, the perfection of it.

CHAP. III.] FBOM CHEIST S INTERCESSION. 61

CHAPTER III.

The second ; the special peculiar influence that intercession hath into our salva tion and justification, and the reasons why God appointed it to be added to the former.

2. To come now more particularly to shew that proper and special influence that intercession hath into our salvation, and what it adds to the oblation of Christ s death, though in its kind perfect, in order to the effect ing our salvation ; and to shew the more inward reasons why God ordained for upon his ordination alone this is to be put this work of intercession in heaven to be joined with his death. And both these I shall put pro miscuously together ; for in laying down the reasons why God thus ordered our salvation to be brought about by it, that influence also which intercession hath into our salvation, will together therewith appear.

The reasons either respect (1.) God himself, who will have us so saved as himself may be most glorified ; or (2.) respect us and our salvation ; God ordering all the links of this golden chain of the causes of our salva tion, as should make our salvation most sure and stedfast, (as David in his last song speaks, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5). Or (3.) respect Christ himself, whose glory is to be held up, and throughout continued as the author and finisher of our salvation, beginner and ender of our faith and justification.

(1.) The first sort of reasons respect God himself.

[1.] In general, God will be dealt withal like himself, in and throughout the whole way of our salvation, from first to last, and carry it all along as a superior wronged, and so keep a distance between himself and sinners ; who still are to come to him by a priest, and a mediator (as Heb. vii. 25 hath it) upon whose mediation and intercession

for ever, as there, at least till the day of judgment, their salvation doth depend; and therefore though Christ, in his dispensation of all to us downward, doth carry it as a king, as one having all power to justify and condemn (as hath been shewn), yet upward, towards God, he carries it as a priest, who must still intercede to do all that which he has power to do as a king. Therefore in the second

Psalm, after that God had set him up as King upon his holy hill, ver. 6, namely, in heaven, and so had committed all power in heaven and earth to him ; then he must yet ask all that he would have done ; Ask of me, and I will give thee, &c., ver. 8, says God to him; for though he be a * I have set my king, &c., and by asking him, God will be acknowledged to be above him. But more of this hereafter. But king, yet he is God s king, [2.] More particularly. God hath two attributes which he would have most eminently appear in their highest glory by Christ s effecting our salva tion, namely, justice and free grace ; and therefore hath so ordered the bringing about of our salvation, as that Christ must apply himself in a more especial manner unto each of these, by way of satisfaction to the one, of entreaty to the other. Justice will be known to be justice, and dealt with upon its own terms ; and grace will be acknowledged to be free grace, throughout the accomplishment of our salvation. You have both these joined, Rom. iii. 24, 26, Being justified freely through his grace, by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ; that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believes. Here is highest justice and the freest grace both met to save us, and both ordained by God to be * declared and * set forth, as ver. 25 and 26 have it. I said before, that God justifies and saves us

62 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. Y. through free grace, so absolutely freely, as if his justice had had no satis faction. Now therefore our salvation depending and being carried on, even in the application of it, by a continuation of grace in a free way, notwith standing satisfaction unto justice, therefore this free grace must be sought to, and treated with like itself, and applied upon in all, and the sovereignty and freeness of it acknowledged in all, even as well as God s justice had the honour to be satisfied by a price paid upon it, that so the severity of it might appear and be held forth in our salvation. Thus God having two attributes eminently to be dealt withal, his justice and his free grace, it was meet that there should be two eminent actions of Christ s priesthood, wherein he should apply himself to each according to their kind, and as the nature and glory of each doth require. And accordingly in his death he deals with justice, by laying down a sufficient price ; and in his inter cession, he entreateth free grace, and thus both come to be alike acknow ledged. In Heb. iv. 16, we are encouraged to come boldly to the throne of grace, because we have an high priest entered into the heavens. Observe how it is called a throne of grace, which our high priest now in heaven officiates at ; so called because his priesthood there deals with free grace chiefly, it is a throne of grace, and so to be sued unto ; therefore he treateth with God by way of intercession. Of this throne of grace in heaven, the mercyseat in the holy of holies was the type. And as there the high priest was to bring the blood and mercyseat together, he was to sprinkle the blood upon it, so Christ. And as the high priest was to go into the holy of holies by blood, so with incense also, (that is, prayer), to shew that heaven is not opened by mere justice, or bringing only a price in hand for it, but by grace also, and that must be entreated ; and therefore when the priest was within that holy place, he was to make a cloud over the mercy-seat, which cloud of incense is prayer, whereof incense was the type, Rev. viii. 3. And thence it is, that Christ hath as much work of it still in heaven as ever, though of another kind. He dealt with justice here below, to satisfy it, and here got money enough to pay the debt ; but in heaven he deals with mercy. Therefore all the grace he bestows on us, he is said first to receive it, even now when in heaven. Acts ii. 33, it is said of him, after his going to heaven, and that he was exalted, &c., that he received the promise of the Spirit, which John xiv. 16, he told them he would pray for. And this is part of the meaning of that in Ps. Ixviii. 18, * He ascended up on high, and received gifts for men, says the Psalmist. The apostle renders it, Eph. iv., gave, but you see it was by receiving them first, as fruits of his intercession and asking after his ascending. He is said both to give, as being all of his own purchase, and as having power as a king also both to do and bestow all he doth ; and yet withal he is said to receive all that he gives, because as a priest he intercedes for it, and asks it. Free grace requires this. This is the first thing. Yea, secondly, justice itself might stand a little upon it, though there was enough in Christ his death to satisfy it ; yet having been wronged, it stood thus far upon it, as those to whom a debt is due use to do, namely, to have the money brought home to God s dwelling-house, and laid down there. God is resolved not to stoop one whit unto man, no nor to Christ his surety. Justice will not only be satisfied, and have a sufficient ransom collected and paid, as at Christ s death, but he must come and bring his bags up to heaven ; justice will be paid it upon the mercy-seat ; for so in the type the blood was to be carried into the holy of holies, and sprinkled upon the mercy-seat. And therefore his resurrection, ascension, &c., were

CHAP, in.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 63 but as the breaking through all enemies, and subduing them, to the end to bring this price or satisfaction to the mercyseat ; and so God having his money by him, might not want wherewithal to pardon sinners ; so as the blood of Christ is current money, not only on earth, but in heaven too, whither all is brought, which is for our comfort, that all the treasure which should satisfy God is safely conveyed thither, and our surety with it.

(2.) The second sort of reasons why God ordained Christ s intercession to be joined to his death, are taken from what was the best way to effect and make sure our salvation, and secure our hearts therein ; and these reasons will shew the peculiar influence that intercession hath into our ealvation, and therein as in the former.

[1.] First in general, God would have our salvation made sure, and us saved all manner of ways, over and over. First, By ransom and price, (as captives are redeemed) which was done by his death, which of itself was enough ; for it is said, Heb. x. to perfect us for ever. Secondly, By power and rescue ; so in his resurrection, and ascension, and sitting at God s right hand, which also was sufficient. Then, thirdly, again by inter cession, a way of favour and entreaty ; and this likewise would have been enough, but God would have all ways concur in it, whereof notwithstanding not one could fail ; a threefold cord, whereof each twine were strong enough, but all together must of necessity hold.

[2.] Secondly, the whole application of his remedy, both in justifying and saving of us first and last, hath a special dependence upon this his intercession. This all divines on all sides do attribute unto it, whilst they put this difference between the influence of his death, and that of his inter cession into our salvation : calling his death medium impetrationis, that is, the means of procurement or obtaining it for us ; but his intercession medium applicationis, the means of applying all unto us. Christ purchaseth salva tion by the one, but possesseth us of it by the other. Some have attributed the application of justification to his resurrection ; but it is much more proper to ascribe it to his intercession, (and what causal influence his resurrection hath into our justification, hath been afore in the third section declared). But that his eternal priesthood in heaven, and the work of its intercession, is the applying cause of our eternal salvation, in all the parts of it, first and last, seems to me to be the result of the connection of the 8th, 9th, and 10th verses of the 5th chapter to the Hebrews. For having spoken of his obedience and sufferings unto death, ver. 8, and how he thereby was made perfect, ver. 9, he says, and being thus first made perfect, he became the author or applying cause, ainog, of eternal salva tion, unto all them that obey him ; and this by his being become an eternal priest in heaven, after he was thus perfected by sufferings ; for so it follows, ver. 10, * called of God an high priest, after the order of Melchisedec. And Melchisedec s priesthood was principally the type of his priesthood in heaven, as was before declared. One leading instance to shew that his intercession was to be the applying cause of salvation, was given by Christ, whilst he was on earth, thereby manifesting what much more was to be done by him in heaven, through his intercession there ; when he was on the cross, and as then offering that great sacrifice for sin, he at that time also joined prayers for the justification of those that crucified him, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do ; so fulfilling that in Isa. liii. 12, He bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the trans gressors. And the efficacy of that prayer then put up, was the cause of the conversion of those three thousand, Acts ii., whom, ver. 25, the apostle

64 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. Y.

whom ye by wicked hands have taken, crucified, and slain. These were the first-fruits of his had expressly charged with the crucifying of Christ, intercession, whose prayers still do reap and bring in the rest of the crop, which in all ages is to grow up unto God on earth.

[3.] And more particularly, as the whole application in general, so our justification, in the whole progress of it, depends upon Christ s inter cession. As, First, Our first actual or initial justification, which is given us at our first conversion, depends upon Christ s intercession. Therefore in the forementioned prayer on the cross, the thing he prayed for was forgiveness, Father, forgive them. You heard before that Christ s death affords the matter of our justification, as being that which is imputed, the ransom, the price, the thing itself that satisfies; and that his resurrection was the original act of God s justifying us in Christ. We were virtually justified then in Christ his being justified, as in a common person. But besides all this, there is a personal or an actual justification to be bestowed upon us, that is, an accounting and bestowing it upon us in our own persons, which is done when we believe, and it is called (Horn. v. 1) a being justified by * received the atonement ; now this depends on Christ s faith, and (ver. 10) intercession, and it was typified out by Moses his sprinkling the people with blood, mentioned Heb. ix. 19, which thing Jesus Christ as a Mediator and Priest doth now from heaven. For, Heb. xii. 24, it is said, * You are come to heaven, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and, as it

to the blood of sprinkling. He shed his blood on the is next subjoined, cross on earth, but he sprinkleth it now as a priest from heaven. For it is upon Mount Zion, to which (he had said first in the former verse) ye are come ; and so to Christ as a mediator standing on that mount, and sprink ling from thence his blood ; and so therein there is an allusion unto Moses, Christ s type, who sprinkled the people with the blood of that ceremonial covenant, the type of the covenant of grace. Now, in 1 Peter i. 2, The sprinkling of his blood, as it is there made the more proper work of Christ himself, in distinction from the other persons, and therefore was done by Moses, who was his type, so is it also put for our first justification. And this sprinkling, as it is there mentioned, is from the virtue of his interces sion. And therefore in that place of the Hebrews fore-cited, he attributes an intercession unto it, as the phrase that follows, which speaks better things, &c., doth imply, of which more hereafter. Yet concerning this first head, let me add this by way of caution (which I shall presently have occasion to observe), that though this our first justification is to be ascribed to his intercession, yet more eminently intercession is ordained for the accomplishing our salvation, and this other more rarely in the Scripture at : tributed thereunto. .

Secondly, The continuation of our justification depends upon it. And as his intercession is the virtual continuation of his sacrifice, so is it the con tinuing cause of our justification ; which though it be an act done once, as fully as ever, yet is it done over every moment, for it is continued by acts of free grace, and so renewed actually every moment. There is a * standing in grace by Christ, spoken of Horn. v. 2, as well as a first access by Christ, and that standing in grace, and continuing in it, is afterwards, ver. 10, attri buted to his life, that is, as it is interpreted, Heb. vii. 25, his living ever to intercede. We owe our standing in grace every moment to his sitting in heaven and interceding every moment. There is no fresh act of justifica tion goes forth, but there is a fresh act of intercession. And as though

CHAP. III.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 65

God created the world once for all, yet every moment he is said to create, every new act of providence being a new creation ; so likewise to justify continually, through his continuing out free grace to justify as at first ; and this Christ doth by continuing his intercession ; he continues a priest for ever, and so we continue to be justified for ever.

Thirdly, There is hereby a full security given us of justification to be con tinued for ever. The danger either must lie in old sins coming into re membrance, or else from sins newly to be committed. Now, first, God hereby takes order, that no old sins shall come up into remembrance, to trouble his thought, as in the old law, after the priest s going into the holy of holies, their sins are said yet to have done, Heb. x. 3 ; and to that end it was that he placed Christ as his remembrancer for us, so near him, to take up his thoughts so with his obedience, that our sins might not come into mind. Not that God needed this help to put himself in mind, but only for a formality sake, that things being thus really carried between God and Christ for us, according to a way suiting with our apprehensions, our faith might be strengthened against all suppositions, and fears of after re viving our guilts. Look therefore as God ordained the rainbow in the heavens, that when he looked on it, he might remember his covenant, never to destroy the world again by water ; so he hath set Christ as the rainbow about his throne. And look as the bread and wine in the Lord s supper are appointed on earth to * shew forth Christ s death, as a remembrancer to us ; so is Christ himself appointed in heaven to shew forth his death really as a remembrancer thereof to his Father ; and indeed, the one is corres pondent to the other. Only the papists have perverted the use of the Lord s supper, by making it on earth a commemorative sacrifice to God, whenas it is but a remembrancer thereof to men ; and besides, their priests therein do take upon themselves this very office of presenting this sacrifice to God, which is proper only to Christ in heaven. But God, when he would make sure not to be tempted to remember our sins any more, nor trouble himself with them, hath set his Christ by him to put him in mind of his so pleasing an offering. So the high priest going into the holy of holies, was for amemorial, and therein the type of Christ. And this is plainly and expressly made the use of this execution of his priestly office in heaven, Heb. viii. where the apostle having discoursed of that part of his office, as the chief thing he aimed at in this epistle, ver. 1, and of the necessity of it, verses 3, 4, and 5, and excellency of it in this respect, ver. 6, he then shews how from thence the new covenant of pardon came to be sure and stedfast, that God

will remember our sins no more, ver. 12, which he there brings in as the proper use of this doctrine, and of this part of his priesthood.

Secondly, As by reason of intercession God remembers not old sins, so likewise he is not provoked by new. For though God, when he justifies us, should forgive all old sins past for ever, so as never to remember them more, yet new ones would break forth, and he could not but take notice of them ; and so, so long as sin continues, there is need of a continuing intercession. Therefore for the securing us in this, it is said, Rom. v. 10, that * if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Where we see that his death is in some more special manner said to procure reconciliation at first for sins of unregeneracy, and to bring us to Christ ; but then his life and intercession, or living to intercede, is said to keep God and us friends, that we may never fall out more. What Christ did on earth, doth more especially procure reconciliation for sins which we do in the state of nature ; VOL. rv. E

66 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. Y. so as notwithstanding them, God resolves to turn us from that state and draw us to Christ. But sins which we commit after conversion, though pardoned also by his death, yet the pardon of them is more especially attri buted to his life and intercession, as a daily preservative, a continual plaster (as some call it) to heal such sins. So that it would seem that God out of his eternal love doth bring us to Christ, and draws us to him through the beholding the reconciliation wrought by his death, and so gives us at first conversion unto Christ ; and we being brought to him, he sprinkles us with his blood ; and then God says to him, Now do you look to them, that they and I fall out no more. And to that end Christ takes our cause in hand by that eternal priesthood of his, and from that time begins more especially to intercede for us. And thus sins after the state of grace may be said more eminently to be taken away by that part of his priesthood which he now in heaven performs. That place also, 1 John ii. 1, 2, seems to make this the great end of intercession, If any man sin (that is, if any of the * we have an advocate with company of believers, to whom alone he wrote), the Father ; so as intercession principally serves for sins to come, or com mitted after grace received. Thus also in his prayer, John xvii., which was left as a pattern of his intercession in heaven, he prays for his elect as be lievers, I pray for them that shall believe through their word. Not but that sins after conversion are taken away by his death ; and sins before it, by his intercession also ; for Christ interceded for those who crucified him, and by virtue of that intercession, those three thousand were converted (as was observed). But the meaning only is, that yet more eminently the work of reconciliation for sins before conversion is attributed to his death ; and for sins after conversion to his intercession. Even as the persons of the Trinity, though they have all a like hand in all the work of our salvation, yet we see that one part is attributed more to one person, and another to another.

(3.) A third sort of reasons why God ordained this work of intercession to accomplish our salvation by, do respect Christ himself, whose honour and glory, and the perpetuation of it in our hearts, God had as well in his eye in the ordering all the workings of our salvation, as much as his own, * that all might honour the Son as well as the Father, as Christ himself speaks. Now, therefore, for the maintaining and upholding his glory, and the comings in thereof, did God ordain, after all that he had done for us here below, this work of intercession in heaven to be added to all the rest, for the perfecting of our salvation. As, First, It became him, and was for his honour, that none of his offices should be vacant or lie idle, and he want employment in them. All offices have work to accompany them, and all work hath honour, as its reward, to arise out of it. And therefore when he had done all that was to be done on earth, as appertaining unto the merit of our salvation, he appoints this full and perpetual work in heaven, for the applying and possessing us of salvation, and that as a priest, by praying and interceding in the merit of that one oblation of himself. God would have Christ never to be out of office, nor out of work. And this very reason is more than intimated, Heb. vii. 24. This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood, (or, as ver. 21 expounds it) for ever. And the work of his * ever to make intercession. The priesthood is interpreted, ver. 25, to be meaning is, that God would not have him continue to be a priest in title only, or in respect only of a service past, and so to have only the honour of priesthood perpetuated to him out of the remembrance of what he once had done, as great generals have, even in time of peace, the glory of some great

CHAP. IV.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 67 battle fought, continued to them in their titles, or rewards for ever. But God would have him have, as the renown of the old, so a perpetual spring of honour by new work, and employment in that office which he is con tinually adoing, so to preserve the verdure of his glory ever fresh and green, and therefore ordained a continual work for him. And the sum of the apostle s reasoning is this, that seeing himself was to be for ever, so should his work and priesthood be, that so his honour might be for ever. So ver. 28 concludes it, consecrated or perfected for evermore.

Secondly, For the same reason also, it became him that the whole work of our salvation, first and last, and every part of it, every step and degree of accomplishment of it, should be so ordered as he should continue still to have as great and continual a hand in every part, even to the laying of the top stone thereof, as he had in laying the first foundation and corner stone

Looking to Jesus the thereof. And this you have expressed, Heb. xii. 2, beginner and perfecter of our faith. Two things had been said of him, as two causes of two effects ; and we must look to him in both. [1.] He is to be looked at as dying, enduring the cross, as there he is set forth. [2.] As sitting at God s right hand and interceding, as that whole Epistle had represented him. We are to look at these two as causes of a double effect, to look at his dying as that which is the beginning of our faith, (so accord ing to the Greek, and the margin of our translation), and at his sitting at God s right hand as an intercessor, for the finishing of our faith there by ; and so of our final salvation. For as Christ s work began in his life and death, which is put for all his obedience here below, so our first be lieving (as was said) begins by virtue of his death at first ; and as his work ends in his intercession, and sitting at God s right hand, so answerably is our faith and salvation perfected by it, that thus he might be left out in * the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, to whom be glory for ever. So that we are to look upon our Mediator Christ, as nothing, but be doing as much work for us in heaven at this instant, as ever he did on earth ; here suffering, but there praying and presenting his sufferings. All his work was not done, when he had done here ; that work here was indeed the harder piece of the two, yet soon despatched ; but his work in heaven, though sweeter far, yet lies on his hands for ever ; therefore let us leave out none of these in our believing on him..

CHAPTER IV.

The second head : the great security the consideration of Christ s intercession affords to faith for our justification, shewed, 1. By way of evidence ; by two things.

And so I come (as in the former I have done) to shew what strong grounds of security and triumph our faith may raise from this last act, namely, Christ s intercession for us in the point of justification ; Who shall con demn ? It is Christ that intercedes. And was the second general pro pounded ; and therein to proceed also according to the method taken up in the former.

1. What assurance by way of evidence this doth afford unto faith of noncondemnation.

2. What powerful efficacy and influence this must be of, that Christ intercedes.

68 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V.

1. First, to handle it by way of evidence. That Christ intercedes, is a strong evidence to our faith by two demon strations.

(1.) From the very intent and scope of the work of intercession itself, and what it is ordained by God to effect.

(2.) From the end of Jesus Christ himself, who lives in heaven on pur pose to intercede for us. Our salvation it is both finis operis, the end of the work, andjura s ipsius operantis, in some respect the end of Christ himself, the interceder ; and both these do lay the greatest engagement that can be upon Christ, to accomplish our salvation through his intercession.

(1.) For the work itself. Intercession, you have seen, is a part of the office of Christ s priesthood, as well as his dying and offering himself: now all the works of Christ are and must be perfect in their kind (even as God s are, of which says Moses, Deut. xxxii. 4, His work is perfect ), for otherwise he should not be a perfect priest. Now the perfection of every work lies in order to its end for which it is ordained ; so as that work is perfect that attains to such an end as it is ordained for, and that imperfect which doth not. Now the immediate direct end of Christ s intercession is the actual salvation of believers elect, and persons whom he died for. The end of his death is adoptio juris, purchasing a right unto salvation ; but of inter cession, procuratio ipsius salutis, the very saving us actually, and putting us in possession of heaven. To this purpose, observe how the Scripture speaks concerning Christ s death, Heb. ix. 12, He entered into heaven, having obtained redemption, or found redemption, that is, by way of right, by procuring full title to it. But of his intercession it says, Heb. vii. 25, that by it

Christ is able to save to the utmost them that come unto God by him ; that is, actually to save, and put them in possession of happiness : that is made the end and scope of intercession there ; and that phrase (eif rb cravrs Xsg), to the utmost, notes out a saving indeed, a doing it not by halves, but wholly, and throughly, and completely ; g/ rb cravrg Xeg is to save altogether, to give our salvation its last act and complement, that is the true force of the phrase, even to effect it, to the last of it, all that is to be done about it. Thus also Bom. v. 9, 10, * We are justified by his death, but saved (namely, completely) by his life ; that is, his living to intercede. So that the very salvation of believers is it that is the work, the rb egyov of Christ s intercession.

Now what security doth this afford ? For, to be saved is more than to be justified ; for it is the actual possessing us of heaven. So then, do but grant that Christ s intercession is as perfect a work in its kind as Christ s jdeath is in its kind, and you must needs be saved. The perfection of Christ s death, and the work thereof, wherein lay it (as on Christ s part to be performed) but in this, that he should lay down a ransom sufficient to purchase salvation for such and such persons as God would save ? And so the perfection of it lies in the worth and sufficiency of it, to that end it was ordained for; it being a perfect sacrifice in itself, able to purchase eternal redemption for us, and to make us salvable against all sins and the demerits of them, and to give us right to heaven ; and had it wanted a grain of this, it had then been imperfect. Now then, answerably for intercession, the comfort of our souls is, that the proper work that lies upon Christ therein is the complete saving those very persons, and the possessing them of heaven ; this is the rb egyov, the proper work thereof. To outvie the demerits of our sins was the perfection of his death, but to save our souls is the end and perfection of his intercession. Our sins are the object of

CHAP. IV.] FKOM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 69 the one, and our souls of the other. To that end was intercession added to his death, that we might not have a right to heaven in vain, ofwhich we might be dispossessed. Now therefore, upon this ground, if Christ should fail of our souls salvation, yea, but of any one degree of glory (purchased by his death to any soul) which that soul should want, this work of his would then want and fall short so much of its perfection. That place in Heb. vii. says not only that Christ will do his utmost to save, but save to the utmost.

Obj. You may say, My infidelity and obstinacy may hinder it, though Christ doth what in him lies.

Am. Well, but intercession undertakes the work absolutely ; for Christ prays not conditionally in heaven, If men shall believe, &c., as we do here on earth ; not for propositions only, but for persons ; and therefore he prays to cure that very infidelity. Now, as if a physician undertakes to cure a madman (if he knows what he doth), he considers the madness of his patient, and how he will tear off what is applied, and refuse all physic ; he therefore resolves to deal with him accordingly, and so to order him as he shall not hinder that help which he is about to afford him, and so upon those terms he undertakes the cure : even so doth Christ, when by inter cession he undertakes to save us sinners ; he considers us what we are, and how it is with us, what unbelief is in us, yet undertakes the matter ; and so to save us is the scope and end of this his work, which if he should not accomplish, he after all this should not be a perfect priest. It was the fault that God found with the old priesthood, that it made nothing perfect, Heb. vii. 19, and therefore, ver. 12, the law was changed ; and the priest hood was changed together with it, as there you have it. Now in like manner Christ s priesthood should be imperfect, if it made not the elect perfect, and then God must yet seek for another covenant, and a more per fect priest ; for this would be found faulty, as the other was. So then our comfort is, if Christ approve himself to be a perfect priest, we who come to God by him must be perfectly saved. It is in this office of his priesthood, and all the parts of it, as in his kingly office. The work of his kingly office is to subdue all enemies, to the last man, even fully to do the thing; and not only to have power, and to go about to do it : so as if there should be any one enemy left unsubdued, then Christ should not be a perfect king. The same holds in his priestly office also ; he should not be a perfect priest, if but one soul of the elect, or those he intercedes for, were left unsaved. And this is indeed the top and highest consideration for our comfort in this argument, that intercession leaves us not till it hath actually and completely saved us ; and this is it that makes the apostle put a further thing upon intercession here in the text, than upon that other, his sitting at God s right hand. So as we are in this respect as sure of attaining unto the utmost glory of our salvation, as Christ to have the full honour of his priest hood. A man saved is more than justified ; and Christ cannot reckon his * Who shall con demn ? It is Christ that intercedes. work, nor himself a perfect priest, until we are saved.

(2.) Besides the consideration of the nature and scope of this work itself, which Christ, upon his honour of acquitting himself as a perfect priest, hath undertaken, there is in the second place a farther consideration that argues him engaged by a stronger obligation, even the loss of his own honour, his office, and all, if he should not effect salvation for those that come to God by him ; so much doth it concern him to effect it. Of all the works that ever he did, he is most engaged in this ; it will not only be the loss of a

70 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V. business which concerns him, and of so much work, hut himself must he lost in it too ; and the reason is, that he intercedes as a Surety. He was not only a surety on earth in dying, and so was to look to do that work throughly, and to be sure to lay down a price sufficient, or else himself had gone for it : he pawned in that work, not only his honour, but even his life and soul to effect it, or lose himself in it ; but he is a surety now also in heaven, by interceding. This you may find to be the scope of Heb. vii. 22, by observing the coherence of that 22d verse (wherein he is called a surety ) with verses 23, 24, 25, that title and appellation is there given him, in rela tion unto this part of his office especially. And although it holds true of all parts of his office whatsoever, yet the coherence carries it, that that mention there of his being a surety doth in a more special manner refer unto his intercession, as appears both by the words before and after : in the words before (ver. 21), the apostle speaks of this his priesthood, which is for ever, and then subjoins (ver. 22), By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament ; and then after also he discourseth of, and instanceth in his intercession, and his continuing a priest for ever in that work : so, ver. 23, 24, 25, * Wherefore he is able to save to the utmost, seeing he ever lives to make intercession. Yea, he is therefore engaged to save to the utmost, because even in interceding (for which he is said there to live) he is a surety.

He was a surety on earth, and is a surety still in heaven ; only with this double difference, which ariseth first from the different things which he undertook for then, whilst on earth, and for which now he undertakes in heaven ; that on earth he was a surety to pay a price so sufficient as should satisfy God s justice ; which having paid, he was discharged (in that respect, and so far) of that obligation, and his bond for that was cancelled ; but so as still he remains a surety, bound in another obligation as great, even for the bringing to salvation those whom he died for ; for their persons remained still unsaved, though the debt was then paid ; and till they be saved, he is not quit of this suretyship and engagement. And, secondly, these two suretyships do differ also by the differing pawns which he was engaged to forfeit, by failing in each of these works : for the payment of our debt, his soul itself lay at the stake, which he offered up for sin ; but for the saving of the persons all his honour in heaven lies at stake. He lives to intercede. He possesseth heaven upon these terms, and it is one end of his life ; so that as he must have sunk under God s wrath, if he had not paid the debt, his soul standing in our souls stead, so he must yet quit heaven, and give over living there, if he brings us not thither. It is true, he intercedes not as a common person (which relation in all other forementioned acts he still bore ; thus in his death he was both a common person and a surety representing us, so as we died in him ; so likewise in his re surrection we arose with him, and in his ascension we ascended, &c., but yet he intercedes not under that relation, namely, not as a common person), for we must not, cannot be said to intercede in him, for this last work lay not upon us to do. He doth it wholly for us indeed, but not in our stead, or as that which we should have done, though on our behalf ; for it being the last, the crown of all his works of mediation, is therefore proper to him as Mediator, and his sole work as such. Thus in like manner the first work of incarnation, and answerably the last of intercession, in neither of these was Christ a common person representing others, though a common Saviour of others in these. For the one was the foundation of all, the other the accomplishment of all, and so proper only to himself as mediator. But

CHAP. V.J FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 71 although he intercedes not as a common person, as representing us in what we were to have done for ourselves ; yet, so as that other relation of a surety is continued still in that work, he stands engaged therein as an undertaker for us, and so as a surety intercedes : such as Judah was for Benjamin, Gen. xliii. 9, * I will be surety for him ; of my hand shalt thou require him : if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever. So says Christ for us. And therefore sponsio, or under taking for us, is by divines made a great part of this part of his office. Now the consideration of this may the more secure us ; for the more peculiarly and solely it is his work, the more his honour lies at stake, and the more he will set himself to effect it ; yea, and being by way of suretyship, it con cerns him yet more nearly, for he hath engaged, and if he should fail, might even lose that honour which he hath now in heaven.

CHAPTER V.

The prevalency of Christ s intercession, and the powerful influence it hath into our salvation, demonstrated, first, from the greatness of Christ, and his favour with God.

2. Thus we have heard what matter of support to our faith, by way of evidence, this must needs afford, that Christ intercedes. Let us consider now what further assurance will arise to our faith, from the influence which Christ s intercession must needs have, to effect and carry on our salvation to an assured issue. The work of intercession being effectually to procure our salvation, and to continue the pardon of our sins, and hold us in favour with God, therefore the influence and energy it hath herein must needs lie in that potency and prevalency which this intercession of Christ hath with God, to obtain anything at his hands for us, and so to continue his favour towards us. Now, to raise up our apprehensions how potent and prevalent this intercession of Christ must needs be, let us consider both the Person interceding, namely, Christ ; and the Person with whom Christ intercedes for this favour, which is God ; the one the Son, the other the Father ; and so the greatness of Christ with God, and the graciousness of God to Christ, together with the oneness of wills and unity of affections in them both : so that Christ will be sure to ask nothing which his Father will deny, and his Father will not deny anything which he shall ask.

(1.) Now, first, for the greatness of Christ the Intercessor, that is, his greatness with God the Father. This is often urged in this epistle to the Hebrews, to persuade confidence in us, in this very point in hand ; thus, Heb. iv. 14, 16, Seeing we have a great high priest, let us come boldly. And whilst great and priest are thus joined together, the more comfort and boldness we may have, the greater he is ; for he is a priest in relation to his dealing with God for our pardon. As he is a priest, he deals in nothing else ; and the greater the person is who useth his interest herein, the better, the sooner he will prevail. And he is there said to be great, because great with God, in prevailing with him ; and indeed so great, as it is im possible but he should prevail. It was the greatness of his person which did and doth put such an influence into his death, that it was, as you heard, a price more than enough to satisfy justice, even to overflowing. And therefore, Who shall condemn ? It is Christ that died. And the great ness of his person must needs have as much influence to make intercession

72 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. Vprevalent. In a matter of intercession, the person that intercedes prevails more than any other consideration whatsoever. We see what great friends do procure oftentimes with but a word speaking, even that which money, no, nor anything could have obtained. Now Christ must needs be great with God in many respects.

[1.] First, in respect of the nearness of his alliance to him. He is the natural Son of God, God of God, and therefore certain to prevail with him.

This is diligently still put in, almost in all places, where this part of his priesthood (his intercession) is mentioned, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. So in chap. iv. of the same Epistle, ver. 14, We have a great high priest entered into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. So Heb. vii. 25, and 28th verse compared, the apostle having said, ver. 25, that he is able to save to the utmost, seeing he ever lives to make intercession, he doth, ver. 28^ devolve this ability of his to save (ultimately) upon his being the Son ; thus in the 28th verse, in the end of that discourse, this is made as the basis of all : The law (saith he) makes men high priests which have infirmity, which infirmity or disability of theirs is mentioned in opposition unto what he had just before spoken of the great ability of this our high priest in his inter ceding, ver. 25, in those words, He is able to save to the utmost. Those priests whom the ceremonial law made, Aaron and his sons, are unable to save, they have infirmity. Now what is it in him that makes this difference, and him so able above what they were ? The word of the oath makes, the Son (says he), who is perfected (as you have it in the Greek and margin) for evermore. He mentions this his sonship principally in relation to his intercession, which there he had discoursed of. Intercession is a carrying on our salvation in a way of grace and favour, as his death was by way of satisfaction.

And answerably it may be observed in the Scripture, that as the all-suffi ciency of the satisfaction of his death is still put upon his being God ; and so upon the greatness of his person considered in respect of his nature or essence, namely, his Godhead ; so in like manner, that the prevalency of his intercession is founded upon the nearness of his relation unto God, his alliance to him, and the being his Son. Thus for the first. When redemp tion is spoken of, the sufficiency of the price is eminently put upon his God head, the blood of God. Thus also, Heb. ix., where when he had (ver. 12) shewn how Christ had purchased and obtained a perfect redemption, he then argues the sufficiency of it from his Godhead, ver. 13, 14, For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh ; how much more shall the blood, of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself? &c. The eternal Spirit is his Godhead. Thus answerably, when he speaks of the prevailing of his intercession in heaven, he puts it upon his sonship ; Jesus the Son. He mentions the nearness of the relation of his person to God, as being that which draws with it that great respect, and favour, and grace, he being by this great with God, as great in himself. All matters of inter cession are carried, we know, by way of favour. And therefore look how prevalent in a way of merit his being God makes his death in its kind ; no less prevalent doth his being the Son of God make his intercession in its kind, namely, in a way of obtaining grace and mercy ; yea, so prevalent of itself it is, that we might build upon it alone, even as much as upon his death. And, indeed, Christ intercedes not only in the virtue and strength of his satisfaction, though in that also, and of his obedience to his Father but also in the strength of his relation as a Son who pleads his own grace

CHAP. V.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION

and interest in God, as he is his Son, which is a consideration that doth always actually exist and abide. Whereas his obedience, though perfect, was but once offered up, and its existence is but virtual ; but he continues a Son for ever, not virtually only, but actually. And therefore it is added in that 7th to the Hebrews, ver. 28, that the gospel ordained the Son, perfected for ever. The meaning whereof is, that he is not only a priest, perfected in the time past by that perfect offering once made, but in that he is the Son, he remains a perfect priest for ever, for time to come ; whom therefore no imperfection in his office, no failing or missing of his suits can befall. So as if it could be supposed that his obedience, because past so long ago, might be forgotten ; yet never this, that he is a Son. That for ever abides, and of itself were enough to prevail. And how effectual must the intercession of such a Son be, who is so great a Son of so great a Father, equal with him, and the express image of his person ? Never any Son so like, and in so peculiarly a transcendent manner a Son, as the relation of sonship among men is but a shadow of it ! Christ is one with his Father, as himself often speaks ; and, therefore, if his Father should deny him any thing, he should then cease to be one with him, he must then deny him self, which God can never do. He is in this respect the Beloved, as he is called, Eph. i. 6, as on whom (originally and primarily) all the beams of God s love do fall. Solomon (the type of Christ) was the beloved of God, 2 Sam. xii. 24, and had his name from thence (namely) Jedidiah, that is, * beloved of the Lord. And to shew how beloved he was, God, when he came first into his kingdom, bade him

ask what he should give him, 1 Kings iii. 5. Now the like God says to Christ, when come first to his Jdngdom, also, Ps. ii. 8, Ask of me, and I will give thee, namely, when he had set him as King on his holy hill, ver. 6 ; and of him he says, is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him. God bids us therefore and upon that respect to hear him ; and that speech was but the echo of his own heart, in that he himself is so well pleased with him for this that he is his Son, as he himself will hear him in everything ; yea, and is so pleased with him, as that although Christ had never died nor obeyed the law, yet simply because he is his Son, he hath so full an acquiescency of all desires in him, and complacency of delights, that he could deny him nothing. How prevalent then must Christ s intercession needs be, though there were nothing else to be considered ! And that God had indeed this as one main consideration upon which he made him a priest thus to intercede, those words do testify, Heb. v. 5, 6, He that said unto him, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec. These latter words are not only a paraphrase (as some think) merely to shew that he that said, Christ was his Son, said also, he was a priest ; but it is to shew the foundation of his call to that office. The great consideration that fitted him for it was, that he was God s Son ; especially that fitted him for that part of his priesthood which was to remain for ever, of which that 110th Psalm and the Epistle to the Hebrews do especially speak. Neither is the meaning of the fore-cited place only to shew that in that he was God s Son, it was his birthright to be a priest, so as if God would have any priest at all it must be he, and so, upon that con sideration, he that said to him, Thou art my Son, said, Thou art a priest ; and that being his right, he therefore called him to it, because he was his Son, for, according to the law of nature, the eldest of the family was to be priest ; and so Christ, even as God-man, being the first-born of

74 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V. every creature, and the natural first begotten Son of God, had right to be the prime leader of that great chorus in that eternal worship in heaven. That (I say) is not all the meaning of those words, nor all that God consi dered in it, when he thus ordained him to be a priest ; but he had a further and more peculiar respect unto this especial part of his priesthood, his inter

for ever imports), as for which, he being his natural cession (as that clause

Son, so nearly allied to him, would transcendently fit him, and give such an omnipotent prevalency and effectualness to his requests, that he would be the most absolute perfect priest for ever, in this respect, that could be. That as God himself is perfect, and his power irresistible, so his priesthood, through this relation, might be perfect also, and his requests undeniable. Thus did God order it to strengthen our faith. And that, indeed, God did consider this relation of his to him to this very end, is evident by that of * Thou art my Son, is cited, ver. 7 and 8, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ; and what fol lows ? Ask of me, and I will give thee, &c. He connects both these the 2d Psalm, out of which that saying, together, namely, intercession, that part of his priestly office of asking, with his sonship, for that is it which moveth God to grant all that he asks. God loves Christ as he loves himself, and therefore can deny him nothing, as he cannot deny himself. And so, by the way, this clears the ground of the apostle s quoting those words of Ps. ii. in Heb. v., as a proof of Christ s call to the priesthood, which interpreters have been troubled how to make

Thou art my Son, ask, &c., is out ; for (as you have seen) that speech, * Thou art a priest ; and so was as fit and full a all one as if he had said, place to prove his being a priest in the Holy Ghost s intent, as is that other quoted with it, out of Ps. ex., though uttered in more express words, Thou art a priest for ever. Both speeches come to one in both places, the Holy Ghost especially aiming in both at that part of his priesthood in heaven, his intercession : in the one speaking of him after he is set upon God s hill as king (so Ps. ii. ver. 6) ; and in the other, after he is set down at God s right hand (so Ps. ex. ver. 1, 2). Yea, and this his favour with his Father, and intercession alone, might have procured pardon for us sin ners, but that God s will was to have justice satisfied.

[2.] And secondly, he intercedes not only as a Son (and in that respect a priest perfect enough for ever), but also as a Son who hath been obedient to his Father, and hath done at his request, and for his sake, the greatest service for him, and the most willingly that ever was done. And you all know how much former services done do always forward suits. In Heb. v. ver. 8, 9. 10, it is said, that though he were a Son, yet learned he

became perfect. The apostle had said, in the obedience, and thereby verses before, that in respect of his being his Son, God had called him to this office, as one that was thereby sufficiently qualified to be a priest that might prevail ; and yet in these verses he further adds, that though he was a Son, and in that respect a priest perfect enough, yet he was to be obe dient also, and thereby yet to become, in a further respect, a perfect high priest also, even in respect of service done and obedience performed. And so shews that he comes to have a further perfection and power of prevailing in his priestly office added to that relation of sonship spoken of, ver. 5. And therefore it follows, that he being thus become perfect, namely, through his obedience, he became author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him, called of God an high priest for ever, &c. That therefore which makes him yet more potent, that he may be sure to prevail, is his obedience and service done ; and this alone also were enough to cany anything. And

both these considerations, of his sonship and obedience, as giving an efficacy to his intercession, you have also in that, Heb. vii. From ver. 26 to 28, he had spoken of the power of intercession, ver. 24, 25, how he was * able to save to the utmost ; and then, in the following verse, he shews the ground of it, first in his fore-past

obedience, ver. 26. First, active, * for such a high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled. And such* a priest he was, and therefore able thus to save by his intercession. For such an one who was holy, harmless, and no guile found in his mouth, what requests come out of such lips must needs be accepted. Then, secondly, he mentions his passive obedience, ver. 27, * He offered up himself once, and thereby made so full a satisfaction, as he needed not to do it but once ; and in the strength of both these he intercedes, for to that purpose doth the mention of both these there come in. And then he adds that other which we before insisted on, that he|is the Son, which follows in the next words, ver. 28. And accordingly you shall find Christ himself urging this his obedience, as the foundation of all those his suits and requests for us that follow after. So in that last prayer, John xvii. (which is, as it were, a pattern or instance of his intercession for us in heaven), I have glorified thee on earth, I have finished the work thou gavest me, ver. 4. And whereas two things may be distinctly considered, in that his obedience.

First, the worth of it, as a price in the valuation of justice itself; secondly, the desert of favour and grace with God ; which such an obedience and service, done for his sake, might in a way of kindness expect to find at his hands. You may for your comfort consider, that besides what the worth of it as a price, which I shall urge in the next chapter, might exact of jus tice itself between two strangers (as we use to say), he having well paid for all that he asks ; he hath, moreover, deserved thus much grace and favour with his Father, in that this obedience was done for his sake and at his request ; and this it calls for even in way of remuneration and requital, as of one kindness with the like. That therefore his Father should hear him in all the requests that ever he should make, yea so transcendent was the obedience which he did to his Father, in giving himself to death at his request (and it was done at God s sole entreaty, Lo ! I come to do thy will ), as he can never out-ask the merit of this his service. And, which which may yet further encourage us herein, he hath nothing at all left to ask for himself simply, for he hath need of nothing. So that all his favour remains entire, for to be laid forth for sinners, and employed for them. And then add this thereto, that all he can ask for them is less, yea far less, than the service which he hath done to God comes to ; our lives, and par don, and salvation, these are not enough, they are too small a requital. So that besides his natural grace and interest which he hath with his Father, as he is his Son, which can never be lessened, this his acquired favour by his obedience must needs make him prevail, seeing it can never be acquitted to the full. Some divines put so much efficacy in this, that they say, Christ s very being in heaven, who once did this service, and so putting God in mind of it by his very presence, is all that intercession that the Scripture speaks of ; so sufficient they think this alone to be.

76 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V.

CHAPTER VI.

Secondly, the prevalency of Christ s intercession demonstrated from the righteousness of the cause he pleads even in justice ; how forcible the cry of his blood is, himself appearing to intercede with it.

Besides favour and grace in all these respects, he can and doth plead justice and righteousness, and is able so to carry it ; so you have it, 1 John

We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the ii. 1 and 2, righteous. An advocate hath place only in a cause of justice, and this Christ s advocateship is executed by pleading his own satisfaction. So it follows, who is a propitiation for our sins ; and can plead his own righteousness so far, that justice itself shall be fain to save the worst of sinners. He can turn justice itself for them, and handle matters so, as justice shall be as forward to save them as any other attribute. So that if God be said to be righteous in forgiving us our sins, if we do but confess them (as chap. i. of this 1st Epistle of John, ver. 9), then much more when 1 Jesus Christ the righteous shall intercede for the pardon of them, as he adds in 2d verse of the ensuing chapter, and this if he will be just. The worst case he will make a good one ; not with colouring it over, as cunning lawyers do, or extenuating things ; but with pleading that righteousness, which being put into the opposite balance, shall cast it for thee, be there never so many sins weighed against it. Yea, and he will be just in it too, and carry all by mere righteousness and equity.

In the explication of this branch, my purpose is not to insist upon the demonstration of that all-sufficient fulness that is in Christ s satisfaction, such as may in justice procure our pardon and salvation (because it will more fitly belong to another discourse), but I shall absolve this point in hand by two things which are proper to this head of intercession.

[1.] First, by shewing how that there is even in respect to God s justice a powerful voice of intercession attributed unto Christ s blood ; and how prevalent that must needs be in the ears of the righteous God.

[2.] Secondly, especially when Christ himself shall join with that cry and intercession of his blood, himself in heaven appearing and interceding in the strength of it.

[1.] For the first, the apostle, Heb. xii. 24, doth ascribe a voice, an * The blood of appeal, an intercession unto the blood of Christ in heaven. sprinkling (says he) speaks better things than the blood of Abel. He makes Christ s very blood an advocate to speak for us, though Christ him self were silent, as he says in another case, Abel, though dead, yet speaketh, Heb. xi. 4. Many other things are said to cry in Scripture (and I might shew how the cry of all other things do meet in this), but blood hath the loudest cry of all things else, in the ears of the Lord of Hosts, the Judge of all the world, as he is in the 23d verse of that 12th chapter styled. Neither hath any cry the ear of God s justice more than that of blood. The voice of thy brother s blood, says God to Cain, * cries unto me from the ground, Gen. iv. 10. Now in that speech of the apostle fore-cited, is the allusion made unto the blood of Abel, and the cry thereof. And he illustrates the cry of Christ s blood for us, by the cry of that blood of Abel against Cain, it speaks better things than the blood of Abel. And his, scope therein is by an antithesis, or way of opposition, to shew that Christ s blood calls for greater good things to be bestowed on us for whom it was

CHAP. VI.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 77 shed, than Abel s blood did for evil things, and vengeance against Cain, by whom it was shed. For look how loud the blood of one innocent cries for justice against another that murdered him ; so loud will the blood of one righteous, who by the appointment and permission of a supreme judge hath been condemned for another, cry for his release and non-condemnation, for whom he died. And the more righteous he was, who laid down his life for another, the louder still is that cry, for it is made in the strength of all that worth which was in him, whose blood was shed. Now to set forth the power of this cry of Christ s blood with justice, let us compare it with that cry of Abel s blood in these two things, wherein it will be found infinitely to exceed it in force and loudness.

First, even the blood of the wickedest man on earth, if innocently shed, doth cry, and hath a power with justice against him who murdered him. Had Abel murdered Cain, Cain s blood would have cried, and called upon God s justice against Abel; but Abel s blood (there is an emphasis in that), Abel s, who was a saint, and the first martyr in God s calendar ; and so his blood cries according to the worth that was in him. Now precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints ; and the blood of one of them cries louder than the blood of all mankind besides. Now from this I argue, if the blood of a saint cries so, what must the blood of the King of saints (as Christ is called, Rev. xv. 3), then do ? If the blood of one member of Christ s body, what will then the blood of the head, far more worth than that whole body ? How doth it fill heaven and earth with outcries, until ! And (as the anti the promised intent of its shedding be accomplished thesis carries it) look how the blood of Abel cried for the ruin and con demnation of his brother Cain; so does Christ s blood on the contrary for our pardon and non-condemnation ; and so much louder, by how much his blood was of more worth than Abel s was. This was the blood of God ; so Acts xx. 28, * Who therefore shall condemn ? But, . Secondly, Christ s blood hath in its cry here a further advantage of Abel s blood attributed to it. For that cried but from earth, from the ground, where it lay shed, and that but for an answerable earthly punishment on Cain, as he was a man upon the earth ; but Christ s blood is carried up to heaven ; for as the high priest carried the blood of the sacrifices into the holy of holies, so hath Christ virtually carried his blood into heaven, Heb. ix. 12. And this is intimated in this place also, as by the coherence will appear. For all the other particulars (of which this is one), whereto he says the saints are come, they are all in heaven. You are come (says he, ver. 22) to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the church of the first-born who are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. All which things are in heaven ; neither names he any other than such; and then adds, and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaks, &c., as a thing both speaking in heaven, and besprinkled from heaven, yea, wherewith heaven is all besprinkled, as the mercy-seat in the holy of holies was, because sinners are to come thither. This blood therefore cries from heaven, it is next unto God who sits judge there, it cries in his very ears ; whereas the cry of blood from the ground is further off, and so though the cry thereof may come up to heaven, yet the blood itself comes not up thither, as Christ already is. Abel s blood cried for vengeance to come down from heaven, but Christ s blood cries us up into heaven ; like to that voice, Rev. xi. 12, Come up hither. So John xvii. 24, Where I am, let them be for whom this blood was shed.

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But though this speaking, this voice and intercession, be attributed to his blood, yet it is but in a metaphorical and improper (though real) sense ; as also that this blood is in heaven, is spoken, though in a real, jet not a proper sense. Some divines of all sides, both popish and protestant, would make the whole work of intercession to be only metaphorical. It is true indeed, the voice and intercession of his blood apart considered, is but metaphorical (I grant), and yet real ; such a voice as those groans are that are attributed to the whole creation, Rom. viii. 22. But intercession as an act of Christ himself, joined with this voice of his blood, is most properly and truly such.

[2.] Therefore, in the second place, add to this Christ s own intercession also, which was the second thing propounded, that Christ by his own prayers seconds this cry of his blood ; that not only the blood of Christ doth cry, but that Christ himself being alive doth join with it. How forcible and prevalent must all this be supposed to be ! The blood of a man slain doth cry, though the man remain dead ; even as of Abel, it is said

being dead he yet speaketh, Heb. xi., but Christ liveth and appeareth, Vivit, et in ccdum ccdorwn venit. He (though to another purpose), that follows the suit, pursues the hue and cry of his blood himself. His being alive, puts a life into his death. It is not in this as it was in that other, the first Adam s sin and disobedience. Adam, although he himself had been annihilated when he died, yet he having set the stock of our nature a-going in propagation of children, his sin would have defiled and condemned them to the end of the world, and the force of it to condemn is neither furthered nor lessened by his subsisting and being, or his not being ; it receives no assistance from his personal life, one way or other. And the reason is, because his sin condemns us in a natural and necessary way ; but the death of Christ and his blood shed, these saving us in a way of grace and favour unto Christ himself and for his sake, that very being alive of Christ, that shed this blood, adds an infinite acceptation to it with God, and moves him the more to hear the cry of it, and to regard it. In a matter of favour to be done for the sake of another man, or in a suit or matter of justice that concerns another who is interested in it, that man s being in vivis, his being alive, puts a life into the cause. If David would have respect to Jonathan (when dead) in his children, he would much more if himself had been alive. God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to remember their seed after them ; and why ? They are alive, and were to live for ever; and thongh dead, shall rise again. So Christ reasoneth from it, Mat. xxii. 32, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is the God of the living (says he), and not of the dead ; and so, though Abraham be ignorant of his children (as the prophet speaks) and should not intercede for them, yet because Abraham s soul lives, and is not extinct (as the Sadducees thought), but shall live again at the resurrection, therefore God remembers and respects his covenant with them ; for he is a God of the living, and so his covenant holds with them whilst they live. The old covenant of the first Testament ran in the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but this new covenant runs in the name of Christ, * The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; so Eph. i. 3, and so he becomes our God and our Father in him. And God being thus our Father, because

Christ s Father, and Christ (in whose name the covenant runs) being alive, and God by covenant the God of a living, not of a dead Christ, this there fore works effectually with him to respect his blood and hear the cry of it ;

CHAP. VII.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 79 and this, though Christ were absent, much more then when he is present also, and on purpose appeareth in the presence of God for us ; as it is, Heb. xi. 24. He is alive, and so able to follow his own suit, and will be sure to see to it, and to second the cry of his blood, if it should not be heard.

To illustrate this by the help of the former comparison begun. If as Abel s blood cries, so also it proves that Abel s soul lives to cry; that both his cause cries and himself lives to follow it ; so that the cry of Abel s blood is seconded with the cry of Abel s soul that lives, how doubly forcible must this needs be ? And thus indeed you have it, Rev. vi. 9, where it is said that the souls of them which were slain for the testimony which they held, cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood ? Yea, see that not only their blood cries, but their souls live, and live to cry. And it is not spoken metaphorically of their souls, but what is truly done by them now in heaven, it being mentioned to shew how and by what God was moved to bring vengeance on the heathenish empire of Rome that had shed their blood. Now not only Christ s soul (as theirs) lives to cry, but his whole person ; for he is risen again, and lives to intercede for ever. In the Rev. i. ver. 18, Christ appearing to John, when he would speak but one speech that should move all in him, he says but this, I am he that liveth, and was dead, and died for thee. And whose heart doth it not move to read it with faith? And doth it not move his Father, think you, who was the chief cause and motioner of his death, to think, my Son that was dead, and died at my request for sinners, is now alive again, and liveth to intercede, and liveth to * see the travail of his soul fulfilled and satisfied ? God pronounceth this upon it in that 53d of Isaiah, ver. 10, By his knowledge (or faith in him) shall he justify many ; even as many as he died for.

Who then shall con demn ? Christ that was dead is alive, and liveth to intercede.

CHAPTER VII.

Thirdly, the prevalency of Christ s intercession, and of his grace with his Father, demonstrated from the greatness and absoluteness of his power to do whatever he asks.

[3.] A third demonstration both of Christ s greatness with God, and his power to prevail for us, is taken from this, that God hath put all power into his hand, to do whatever he will, hath made him his king to do what pleaseth him either in heaven, earth, or hell ; yea, to do all that God him self ever means to do, or all that God desires to do. And certainly if his Father hath been so gracious to him as to bestow so high and absolute a sovereignty on him, as to accomplish and effect whatever he means to do, surely his purpose was never to deny Christ any request that he should after this make : he would never have advanced the human nature to that abso luteness else. Those two great monarchs made great grants and largesses, the one to Esther, the other to Herodias s daughter ; but yet they were limited only to the half of their kingdoms ; so Mark vi. 22. and Esth. v. 6, and the royal power in their kingdoms they meant still to retain and reserve wholly to themselves. But God having placed Christ on his throne, bids him ask even to the whole of his kingdom, for God hath made him a King, sitting on his throne with him, not to share halves, but to have all power in heaven

80 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V.

he hath committed all judgment to the Son, to save and con demn whomever he will ; and so far as the kingdom of God goes, or is and earth ; extended, he may do anything. So John v. 21, As the Father raiseth up the dead, so the Son quickeneth whom he will ; for as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, ver. 26 ; and hath in like manner given authority to execute judgment also, as the Son of man* (namely, of himself), ver. 27 ; as he said, he had given him to have life in himself, ver. 26, not dependently, as we have, but inde pendently, so to execute judgment also, ver. 27. So that Christ s will is as free, and himself as absolute a monarch and king of himself, as God him self is. He indeed hath it not a seipso, but in seipso ; not d seipso originally, but from his Father ; but in seipso, independently. Now, then, if he who is king, and may and doth of himself command all that is done, as absolutely as God himself doth, I speak in respect of the execution of things downward, by second causes ; if he, over and above, to honour his Father, will ask all that himself hath power to do, what will not be done ? Qui rogat, et imperare potest ; he that can and doth command whatever he would have done, and it is straight done, if he shall ask and entreat, what will not be done ? As a king who sues for peace, backed with a potent army which is able to win what he entreats for, must needs treat more effectually, so doth Christ sue for everything with power to effect it. Remember that he is said here in the text, first to be at God s right hand, and there to intercede. He treats the salvation of sinners as a mighty prince treats the giving up some town to him, which lies seated under a castle of his which commands that town : he stands treating with the governor, having his ordnance ready for the battery, and to bring all into subjection, as 2 Cor. x. 4. And this is a consideration that God him

Ask, and I self took, in that 2d Psalm, when he made him that promise, will give thee, why he made so large a grant. He had said before, ver. 6, * I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion, which made him, one would think, past asking, and above the condition of an intercessor. Now God says of him, He is my King, not in respect of his commanding God (that were blasphemy to think), but it is spoken in respect of commanding all below him. God having set him in his throne, to do as much as he himself would, or means to have done, says, he is my King, to rule all, not so much under me as for me, and in my stead, yet absolutely, and in himself ; the Father judgeth no man. Now when the Father had first made and constituted him thus great a King, then he bids him ask, to whom he had first given this absolute power to command. We may, without blasphemy, say of this God-man, that God hath not only not the heart, as being his Father, but not the power to cross anything he doth. Thus fast hath he God unto him. Only he who in respect of this his power is to be honoured as the Father, as John v. 23, yet to honour his Father, who gave this power originally to him as media tor, he is to ask for that which of himself he yet can do. And there fore, says God, though thou art a King (so ver. 6), and all my kingdom, even the utmost ends of the earth, are thine inheritance by a natural right, now that thou art my Son (as ver. 8) ; yet because thou art my King, of my appointing, and I have set thee on the throne (as the word is, ver. 6), and thou art my Son, and I have begotten thee, therefore acknow

ask of me, and I will give thee the utmost ends of ledge my grant in all, the earth for thy inheritance. I cannot deny thee, but I would have thee ask ; and therefore Christ asks, Yet still withal remember, that he asks

CHAP. VII.] FKOM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 81 who can command the thing to be done ; and yet, as he must ask ere the thing be done, so if he ask it must needs be granted. These are the terms between this Father and this Son, who, in a word, had not been so great a Father if he had not had a Son thus great, that himself could not deny what this Son would have done. It is for his own honour to have such a Son : so John v. 23, That they might honour the Son as they honour the Father, therefore all judgment is committed to him. Now, then, if he who hath so much power will join the force of entreaty with a Father that so loves him ; if he who is the word of his Father, that commands, * He spake, and it was done; if he will become a word to his Father, and speak a word for us, and ask all that he means to do ; how forcible will such words be ! * creates, and upholds all, as Heb. i., Therefore, observe Christ s manner of praying, John xvii. (which prayer is a platform of intercession in heaven), ver. 24, Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be where I am. He prays like a king, who is in joint commission with God. If God puts that honour upon our prayers, that we are said to have power with God, as Jacob, Hos. xii. 3, that if God be never so angry, yet by taking hold of his strength, we hold his hands, as Isa. xxvii. 5, that God cries out to Moses, like a man whose hands are held, * Let me alone, Exod. xxxii. 10, yea that he accounts it as a command and a mandamus, so he styles it, Isa. xlv. 11, command ye me, so unable is he to go against it ; then, how much more doth Jesus

Christ s intercession bind God s hands, and command all in heaven and earth ! Therefore, Zech. i. 12, you have Christ, the Angel of the cove nant, brought in interceding with the Father for his church; and he speaks abruptly as one full of complaints, and in an expostulating way, Lord of Hosts, how long wilt thou not be merciful to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah ? and, ver. 13, Zechariah saith, that he observed that the Lord answered the Angel with good words and comfortable. God was fain to give him good words (as we use to say), that is, words that might pacify him, as words of comfort to us, so good words in respect to the Angel s com plaint. And you may observe, how in the answer God returns upon it (which he bade Zechariah write), God excuseth it, as it were, to Christ, that his church had been so long and so hardly dealt withal ; as if beyond his intention, he lays the fault on the instruments, * I was but a little dis pleased, but they helped forward the affliction, ver. 15. This is spoken and carried after the manner of men, to shew how tender God is of dis pleasing Christ our intercessor : that when Christ hath, as it were, been a long while silent, and let God alone, and his people have been ill dealt withal, he on the sudden in the end intercedes and complains of it, and it is not only instantly redressed, but excused for times past, with good words, and comfortable words. Christ s Father will not displease him, nor go against him in anything. Now that you may see a reason of this, and have all cavils and exceptions taken away, that may arise against this, and how that there is an impossibility that it should be otherwise, know that this Father and this Son, though two persons, have yet but one will between them, and but one power between them (though the Son, ad extra, outwardly executes all). John x. 30, My Father and I are one ; that is, have but one and the same power to save you, and one mind and will. So also, John v. 19, * The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do ; and whatever he doth, the same the Father doth also : they conspire in one, have one power, one will ; and then it is no matter though God commit all power to the Son, and that the Son, VOL. rv. F

82 THE TEIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V. though he hath all power, must ask all of the Father, for to be sure what ever he asks, the Father hath not power to deny, for they have but one will and power. They are one ; so as if God deny him, he must deny him self, which the apostle tells us he cannot do, 2 Tim. ii. 13. And so in the same sense that God is said not to have power to deny himself, in the same sense it may be said, he hath not power to deny Christ what he asks. Therefore God might well make him an absolute King, and betrust him with all power ; and Christ might well oblige himself, notwithstanding this power, to ask all that he means to do ; for they have but one will and one power, so as our salvation is made sure by this on all hands.

I come not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me ; and his will is, that I shall lose none of all those whom he hath given me, John vi. 38, 39. And * who shall condemn ? It is Christ that intercedes. As who therefore, shall resist God s will ? (as the apostle speaks) so who shall resist or gain say Christ s intercession ? God himself cannot, no more than he can gain say or deny himself.

CHAPTER VIII.

The potency and prevalency of Christ s intercession, demonstrated from the graciousness of the person with whom he intercedes, considered Jirst as he i& the Father of Christ himself.

(2.) We have seen the greatness of the person interceding, and many considerations from thence, which may persuade us of his prevailing for us. Let us now, in the next place, consider the graciousness of the person with whom he intercedes, which the Scripture, for our comfort herein, doth dis tinctly set before us, to the end that in this great matter our joy and secu rity may every way be full. Thus in that, 1 John ii. 1, when for the com fort and support of believers, against the evil of the greatest sins that can befall them after conversion, the apostle minds them of Christ s intercession in those words, If any man sin, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous; mentioning therein the power and prevalency of such an advo cate, through his own righteousness. But yet, over and above all this, the more fully to assure us of his good success herein for us, he also adds, * An advocate with the Father. He insinuates and suggests the relation and gracious disposition of him upon whose supreme will our case ultimately dependeth, the Father, as affording a new comfort and encouragement, even as great as doth the righteousness and power of the person interceding. He says not, with God only, as elsewhere, but * with the Father. And that his words might afford the more full matter of confidence, and be the more comprehensive, and take in all, he expresseth not this relation of God limitedly, as confined to his Fatherhood, either unto Christ only, or us alone. He says not only, an advocate with his Father, though that would have given much assurance, or with your Father, though that might afford much boldness ; but indefinitely he says, * with the Father, as intending to take in both ; to ascertain us of the prevailing efficacy of Christ s inter cession from both. You have both these elsewhere more distinctly, and on purpose, and together mentioned, John xx. 17, I go to my Father, and your Father, says Christ there. And it was spoken after that all his dis ciples had before forsaken him, and Peter denied him ; when Christ himself could send them the greatest cordial that his .heart could utter, and wrap

CHAP. VIII.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION. 83 up the strongest sublimation of comforts in one pill. What was it ? Go, tell them (says he) not so much that I have satisfied for sin, overcome death, or am risen, but that I ascend. For in that which Christ doth for us being ascended, lies the height, the top of our comfort. And whereas he might have said (and it had been matter of unspeakable comfort) I ascend to heaven, and so, where I am you shall be also ; yet he chooseth rather to say, I ascend to the Father : for that indeed contained the foundation, spring, and cause of their comfort, even that relation of God s, his Father hood, with which Christ was to deal after his ascending for them. And because when, before his death, he had spoken of his going to his Father, their hearts had been troubled, John xiv. 28, they thinking it was for his own preferment only (as Christ s speech there implies they did) therefore he here distinctly adds, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. He had in effect spoken as much before, in the words foregoing, Go, tell my brethren, but that was only implicitly ; therefore, more plainly and explicitly he says it, for their further comfort, I go to my Father and your Father. And consider that Christ being now newly risen, and having as yet not seen his disciples, and being now to send a message, his first message, a gospel of good tidings to them, and that in a brief sen tence, by a woman ; he chooseth out this as the first word to be spoken from him now, when he was come out of the other world, at their first hear say of his return, he utters forth at once, the bottom, the depth, of all com fort, the sum of all joy, than which the gospel knows no greater, nor can go higher. So as if Christ should intend now at this day to send good news from heaven to any of you, it would be but this, I am here an advocate, interceding with my Father and thy Father. All is spoken in that. Even he could not speak more comfort, who is the God of comfort. Now, there fore, let us apart consider these two relations, which afford each of them their proper comfort and assurance ; both that Christ is ascended and inter cedes with his own Father, and also with our Father ; and, therefore, how prevailing must this intercession be !

First, Christ intercedes with his Father, who neither will nor can deny him anything. To confirm this, you have a double testimony, and of two of the greatest witnesses in heaven : both a testimony of Christ s own, whilst he was on earth, and God s own word also declared since Christ came to heaven. The former, in the llth of John, whilst Christ was here on earth, and had not as then fully performed that great service which he was to finish ; which since he having done, it must needs ingratiate him the more with God his Father. When Lazarus was now four days dead, Martha, to move Christ to pity her, first tells him that if he had been there before her brother died, that then he had not died ; and then (as having spoke too little) she adds, yea, thou canst, if thou pleasest, remedy it yet. But I know (says she, ver. 22) that even now (though he be so long dead), * whatever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Here was her con fidence in Christ s intercession, though this were a greater work than ever yet Christ had done any. And Christ seeing her faith in this, he confirms her speech when he came to raise him, and takes a solemn occasion to declare that God had never denied him any request that he had ever put up to him, first thanking God particularly that he had heard him in this, ver. 41, * Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. He had (it seems) prayed for the thing at her entreaty; and now, before the thing was done, he (being assured his prayer was heard) gives thanks, so confident was he of his being heard. And then, secondly, shews upon what this his confidence

84 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. Y. at this time was grounded, his constant experience that God had never denied him any request ; for it follows, ver. 42, And I know that thou nearest me always, and therefore was so bold as to express my confidence in this before the thing was done, but because of them who stood by, I said it. As if he had said, though I gave this public thanks for being heard only in this one miracle, and at no time the like so publicly ; yet this is no new thing, but thus it hath been always hitherto in all the miracles I have wrought, and requests I have put up, which made me so to give thanks beforehand ; and this is not the first time that God hath heard me thus, which I speak, that they might believe. Thus he was never denied on earth from the first to the last. For this was one of his greatest miracles, and reserved unto the last, even a few days before his crucifying.

And now he hath performed the service designed him, and is come to heaven, let us, secondly, hear God himself speak, what he means to do for him. You heard before, when he came first to heaven, what God said to him, and how he welcomed him with a Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. And before Christ opened his mouth to speak a word, by way of any request to God, which was the office that he was now to execute, God himself prevented him, and added, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee, Ps. ii. ver. 8. He speaks it at Christ s first coming up to heaven, when he had * King on his holy hill, as ver. 6. Christ was new glorified, which was as a new begetting to him, his * To-day have I begotten thee. And this is as if he had said, I know you will ask me now for all that you have died for : and this I promise you beforehand, before you speak a word, or make any request unto me, you shall ask nothing but it shall be granted ; and this I speak once for all as a boon and a grace granted you upon your birthday, as the solemnest celebration of it ; for such was his resurrection, and ascension, and sitting at God s right hand, This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee. So full of joy was his Father s heart that he had his Son in heaven with him, whom he had begotten from everlasting, and ordained to this glory, who was lately dead, and in a man ner lost, and therefore now (as it were) new begotten. God s heart was so full that he could not hold from expressing it in the largest favours and grants. And whereas kings upon their own birthdays use to grant such favours to their favourites, so Herod on his birthday, to the daughter of Herodias, promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask, Mat. xiv. 7. God himself having no birthday, not being of himself capable of it, yet having a Son who had, he honours him with that grace upon that day. And if Queen Esther (a subject, yea, a slave, in her original condi tion) was so prevalent for the Jews, her people and nation, when their case was desperate, and when there was an irrevocable decree past, and that not to be altered, for their ruin and destruction, then what will not Christ, so great a Son, even equal with his Father, prevail for with his Father for his brethren? Be their case for the time past never so desperate, be there never so many threatenings gone out against them, never so many precedents and examples of men condemned before for the like sins, and in the like case, yet Christ can prevail against them all.

CHAP. IX.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION

CHAPTER IX.

The potency of Christ s intercession demonstrated, in that he intercedes with God, who is our Father. How God s heart is as much inclined to hear

Christ for us as Christ s is to intercede.

Secondly, Christ is an advocate for us with our Father. You may per haps think there is little in that, but Christ puts much upon it ; yea, so much, as if that God would however grant all that Christ himself means to ask, whether Christ asked it or no. This you have expressly in John xvi. 26, 27, At that day (says Christ) you shall ask in my name : and I say not to you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you. To open this place, where he says

at that day. The day he means through this whole chapter, is that time when the Holy Ghost should be shed upon them ; for throughout his discourse he still speaks of the fruits of his ascension, and of giving the Comforter, which was done upon his ascending, and was the first fruits of his priestly office in heaven. Thus Peter informs us, Acts ii. 33, He being (says he) exalted by the right hand of God, and having received (namely, by asking, Ask, and I will give thee ) of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which you now see and hear. Now, of that time when he shall be in heaven, he says, I say not that I will pray for you: which is not meant that Christ prays not for us in heaven, but rather those very words are the highest intimation that he would and doth pray for us that can be. When men would most strongly intimate their purpose of a kind ness they mean to do for one, they use to say, I do not say that I love you, or that I will do this or that for you ; which is as much as to say, I will surely do it, and do it to purpose ; but Christ s scope here is, as in the highest manner to promise them that he would pray for them ; so withal, further to tell them for their more abundant assurance and security, that besides their having the benefit of his prayers, God himself so loves them of himself, that indeed that alone were enough to obtain anything at his hands, which they shall but ask in his name ; so"! as he needs not pray for them, and yet he will too. But now in case that he himself pray for them, and they themselves in his name, and both unto a Father who of himself loveth them, and who hath purposed to grant all, before either he or they should ask ; what hope must there needs be then of a good suc cess ! This is both the meaning of this place, and a great truth to be considered on by us, to the purpose in hand. That it is the meaning of the place, the manner of Christ s speech implies, I say not that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loveth you. It is such a speech as Christ used upon a clean contrary occasion, John v. 45, Do not think (says he) that I will accuse you to the Father : there is one who accuseth you, even Moses, &c. He there threatens the obstinate and accursed Pharisees with condemnation. Never stand thinking that it is I (says he) who am your only enemy and accuser, that will procure your condemna tion, and so prosecute the matter against you merely for my own interest ; no, I shall not need to do it ; though I should not accuse you, your own Moses in whom you trust, he is enough to condemn you, he will do your errand sufficiently, you would be sure to be damned by his words and say ings ; I shall not need to trouble myself to come in and enter my action against you too, Moses and his law would follow the suit, and be enough

86 THE TKIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V. to condemn you to hell. So as this speech doth not imply that Christ will not at all accuse them ; no, he means to bring in his action against them too ; for he after says, if he had not spoke to them, they had had no sin, and therefore he meant to bring the greatest accusation of all. Now, in an opposite (though parallel) speech here, to comfort his disciples, he says, I say not that I will pray for you, that God may save you, I who yourselves shall see will die for you, I say not that I will pray for you, not I. But though I speak this to insinuate in the highest manner that I will, for if I spend my blood for you, will I not spend my breath for you ? Yet the truth is, that the case so stands, that but for God s own ordination

I should not need to do it, for the Father himself loves you ; that is, the Father of his own motion and proper good will, taken up of himself to wards you, and not wrought in him by me, doth love you, and bears so much love to you, as he can deny you nothing, for he is your Father as well as mine. How much more then shall you be saved when I shall strike in too, and use all my interest in him for you ? Christ on purpose useth this speech, so to dash out of their hearts that conceit which harboureth in many of ours, who look upon God in the matter of salvation as one who is hardly entreated to come off to save sinners, and with whom Christ, through the backwardness of his heart, hath so much ado ; and we are apt to think that when he doth come off to pardon, he doth it only and merely at Christ s entreaty, and for his sake, having otherwise no innate motion in himself sufficient to incline his heart to it ; but that it is in this transac tion by Christ with him, as a favourite procures a pardon for a traitor, whose person the king cares not for; only at his favourite s suit and request he grants it, which else he would never have done. You are deceived, says Christ, it is otherwise ; my Father s heart is as much to wards you, and for your salvation, as mine is ; himself, of himself, loveth you. And the truth is, that God took up as vast a love unto us of himself at first as ever he hath borne us since, and all that Christ doth for us is but the expression of that love which was taken up originally in God s own heart. Thus we find that out of that love he gave Christ for us. So John iii. 16, God so loved the world (of elect), that he gave his only begotten Son to die, &c. Yea, Christ s death was but a means to commend or set forth that love of his unto us. So Bom. v. 8. It was God also that did himself give the persons unto Christ, and underhand set him on work to mediate for them. God was in Christ reconciling the world to him self : he only used Christ as his instrument to bring it honourably about. All the blessings he means to give us he first purposed and intended in himself (so Eph. i. 3, 5, 9, 11, compared) out of the good pleasure of his will, yet in Christ (as it is added there) as the means through which he would convey them ; yea, Christ adds not one drop of love to God s heart, only draws it out ; he broacheth it, and makes it flow forth, whose current had otherwise been stopped. The truth is, that God suborned Christ to beg them on our behalf for an honourable way of carrying it, as also to make us prize this favour the more ; so as his heart is as ready to give all to us, as Christ s is to ask, and this out of his pure love to us.

The intercession therefore of Christ must needs speed, when God s heart is thus of itself prepared to us. In Isa. liii. 10 it is said, The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. If our salvation be in Christ s hand, it is in a good hand ; but if it be the pleasure of the Lord too, it must needs prosper. It is said of our hearts and prayers, that he prepareth the heart, and heareth the prayer ; much more therefore, when his

own heart is prepared to grant the suit, will he easily hear it. When one hath a mind to do a thing, then the least hint procures it of him. So a father having a mind to spare his child, he will take any excuse, any one s mediation, even of a servant, a stranger, or an enemy, rather than of none. Now, when Christ shall speak for us, and speak God s own heart, how prevalent must those words need be ! David s soul, longing to go forth unto Absalom, 2 Sam. xiii. 39, whom notwithstanding, for the honour of a father and a king s state policy, and to satisfy the world, he had banished the court for his treason ; when Joab perceived it, that the king s heart was towards Absalom, chap. xiv. 1, and that the king only needed one to speak a good word for him, he suborns a woman, a stranger (no matter whom, for it had been all one for speeding), with a made tale to come to the king ; and you know how easily it took and prevailed with him, and how glad the king s heart was of that occasion ; even so acceptable it was to him, that Joab could not have done him a greater kindness, and that Joab knew well enough. Thus it is with God s heart towards us, Christ assures us of it, and you may believe him in this case. For Christ might have took all the honour to himself, and made us beholden to himself alone for all God s kindness to us ; but he deals plainly, and tells us that his Father is as ready as himself; and this he doth for his Father s honour and our comfort. And therefore it is that, John xvii., in that this prayer so often cited in this discourse, he pleads our election, * Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, ver. 6. Thou cornmendedst them unto me, and badest me pray for them, and I do but commend the same to thee again. In the high priest s breastplate, when he went into the holy of holies, were set twelve stones, on which were written the names of the twelve tribes : the mystery of which is this, Christ bears us and our names in his heart when he goes to God ; and moreover, we are God s jewels, precious in his own account and choice. So God calls them, Mai. iii. 17, Made precious to him out of his love. So Isa. xliii. 4. So that God loves us as jewels chosen by him, but much more when he beholds us set and presented unto him in the breastplate of Christ s heart and prayer.

To conclude, therefore; we have now made both ends of this text to meet, God s love and Christ s intercession. The apostle began with that, Who shall accuse? It is God that justifies; and he being for us, who can be against us ? The Father himself loves us, as he is our Father. And then he ends with this, Christ intercedes, namely, with our Father and his Father, who then shall condemn ? Who or what can possibly con demn, all these things being for us, the least of which were alone enough to save us ?

Let us now look round about, and take a full view and prospect at once, of all those particulars that Christ hath done and doth for us, and their several and joint influence which they have into our salvation.

1. In that Christ died, it assures us of a perfect price paid for, and a right to eternal life thereby acquired.

2. In that he rose again as a common person, this assures us yet further that there is a formal, legal, and irrevocable act of justification of us passed and enrolled in that court of heaven between Christ and God ; and that in his being then justified, we were also justified in him, so that thereby our justification is made past recalling.

3. Christ s ascension into heaven is a further act of his taking possession of heaven for us, he then formally entering upon that our right in our stead ; and so is a further confirmation of our salvation to us. But still we in our

88 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V. own persons are not yet saved, this being but done to us as we are repre sentatively in Christ as our head.

4. Therefore he sits at God s right hand, which imports his being armed and invested with all power in heaven and earth, to give and apply eternal life to us.

5. And last of all there remains intercession, to finish and complete our salvation ; to do the thing, even to save us. And as Christ s death and resurrection were to procure our justification, so his sitting at God s right hand and intercession are to procure salvation ; and by faith we may see it done, and behold our souls not only sitting in heaven, as in Christ a com mon person sitting there in our right, as an evidence that we shall come thither ; but also through Christ s intercession begun, we may see ourselves actually possessed of heaven. And there I will leave all you that are be lievers by faith possessed of it, and solacing your souls in it, and do you fear condemnation if you can.

CHAPTER X.

The use of all; containing some encouragements for weak believers,from Christ s intercession, out of HEB. VII. 25.

Now, for a conclusion of this discourse, I will add a brief use of encour agement ; and this, suited to the lowest faith of the weakest believer, who cannot put forth any act of assurance, and is likewise discouraged from coming in unto Christ. And I shall confine myself only unto what those most comfortable words, as any in the book of God, do hold forth, which the apostle hath uttered concerning Christ s intercession, the point in hand : Wherefore he is able to save to the utmost those that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them, words which I have had the most recourse unto in this doctrinal part of any other, as most tending to the clearing of many things about intercession ; and which I would also commend to, and leave with poor believers, to have recourse unto for their comfort, as a sufficient abundary of consolation unto their souls, and as a catholicon or universal cordial against all faintings and mis givings of spirit whatsoever.

In the words observe, 1. A definition of faith by the lowest acts of it, for the comfort of weak

Christians.

2. Encouragements unto such a faith, opposite to all misgivings and dis couragements whatsoever.

1. A definition of faith ; and such as will suit the weakest believer. It is a coming unto God by Christ for salvation.

(1.) It is a coming to be saved. Let not the want of assurance that God will save thee, or that Christ is thine, discourage thee, if thou hast but a heart to come to God by Christ to be saved, though thou knowest not whether he will yet save thee or no. Remember that the believers of the New Testament are here described to be comers to God by Christ ; such as go out of themselves, and rest in nothing in themselves, do come unto God through Christ for salvation, though with trembling.

(2.) It is a coming unto God. For he is the ultimate object of our faith, and the person with whom we have to do in believing, and from whom we are to receive salvation, if ever we obtain it.

CHAP. X.] FROM CHRIST S INTERCESSION

(3.) It is a coming unto God ly Christ ; which phrase is used in this Epistle, in an allusion to the worshippers of the Old Testament, who, when they had sinned, were directed to go to God by a priest, who with a sacri fice made an atonement for them. Now Christ is the great and true high priest, by whom we have access to the Father, Eph. ii. 18. The word is flo<raywyj)v, a leading by the hand. Dost thou not know how to appear before God, or to come to him ? Come first to Christ, and he will take thee by the hand, and go along with thee, and lead thee to his Father.

(4.) It is a coming unto God by Christ for salvation. Many a poor soul is apt to think that in coming to God by faith, it must not aim at itself, or its own salvation. Yes, it may ; for that is here made the errand or busi ness which faith hath with God in coming to him, or which it comes for ; and this is secretly couched in these words, for the apostle, speaking of the very aim of the heart in coming, he therefore on purpose mentions

Christ s ability to save : he is able to save.

2. Secondly, here are many encouragements to such a faith as is not yet grown up unto assurance of salvation.

(1.) Here is the most suitable object propounded unto it, namely, Christ as interceding ; which work of intercession, because it remains for Christ as yet to do for a soul that is to be saved, and which he is every day a-doing for us ; therefore it is more peculiarly fitted unto a recumbent faith. For, when such a soul comes and casts itself upon Christ, that thing in Christ which must needs most suit that kind of act is that which is yet to be done by Christ for that soul. Now for that soul to come to Christ to die for it, and offer up himself a sacrifice (as sinners did use to come to the high priest to sacrifice for them), this were bootless, for (as it is, ver. 27) he hath at * once done that already. And as for what is already past and done, such a believer s faith is oftentimes exceedingly puzzled what manner of act to put forth towards Christ about ; as (for example) when it is about to come unto God, and it hears of an election of some unto salvation from all eternity made by him ; because this is an act already passed by God, the soul knows it to be in vain to cast itself upon God for election, or to come unto him to elect and choose itself. And so, in like manner, when the soul looks upon Christ s death, because it is done and past, it knows not how to take it in believing, when it wanteth assurance that Christ died for it, though it should come to Christ to be saved by virtue of his death. But there is this one work that remains still to be done by him for us, and which he is daily a-doing, and that is, interceding ; for he lives ever to intercede or to pray for us, in the strength and merit of that his sacrifice once offered up. This therefore is more directly and peculiarly fitted unto a faith of recumbency, or of coming unto Christ ; the proper act of such a faith (as it is distinguished from faith of assurance) being a casting one s self upon Christ for something it would have done or wrought for one. Hence inter cession becomes a fit object for the aim and errand of such a faith in this * to be saved is ; it being a thing yet to be its coming to Christ, as also wrought and accomplished for me by Christ, is therefore a fit mark for such a faith to level at in its coming to Christ. Those acts of God and Christ which are past, faith of assurance doth more easily comply with : fich a faith takes in with comfort that Christ hath died for me, and risen again, and doth now intercede for me, and so I shall certainly be saved ; but so cannot this weak faith do. Come thou therefore unto Christ, as to save thee through his death past*, and by the merit of it, so for the present, and for the time to come, to take thy cause in hand, and to intercede for thee : it is a great

90 THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH [SECT. V. relief unto such a faith (as cannot put forth acts of assurance, that what hath been done by Christ hath been done for it), that God hath left Christ this work yet to do for us. So as the intercession of Christ may afford matter to such a faith to throw itself upon Christ, to perform it for us, and it may set a-work to do it.

(2.) Now if such a soul ask, But will Christ, upon my coming to him for salvation, be set a-work to intercede for me, and undertake my cause ?

I answer it out of those words, He lives to intercede for them who come to God by him. He lives on purpose to perform this work ; it is the end of his living, the business of his life. And as he received a commandment to die, and it was the end of his life on earth, so he hath received a com mand to intercede, and to be a common high priest for all that come to God by him. God hath appointed him to this work by an oath, * He sware, and would not repent, Thou shalt be a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec : and this is the end of his life in heaven. That as in the old law the high priest (Christ s type in this) ought to offer up the sacrifice of every one that came unto God by him (as Heb. v. 5), in like manner

Christ ; for it is his calling, as you have it, ver. 6. Otherwise, as that woman said to Philip, when she came to him for justice, and he put her off, Then cease (says she) to be a king: so if Christ should deny any such soul to take its cause in hand, he must then cease to be a priest. He lives to intercede ; he is a priest called by God, as was Aaron, ver. 6. Wherefore he ought to do it, in that it is his office.

(3.) And if thy soul yet feareth the difficulty of its own particular case, in respect of the greatness of thy sins, and the circumstances thereof, or any consideration whatsoever, which to thy view doth make thy salvation an hard suit to obtain : the apostle therefore further adds, * He is able to save to the utmost, whatever thy cause be, and this through this his interces sion. That same word, to the utmost, is a good word, and well put in for our comfort. Consider it therefore, for it is a reaching word, and ex tends itself so far, that thou canst not look beyond it. Let thy soul be set upon the highest mount that ever any creature was yet set upon, and that is enlarged to take in and view the most spacious prospect both of sin and misery, and difficulties of being saved, that ever yet any poor humbled soul did cast within itself: yea, join to these all the objections and hindrances of thy salvation that the heart of man can suppose or invent against itself : lift up thy e3 res and look to the utmost thou canst see, and Christ by his intercession is able to save thee beyond the horizon and furthest compass of thy thoughts, even to the utmost and worst case the heart of man can suppose. It is not thy having lain long in sin, long under terrors and despairs, or having sinned often after many enlightenings, that can hinder thee from being saved by Christ. Do but remember this same word, to the utmost, and then put in what exceptions thou wilt or canst, lay all the bars in thy way that are imaginable ; yet know thou that the gates of hell shall not prevail against thee.

(4.) Again, consider but what it is that Christ, who hath by his death done enough to save thee, doth yet further for thee in heaven. If thou thoughtest thou Jiadst all the saints in heaven and earth jointly concurring in promoving thy salvation, and competitors unto God in instant and incessant requests and prayers to save thee, how wouldst thou be encouraged ?

Shall I tell thee ? One word out of Christ s mouth (who is the King of saints) will do more than all in heaven and earth can do : and what is there then wliich we may not hope to obtain through his intercession ?

And wouldst thou know whether he hath undertaken thy cause, and begun to intercede for thee ? In a word, Hath he put his Spirit into thy heart, and set thy own heart on work to make incessant intercessions for * with groans unutterable (as the apostle hath it, Rom. viii.) ? This is the echo of Christ s intercession for thee in heaven. * thyself (5.) And lastly ; if such a soul shall further object, But will he not give over suing for me ? May I not be cast out of his prayers through my un belief ? Let it here be considered that he lives ever to intercede : and therefore, if he once undertake thy cause, and getteth thee into his prayers, he will never leave thee out, night nor day. He intercedeth ever, till he hath accomplished and finished thy salvation. Men have been cast out of good and holy men s prayers, as Saul out of Samuel s, and the people of Israel out of Jeremiah s, but never out of Christ s prayers ; the smoke of his incense ascends for ever, and he will intercede to the utmost, till he hath saved thee to the utmost. He will never give over, but will lie in the dust for thee, or he will perfect and procure thy salvation.

Only, whilst I am thus raising up your faith to him upon the work of his intercession for us, let me speak a word to you for him, so to stir up your love to him, upon the consideration of this his intercession also. You see you have the whole life of Christ, first and last, both here and in heaven, laid out for you. He had not come to earth but for you, he had no other busi ness here. Unto us a Son is born. And, to be sure, he had not died but * for your for you. For us a Son was given ; and when he rose, it was justification. And now he is gone to heaven, he lives but to intercede for you. He makes your salvation his constant calling. therefore, let us live wholly unto him, for he hath and doth live wholly unto us. You have his whole time among you ; and if he were your servant, you could desire no more. There was much of your time lost before you began to live to him ; but there hath been no moment of his time which he hath not lived to, and improved for you. Nor are you able ever to live for him but only in this life, for hereafter you shall live with him, and be glorified of him.

* The love of Christ it should con

I conclude all with that of the apostle, strain us, because we cannot but judge this to be the most equal, that 1 they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again, and (out of the text I also add) sits at God s right hand ; yea, and there lives for ever to make intercession for us.

THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN, TOWARDS SINNERS ON EARTH.

[OKIGINAL TITLE.]

THE HEART

CHEIST IN HEAVEN,

Towards

SINNERS on Earth.

OR, A TEEATISE

DEMONSTRA TlNG

The gracious Disposition and tender

Affection of Christ in his Humane Nature now in Glory, unto his Members under all sorts of Infirmities, either of Sin or Misery.

By THO : GOODWIN, B.D.

LONDON,

Printed hy J. G. for R. Dawltnan, 1651.

THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN,

TO SINNERS ON EARTH,

PAET I.

HAVING set forth our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in all those great and most solemn actions of his his obedience unto death, his resurrection, ascension into heaven, his sitting at God s right hand, and intercession for us, which of all the other hath been more largely insisted on I shall now annex (as next in order, and homogeneal thereunto) this discourse that follows, which lays open THE HEART of Christ, as now he is in heaven, sit ting at God s right hand and interceding for us ; how it is affected and gra ciously disposed towards sinners on earth that do come to him ; how will ing to receive them ; how ready to entertain them ; how tender to pity them in all their infirmities, both sins and miseries. The scope and use whereof will be this, to hearten and encourage believers to come more boldly unto the throne of grace, unto such a Saviour and High Priest, when they shall know how sweetly and tenderly his heart, though he is now in his glory, is inclined towards them ; and so to remove that great stone of stumbling which we meet with (and yet lieth unseen) in the thoughts of men in the way to faith, that Christ being now absent, and withal exalted

sit at God s right hand, to so high and infinite a distance of glory, as to &c., they therefore cannot tell how to come to treat with him about their salvation so freely, and with that hopefulness to obtain, as those poor sin ners did, who were here on earth with him. Had our lot been, think they, but to have conversed with him in the days of his flesh, as Mary, and Peter, and his other disciples did here below, we could have thought to have been bold with him, and to have had anything at his hands. For they beheld him afore them a man like unto themselves, and he was full of meek ness and gentleness, he being then himself made sin, and sensible of all sorts of miseries ; but now he is gone into a far country, and hath put on glory and immortality, and how his heart may be altered thereby we know not. The drift of this discourse is therefore to ascertain poor souls, that his heart, in respect of pity and compassion, remains the same it was on earth ; that he intercedes there with the same heart he did here below ; and that he is as meek, as gentle, as easy to be entreated, as tender in his bowels ; so that they may deal with him as fairly about the great matter of their salvation, and as hopefully, and upon as easy terms to obtain it of

96 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN JTPART I. him, as they might if they had been on earth with him, and be as familiar with him in all their needs than which nothing can be more for the comfort and encouragement of those who have given over all other lives but that of faith, and whose souls pursue after strong and entire commu nion with their Saviour Christ.

Now the demonstrations that may help our faith in this I reduce to two heads : the first more extrinsical and outward ; the second more intrinsical and inward : the one shewing the on of it, that it is so ; the other the diori, the reasons and grounds why it must be so.

I. First, for those extrinsical demonstrations (as I call them), they are taken from several passages and carriages of his, in all those several condi tions of his ; namely, at his last farewell afore his death, his resurrection, ascension, and how he is sitting at God s right hand. I shall lead you through all the same heads which I have gone over in the former treatise (though to another purpose), and take such observations from his speeches and carriages, in all those states he went through, as shall tend directly to persuade our hearts of the point in hand, namely this, that now he is in heaven, his heart remains as graciously inclined to sinners that come to him, as ever on earth. And for a ground or introduction to these first sort of demonstrations, I shall take this Scripture that follows ; as for those other, another Scripture, as proper to that part of this discourse.

When Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own, he loved them to the end ; (or) for ever. JOHN XIII. 1.

Demonstrations from Christ s last farewell to his disciples.

I. It was long before that Christ did break his mind to his disciples that he was to leave them, and to go away to heaven from them, for, John xvi. 4, he says, he had forborne to tell it them from the beginning. But when he begins to acquaint them with it, he then at once leaves them an abund ance of his heart, and that not only how it stood towards them, and what it was at the present, but what it would be when he should be in his glory. Let us, to this end, but briefly peruse his last carriage, and his sermon at his last supper which he did eat with them, as it is on purpose penned and recorded by the evangelist John ; and we shall find this to be the drift of those long discourses of Christ s, from the 13th to the 18th chapter. I will not make a comment on them, but only briefly take up such short observa tions as do more specially hold forth this thing in hand.

1. These words which I have prefixed as the text, are the preface unto all that his discourse that follows (namely, unto that washing of his disciples feet, and his succeeding sermon), which accordingly do shew the argument and sum of all. The preface is this : Before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God, he then washed his disciples feet. Now this pre face was prefixed by the evangelist, on purpose to set open a window into Christ s heart, to shew what it was then at his departure, and so withal to give a light into, and put a gloss and interpretation upon all that follows.

PART I.] UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH

The scope whereof is to shew what his affections would be to them in heaven : he tells us what Christ s thoughts were then, and what was his heart amidst those thoughts, both which occasioned all that succeeds.

(1.) He premiseth what was in Christ s thoughts and his meditation. He began deeply to consider, both that he was to depart out of this world, * Jesus knew, &c., says the text (that is, was then thinking of it), that he should depart unto the Father, and how that then he should shortly be installed into that glory which was due unto him ; so it follows, ver. 3, 1 Jesus knowing (that is, was then actually taking into his mind) that the Father had given all things into his hands, that is, that all power in heaven and earth was his, so soon as he should set footing in heaven ; then in the midst of these thoughts he tells us, he went and washed his disciples feet, after he had first considered whither he was to go, and there what he was to be.

(2.) But, secondly, what was Christ s heart most upon, in the midst of all these elevated meditations ? Not upon his own glory so much, though it is told us that he considered that, thereby the more to set out his love unto us, but upon these thoughts his heart ran out in love towards, and was set upon, * his own: having loved his own, says the 1st verse, roug idiovg, his own, a word denoting the greatest nearness, dearness, and intimateness founded upon propriety.* The elect are Christ s own, a piece of himself, not ra 75/a, as goods, John i. 11 : he came unto his own, and his own received him not ; ra 73/a, the word shews that he reckons them his own, but as goods, not as persons, but he calls these here roug /d/oug, his own by a nearer propriety, that is, his own children, his own members, his own wife, his own flesh ; and he considers, that though he was to go out of the world, yet they were to be in the world, and therefore it is on purpose added, which were in the world, that is, to remain in this world. He had others of his own who were in that world unto which he was going, even

the spirits of just men made perfect, whom as yet he had never seen. One would think, that when he was meditating upon his going out of this world, his heart should be all upon Abraham, his Isaacs, and his Jacobs, whom he was going to ; no, he takes more care for his own, who were to remain here in this world, a world wherein there is much evil (as himself says, John xvii. 15), both of sin and misery, and with which them selves, whilst in it, could not but be defiled and vexed. This is it which draws out his bowels towards them, even at that time when his heart was full of the thoughts of his own glory: having loved his own, he loved them unto the end. Which is spoken to shew the constancy of his love, and what it would be when Christ should be in his glory. To the end, that is, to the perfection of it, g/g rsXs/W/f, says Chrysostom ; having begun to love

to the them, he will perfect and consummate his love to them. And end, that is, for ever. So in the Greek, g/g rs Xog is sometimes used, and so by the evangelist the phrase is here used in a suitableness to the Scrip ture phrase, Ps. ciii. 9, * He will not always chide, nor reserve anger for ever, so we translate it ; but in the original, He reserves not anger unto the end. So that the scope of this speech is to shew how Christ s heart and love would be towards them even for ever, when he should be gone unto his Father, as well as it was to shew how it had been here on earth, they being his own ; and he having loved them, he alters, he changes not, and therefore will love them for ever.

(3.) And then thirdly, to testify thus much by a real testimony, what his love would be, when in heaven, to them, the evangelist shews, that when he

* That is, property, or ownership. ED, VOL. IV. G

98 THE HEAET OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART I. was in the midst of all those great thoughts of his approaching glory, and of the sovereign estate which he was to be in, he then took water and a towel, and washed his disciples feet. This to have been his scope will ap pear, if you observe but the coherence in the second verse, it is said, that Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, then (ver. 4) he riseth from supper, and lays aside his garments, and took a towel and girded himself ; (ver. 5) after that, he poured water into a bason, and began to wash his disciples feet, &c., where it is evident that the evan gelist s scope is to hold forth this unto us, that then when Christ s thoughts were full of his glory, and when he took in the consideration of it unto the utmost, even then, and upon that occasion, and in the midst of those thoughts, he washed his disciples feet. And what was Christ s meaning in this, but that, whereas when he should be in heaven, he could not make such outward visible demonstrations of his heart, by doing such mean services for them ; therefore by doing this in the midst of such thoughts of his glory, he would shew what he could be content (as it were) to do for them, when he should be in full possession of it ? So great is his love unto them. There is another expression of Christ s like unto this, in Luke xii. 36, 37, which confirms this to be his meaning here, and to be his very heart in heaven. At ver. 36, he compares himself to a bridegroom, who is to go to heaven unto a wedding-feast ; who hath servants on earth that stand all that while here below, as without, waiting for him ; at which, be cause they wait so long, they may think much, Christ adds, * Verily I say unto you, that when the bridegroom returns (refreshed with wine and glad ness) he shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. The meaning is not as if that Christ served at the latter day, or now in heaven, those that sit down there ; but only it is an abundant expression in words, as here in a real instance, to set forth the overflowing love that is in his heart, and the transcendent happiness that we shall then enjoy, even beyond what can be expected by us ; he utters himself therefore by an unwonted thing not heard of, that the Lord should serve his servants, and wait on them that waited for him. And it is to shew his heart to them, and what he could be contented to do for them. So that you see what his heart was before he went to heaven, even amidst the thoughts of all his glory ; and you see what it is after he hath been in heaven, and greatened with all his glory, even content to wash poor sinners feet, and to serve them that come to him and wait for him.

(4.) Now, fourthly, what was the mystery of this his washing their feet ?

It was, as to give them an example of mutual love and humility, so to signify his washing away their sins ; thus, verses 8 and 10, himself interprets it.

It is true indeed, that, now he is in heaven, he cannot come to wash the feet of their bodies, but he would signify thus much thereby, that those sin ners that will come to him when in his glory, he will wash away all their sins ; -He loved his church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, &c., Eph. v. 25-27.

2. This specimen or declaration of his mind, we have from this his car riage, at this his last farewell. Let us next take a survey of the drift of that long sermon which he made at that his farewell, and we shall find the main scope of it to be further to assure his disciples of what his heart would be unto them ; and that will make a second demonstration.

It were too long a work to insist upon each particular. But certainly, no loving husband ever endeavoured more to satisfy the heart of his spouse

during his absence, than Christ doth his disciples hearts, and in them all believers. For take that along, once for all, that what Christ said unto them, he says unto us, as in that 17th of John that speech implies, I pray not for them only, but for those also that shall believe through their word. And as what he prayed for them was for all believers also, so what he then spake unto them.

(1.) First, he lets them see what his heart would be unto them, and how mindful of them when in heaven, by that business which he professeth he went thither to perform for them ; concerning which, observe first, that he lovingly acquaints them with it aforehand what it is, which argued care and tenderness, as from an husband unto a wife it doth. And withal, how plain-heartedly doth he speak, as one that would not hide any firing from them !

I tell you the truth of it (says he), it is expedient, and expedient for you, that I go away, John xvi. 7. And secondly, he tells them, it is wholly for them and their happiness, I go to send you a comforter, whilst you are in this world, and to prepare a place for you, John xiv. 2, when * There are many mansions in my Father s you shall go out of this world. house, and I go to take them up for you, and to keep your places for you till you come. And there again, how openly and candidly doth he speak to them ! If it had been otherwise, says he, I would have told you. You may believe me, I would not deceive you for all the glory in that place to which I am a-going. Whom would not this openness and nakedness of heart persuade ? But then, thirdly, the business itself being such as is so much for us and our happiness, how much more doth that argue it. And indeed, Christ himself doth fetch from thence an argument of the continu ance of his love to them. So ver. 3, If I go to prepare a place for you, if that be my errand, then doubt not of my love when I am there, all the glory of the place shall never make me forget my business. When he was on earth, he forgot none of the business for which he came into the world ; * Shall I not do my Father s business ? said he, when he was a child ; yes, and he did it to the utmost, by fulfilling all righteousness. Surely therefore he will not forget any of that business which he is to do in heaven, it being the more pleasant work by far. And (as I shewed in the former discourse, out of Heb. vi. 20) He is entered as aforerunner, an harbin ger, to take up places there for us ; and if he could forget us, yet our names are all written in heaven round about him, and are continually afore

Ye are come to mount Zion, and to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the church of his eyes written there, not only by God s election, so Heb. xii. 23, the firstborn which are written in heaven, and to Jesus, and to the blood of sprinkling, &c., but Christ himself scores them up anew with his blood, over every mansion there, which he takes up for any. Yea, he carrieth their names written in his heart, as the high priest did the names of the ten* tribes on his breast, when he entered into the holy of holies. He sits in heaven to see to it, that none other should take their rooms over their heads, as we say. And therefore, 1 Peter i. 4, salvation is said to be re served in heaven for them, that is, kept on purpose for them by Jesus

Christ. The evil angels had places there once, but they were disposed of unto others over their heads, as the land of Canaan was from the Canaanites ; the reason of which was, because they had not a Christ there to intercede for them as we have.

, (2.) Then, secondly, to manifest his mindfulness of them, and of all beievers else, when he should be in his glory, he tells them that when he hath

* Qu. twelve ? ED.

100 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART I. despatched that business for them, and made heaven ready for them, and all the elect that are to come, that then he means to come again to them. So chap. xiv. ver. 3, If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, which is a mere expression of love, for he if he had pleased, he might have ordered it to have sent for them to him ; but he means to come for them himself, and this when he is warm (as we speak) and in the height and midst of his glory in heaven ; yet he will for a time leave it to come

I will see again unto his spouse. And what is it for? [1.] To see her, you again, and your heart shall rejoice. [2.] To fetch her, so John xiv. 8, I will come again and receive you to myself. He condescends to the very laws of bridegrooms, for notwithstanding all his greatness, no lover shall put him down in any expression of true love. It is the manner of bridegrooms, when they have made all ready in their father s house, then to come themselves and fetch their brides, and not to send for them by others, because it is a time of love. Love descends better than ascends, and so doth the love of Christ, who indeed is love itself, and therefore comes down to us himself ; T will come again and receive you unto myself (says

Christ), that so where I am, you may be also. That last part of his speech gives the reason of it, and withal bewrays his entire affection. It is as if he had said, The truth is, I cannot live without you, I shall never be quiet till I have you where I am, that so we may never part again ; that is the reason of it. Heaven shall not hold me, nor my Father s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set upon you ; and if I have any glory, you shall have part of it. So ver. 19, Because I live, you shall live also. It is a reason, and it is half an oath besides, As I live is God s oath ; Because I live, says Christ. He pawns his life upon it, and desires to live upon no other terms, He shall live to see his seed, &c., Isa. liii. And yet farther, the more to express the workings and longings of his heart after them all that while, he tells them it shall not be long neither ere he doth come again to them. So John xvi. 16, * Again a little while and ye shall see me ; a little while and ye shall not see me, says he. Which not seeing him refers not to that small space of absence whilst dead and in the grave, but of that after his last ascending, forty days after his resurrection, when he should go away, not to be seen on earth again until the day of judgment ; and yet from that ascension but a little while, says he, you shall see me again, namely, at the day of judgment. It is said, Heb.

Yet a little while, and he that shall com3 will come, and will not x. 37, tarry. The words in the Greek are, In yag fAizgfa offov OGOV, o egypfievog i As little little as maybe. Though long for the time in itself, yet as little while as may be in respect of his desire, without the least delaying to come. He will stay not a moment longer, than till he hath despatched all our business there for us. And then the doubling of the phrase, 6 Igd/Agwj #2*, veniens veniet, Coming he will come, implies vehemency of desire to come, and that his mind is always upon it, he is still a-coming, he can hardly be kept away. Thus the Hebrew phrase likewise signifies an urgency, vehemency, and intenseness of some act, as expecting I have expected, desiring I have desired, so coming he will come. And as not content with these expressions of desire, he adds over and above all these, and will not tarry ; and all to signify the infinite ardency of his mind towards his elect below, and to have all his elect in heaven about him. He will not stay a minute longer than needs must, he tarries only till he hath throughout ages by his intercession prepared every room for each saint, that he may entertain them all at once together, and have them all about him.

PAKT I.] UNTO SINNEKS ON EAKTH. 101 (8.) Thirdly, what his heart would be towards them in his absence he expresseth by the careful provision he makes, and the order he takes for their comfort in his absence, John xvi. 18, I will not leave you as orphans (so the word is), I will not leave you like fatherless and friend less children, at sixes and sevens. My Father and I have but only one friend, who lies in the bosom of us both, and proceedeth from us both, the Holy Ghost, and in the mean time I will send him to you, doing herein as a loving husband useth to do in his absence, even commit his wife to the dearest friend he hath ; so doth Christ, ver. 16, I will pray the Father, says he, and he shall give you another Comforter. And chap, * I will send him to you. Who, xvi. 7, he saith, First, shall be a better Comforter unto you than I am to be in this kind of dispensation, which whilst I am on earth I am bound up towards you

It is expedient, says in. So in that 16th of John ver. 7 he intimates, he, that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come, who, by reason of his office, will comfort you better than I should do with my bodily presence. And this Spirit, as he is the earnest of heaven, as the apostle speaks, so he is the greatest token and pledge of Christ s love that ever was, and such a one as the world cannot receive. And yet, Secondly, all the comfort he shall speak to you all that while will be but from the expression of my heart towards you ; for as he comes not of him

he will speak nothing of him self, but I must send him, John xvi. 7, so self, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, ver. 13. And ver. 14 he says, He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. Him, therefore, I shall send on purpose to be in my room, and to execute my place to you, my bride, spouse, and he shall tell you, if you will listen to him, and not grieve him, nothing but stories of my love. So it is there, He shall glorify me, namely, to you ; for I am in myself already glorified in heaven. All his speech in your hearts will be to advance me, and to greaten my worth and love unto you, and it will be his delight to do it. And he can come from heaven in an instant when he will, and bring you fresh tidings of my mind, and tell you the thoughts I last had of you, even at that very minute when I am thinking of them, what they are at the very time wherein he tells you them. And therefore in that 1 Cor. ii., by having the Spirit, ver. 12, we are said to * have the mind of Christ, ver. 16 ; for he dwelleth in Christ s heart, and also ours, and lifts up from one hand to the other what Christ s thoughts are to us, and what our prayers and faith are to Christ. So that you shall have my heart as surely and as speedily as if I were with you ; and he will continually be breaking your hearts, either with my love to you, or yours to me, or both ; and if either, you may be sure of my love thereby. And whereas, says he, you have the Spirit now in your hearts, so, ver. 17 of chap, xiv., he now dwells in you; yet after my ascension he shall be, in a further measure, in you, as it follows there. And at that day, ver. 20, you shall know (namely, by his dictate) that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He will tell you, when I am in heaven, that there is as true a conjunction between me and you, and as true a dearness of affection in me towards you, as is between my Father and me, and that it is as impossible to break this knot, and to take off my heart from you, as my Father s from me, or mine from my Father. And then, Thirdly, you shall be sure that what he says of my love to you is true, for he is the Spirit of truth, chap xvi. ver. 13, as also chap. xiv. ver. 16, 7, which Christ speaks of him as he is a Comforter. And as you believe

102 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART I. me when I tell you of my Father, because I come from him, so you may believe him in all that he says of me and of my love to you, for he comes from me.

Aye, but might they say, Will not he also leave us for a time, as you have done ? No, says Christ, chap. xiv. 16, The Father shall give you another

Comforter, and he shall abide with you for ever. Christ speaks it in opposition to himself. He himself had been a comforter unto them, but he was now to be absent ; but not so the Spirit. He shall be with you for ever ; and as he is now with you, so he shall be in you, ver. 17. In the fourth place, if this be not enough to assure them how his heart would be affected towards them, he assures them he will give them daily ex perience of it. Do but try me, says he, when I am gone, and that by sending me word upon all occasions what you would have me to do for you, and I have left my Spirit to be your secretary and the inditer of all your peti tions. Hitherto you have asked nothing (that is, little) in my name - he blames them that they have asked him no more to do for them but now ask, and you shall receive. And if otherwise you will not believe, yet you shall believe your own eyes ; ask, and you shall see yourselves answered presently. Believe, and so believe me, says he, * for the works sake, John xiv. 11. He speaks it of the works he would do for them in answer to their prayers when he was gone, which should be as so many epistles of his heart returned in answer unto theirs ; for it follows, ver. 12, He that believeth on me shall do greater works than I, because I go to my Father, so that it is manifest he speaks of the works done after his ascension. And how were they to get and procure them to be done ? By prayer ; so it follows, ver. 13, And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do. He speaks it of the time when he is gone. And again he says in ver. 14, If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. Let me but hear from you, be it every week, every day, every hour, you shall be sure of an answer.

Open your mouths wide, and I will fill them. And those your prayers shall be as continual tokens both of your hearts towards me, and my answers shall be the like of mine to you. And because Christ bids them direct (their letters) their pikers, to the Father, only to send them in his name, as John xvi. 23, and so they might perhaps not so clearly know and discern that his heart was in the answer to them, but * I will do it, I will do it. He speaks like one as forward to do for them, as his Father is, or should be, and as desirous to have them know and take notice of his hand in it. And it is as if he had said, Though you ask the Father his Father s hand only, therefore he adds twice in the 14th of John, in my name, yet all comes through my hands, and I will do it ; there must be my hand to the warrant for everything that is done, and my heart shall not be wanting.

In the fifth place, yet further to evidence his love, he not only bids them thus pray to him and in his name upon all occasions, but he assureth them that he himself will pray for them. And observe but the manner of his telling them this ; it is in the most insinuating, persuasive expressions to convey his heart into them that men use to utter when they would inti mate the deepest care and purpose to do a thing. Chap. xvi. 26, At that day (namely, after his ascension) ye shall ask, &c., says he, and say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you ; no, not I. mentioned it afore ; I will but add this illustration to it. It is such speech as men use when they would express the greatest reason th* another hath to rest confident and assured of their love, I do no t love

PAKT L] UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH. 103 you, no, not I. It is an expressing a thing by its contrary, which is most emphatical. As when we say of a man that hath the greatest good turn done him that can be, You are shrewdly hurt. It is such an ex pression as Paul used to the Corinthians, I converted your souls when you thought not of it ; I caught you with guile ; forgive me this wrong. So says Christ here, * I say not that I will pray for you, when the truth is, that it is the chiefest work that he doth in heaven. He lives ever to intercede ; as he ever lives, so to intercede ever, and never to hold his peace till sinners are saved. But the work of Christ in heaven is a subject deserves and will take up a distinct and large discourse ; I will therefore speak no more of it now, neither will I mention any more par ticulars out of this his sermon. Read but over those three chapters (the 14th, 15th, and 16th), for in them you have the longest sermon of his that is recorded ; and he stood the longest upon this theme of any other, because, indeed, his heart was more in it than in any point that he ever preached on.

Only, if any object and say, He spake all this to his disciples to quiet and pacify them, and so, more in respect to their trouble, than otherwise he would have spoken.

In the sixth place, read but the next chapter (the 17th), and you shall see that he presently goes apart and alone to his Father, and speaks over all again unto him that which he had said unto them. He says as much behind their backs of them as he had said before their faces to them. Read it, and you will find that he was the same absent that present with them. He was, therefore, not only hearty in what he had said, but his heart was full of it. That chapter, you know, contains a prayer put up just before his suffer ing, and there he makes his will and his last request, for in such a style it runs, Father, I will, ver. 24, which will he is gone to see executed in heaven. And Arminius said true in that, that this prayer is left us by Christ as a summary of his intercession for us in heaven. He spake as he meant to do in heaven, and as one that had done his work, and was now come to demand his wages ; I have finished thy work, &c., says he, ver. 4. And whereas he speaks a word or two for himself (in the first five verses), he speaks five times as many for them, for all the rest of the chapter is a prayer for them. He useth all kind of argu ments to move his Father for his children.

I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, says he, and to save them is thy work, which remains to be done for me by thee ; and * they are thine, and thou gavest them me, and I commend to thee but thine own. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine. He insinuates that he of himself had not added a man, but useth all his interest only for those that the Father had given him. And what a motive is this ? And he professeth he will not * I pray not for the world, says he, I open his mouth for a man more : will not open my lips for any one son of perdition ; but I employ all my blood, my prayers, and my whole interest with thee but for those thy self hast given me. And, says he, though thou hast given me a per sonal glory, which I had before the world was, yet there is another glory which I account of almost as much, and that is, in their being saved.

* I am glorified in them, says he, ver. 10, and they are my joy, ver.

13, and therefore I must have them with me wherever I am, ver. 24. Thou hast set my heart upon them, and hast loved them thyself as thou hast loved me, and thou hast ordained them to be one in us, even as we are one, and therefore I cannot live long asunder from them ; I havethy

104 THE HEAET OF CHEIST IN HEAVEN [?AET I. company, but I must have theirs too ; I will that they be where I am, ver. 24. If I have any glory, they must have part of it. So it follows in the fore-named verse, That they may behold the glory which thou hast given me. He speaks all this as if he had been then in heaven, and in possession of all that glory ; and, therefore, it is an expression of his heart in heaven, which you have very good ground to build upon.

Demonstrations from passages and expressions after his resurrection.

II. These demonstrations have been taken from his carriage and sermon before IT S death, even at his first breaking of his mind unto his disciples concerning his departure from them. Let us now take a view of our Saviour in his behaviour after his resurrection ; whence a further indicium of his heart, how it would stand towards sinners when he should be in heaven, may be taken, and his love demonstrated. For his resurrection was the first step unto his glory, and indeed an entrance into it ; when he laid down his body, he laid down all earthly weakness, and passions of flesh and blood.

It was sown, as ours is, in weakness ; but with raising of it up again, he took on him the dispositions and qualifications of an immortal and glorious body, it was raised in power. And the days of his flesh, or frail estate, as the author to the Hebrews by way of distinction speaks, were past and over at his resurrection ; and the garment of his body was new dyed, and endowed with new qualities ; and thereby it was made of a stuff fit to bear and sustain heaven s glory ; and therefore, what now hia heart upon his first rising shall appear to be towards us, will be a certain demonstration, what it will continue to be in heaven. And to illustrate this the more, consider, that if ever there were a trial taken, whether his love to sinners would continue or no, it was then at his resurrection ; for all his disciples (especially Peter) had carried themselves the most unworthily towards him in that interim that could be ; and this then when he was performing the greatest act of love towards them, namely, dying for them, that ever was shewn by any. And by the way, so God often orders it, that when he is in hand with the greatest mercies for us, and bringing about our greatest good, then we are most of all sinning against him ; which he doth, to magnify his love the more. You know how they all forsook him, and in the midst of his agony in the garden, in which he desired their company, merely for a relief unto his sadded spirit, they slept, and lay like so many blocks, utterly senseless of his dolours, which had they any friendly sympathy of, they could never have done ; Could you not watch with me one hour ? Then you know how foully Peter denied him with oaths and curses ; and after that, when he was laid in the grave, they are giving up

We trusted it should have been he, say two of them, all their faith in him ; * that should have redeemed Israel. They question whether he was the Messiah or no, Luke xxiv. 21. Now when Christ came first out of the other world, from the dead, clothed with that heart and body which he was to wear in heaven, what message sends he first to them ? We would all think, that as they would not know him in his sufferings, so he would now be as strange to them in his glory ; or at least, his first words shall be to rate them for their faithlessness and falsehood. But here is no such matter ; for John xx. 17, his first word concerning them is, Go tell my brethren, &c. You read elsewhere, how that it is made a great point of love and condescending in Christ so to entitle them ; Heb. ii. 11, He is not ashamed

to call them brethren ; surely his brethren had been ashamed of him. Now for him to call them so when he was first entering into his glory, argues the more love in him towards them. He carries it as Joseph did in the height of his advancement, when he first brake his mind to his brethren ; I am Joseph your brother, says he, Gen xlv. 4. So Christ says here, Tell them you have seen Jesus their brother ; I own them as brethren still. This was his first compellation ; but what was the message that he would first have delivered unto them ? That I, says he, ascend to my Father, and your Father. A more friendly speech by far, and arguing infinite more love than that of Joseph s did (though that was full of bowels), for Joseph after he had told them he was their brother, adds, whom you sold into Egypt ; he minds them of their unkindness ; but not so Christ, not a word of that, he minds them not of what they had done against him. Poor sinners, who are full of the thoughts of their own sins, know not how they shall be able at the latter day to look Christ in the face when they sliall first meet with him. But they may relieve their spirits against their care and fear, by Christ s carriage now towards his disciples, who had so ginned against him. Be not afraid, your sins will he remember no more. Yea further, you may observe, that he minds them, not so much of what he had been doing for them. He says not, Tell them I have been dying for them, or, that they little think what I have suffered for them ; not a word of that neither ; but still his heart and his care is upon doing more : he looks not backward to what is passed, but forgets his sufferings, as a woman her travail, for joy that a man-child is born. Having now des patched that great work on earth for them, he hastens to heaven as fast as he can to do another. And though he knew he had business yet to do upon earth, that would hold him forty days longer, yet to shew that his heart was longing, and eagerly desirous to be at work for them in heaven, he speaks in the present tense, and tells them, I ascend ; and he expresseth his joy to be, not only that he goes to his Father, but also that he goes to their Father, to be an advocate with him for them, of which I spake afore. And is indeed Jesus our brother alive ? And doth he call us brethren ? And doth he talk thus lovingly of us ? Whose heart would not this overcome ?

But this was but a message sent his disciples, before he met them ; let us next observe his carriage and speech at his meeting together. When he came first amongst them, this was his salutation, Peace be to you, ver.

19, which he reiterates, ver. 21 ; and it is all one with that former speech of his used in that his parting sermon, My peace I leave with you. After this he breathes on them, and conveys the Holy Ghost in a further measure into them, so to give an evidence of what he would do yet more plentifully in heaven ; and the mystery of that his breathing on them was to shew that this was the utmost expression of his heart, to give them the Spirit, and that it came from the very bottom of it (as a man s breath doth), as well as that the Holy Ghost proceeds from him, as well as from the Father, which was also the meaning of it. And to what end doth he give them the Spirit ? Not for themselves alone, but that they by the gift and assistance of that Spirit might forgive men s sins by converting them to him. Whose sins soever ye remit, namely, by your ministry, they are remitted to them. His mind, you see, is still upon sinners, and his care for the conversion of their souls. And therefore in another evangelist, namely, Mark, his List words recorded are these : Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel unto every creature ; and he that believeth shall be saved, &c., chap. xvi. 15.

106 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART I.

And in Luke, chap. xxiv. ver. 46, 47, his last words on earth there recorded are, * Thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise, . . . that repentance and remission of sins should be preached among all nations, and adds, beginning at Jerusalem, where he had been but a few days before crucified. Of all places, one would have thought he would have excepted that, and have charged them to pass by it ; but he bids them begin there. Let them have the first-fruit and benefit by my death, that were the * Behold I send you the pro mise of my Father, &c., ver. 49. Another time he appears to two of them, and then indeed he rates them, saying, actors in it. And, to that end, he also says, * ye fools, and slow of heart ! but for what is it, but only because they would not believe on him ; for no other sin, not for that they had forsaken him; so it follows, .0 ye fools, and slow of heart to believe, &c., Luke xxiv. 25, and this because he is glad when we believe, as John xi. 16. And after that he appears to all the eleven, and upbraids them, the text says, but with what ? With their * unbelief and hardness of heart ; still because they believed not, so ver.

14. No sin of theirs troubled him but their unbelief. Which shews how his heart stands, in that he desires nothing more than to have men believe in him ; and this now when glorified. Afterwards he meets with Thomas, and scarce chides him for his gross unbelief, only tells him, it was well that, having seen, he believed ; but pronounceth them more blessed, who though they have not seen, yet believe ; and so he is reproved, John xx.

29. Another time he shews himself to his disciples, and particularly deals with Peter, but yet tells him not a word of his sins, nor of his forsaking of him, but only goes about to draw from him a testimony of his love to him

* Peter (says he),

lovest thou me ? Christ loves to hear that note ; self ; full well do those words sound in his ears, when you tell him you love him, though he knows it already ; as Peter tells him, Thou knowest all things, thou knowest I love thee, John xxi. 15, and this Christ puts him thrice upon. And what was Christ s aim in drawing this acknowledgment of love from Peter to him, that if he loved him as he professed, and would ever shew it, then to * feed his lambs ? This is the great testimony that he would have Peter to shew his love in, when he should be in heaven ; and this is the last charge he gives him. Which, how great a testimony

7 is it, to shew how his own heart was affected, and what his greatest care was upon ! His heart runs altogether upon his lambs, upon souls to be converted. He had said afore, Sheep I have, John x. 6, which are not of this fold, them I must bring in ; and he left his apostles to do it ; but this here was a more moving and affectionate expression, for sheep can shift for themselves, but poor little lambs cannot. Therefore Christ says unto Peter, Feed my lambs ; even as John, to express the more love unto those he writes to, calls them my little children. And to what end doth the evangelist record these things of him after his resurrection ? One of the evangelists that recorded them informs us. In the 20th of John ver. 30, it is said, that Jesus did many other signs, namely, after his resurrection ; for in the midst of the story of those things done after his resurrection he speaks it, which are not written in this book, but partly recorded by other evangelists, and partly concealed ; but these things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is, that so you might come to him as to the Messiah, the Saviour of the world ; and therefore, the most of the things recorded tend to shew Christ s heart and carriage towards sinners, that so we might believe on him, and that believing we might have life through his name.

PART I.J UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH. 1 07

Demonstrations from passages at and after his ascension into heaven.

III. Let us view him next in his very ascending: his carriage then also will further assure our hearts of this. Luke xxvi. 50, it is said, He lifted up his hands and blessed them ; and to put the greater emphasis upon it, and that we might the more observe it, as having some great mystery in it, ver. 51, it is added, And whilst he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. This benediction Christ reserved to be his last act ; and what was the meaning of it, but (as I have before shewn) to bless them, as God blessed Adam and Eve, bidding them increase and multiply, and so blessing all mankind that were to come of them. Thus doth Christ, in blessing his disciples, bless all those that shall believe through their word unto the end of the world. I only add this to the illustration of it; this mystery is interpreted by Peter, Acts iii. 26, when, speaking to the Jews, he says, Unto you first, God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, (and how ?) in turning away every one of you from his iniquities, and so forgiving of them ; for blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven. Thus at his ascending.

IV. In the next place, let us consider what Christ did when he was come to heaven and exalted there : how abundantly did he there make good all that he had promised in his last sermon !

For, first, he instantly poured out his Spirit, and that richly (as the apostle to Titus speaks), and he being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which you now see and hear, says the apostle in his first sermon after, Acts ii. 33. He then received it, and visibly poured him out. So Eph. iv. 8, it is said, He ascended up on high,, and gave gifts unto men ... for the work of the ministry (ver. 15), and for the jointing in of the saints to the increase of the body of Christ (ver. 16), that is, for the converting of elect sinners, and making them saints. And the gifts there mentioned (some of them) remain unto this day, in pastors and teachers, &c. And this Spirit is still in our preaching and in your hearts, in hearing, in praying, &c., and persuades you of Christ s love to this very day; and is in all these the pledge of the continuance of Christ s love still in heaven unto sinners. All our sermons and your prayers are evidences to you, that Christ s heart is still the same towards sinners that ever it was, for the Spirit that assists in all these comes in ;his name, and in his stead, and works all by commission from him. And do none of you feel your hearts moved in the preaching of these things, at this and other times ? And who is it that moves you ? It is the Spirit who speaks in Christ s name from heaven, even as himself is said to speak from heaven, Heb. xii. 25. And when you pray, it is the Spirit that indites your prayers, and that makes intercession for you in your own hearts, Horn. viii. 26, which intercession of his is but the evidence and echo of Christ s intercession in heaven. The Spirit prays in you, because Christ prays for you. He is an intercessor on earth, because Christ is an intercessor in heaven. As he did take off Christ s words, and used the same that he before had uttered, when he spake in and to the disciples the words of life, so he takes off Christ s prayers also when he prays in us ; he takes but the words as it were out of Christ s mouth, or heart rather, and directs our hearts to offer them up to God. He also follows us to the sacrament, and in that glass shews us

108 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART I.

Christ s face smiling on us, and through his face his heart ; and thus help ing of us to a sight of him, we go away rejoicing that we saw our Saviour that day.

Then, secondly, all those works, both of miracles and conversion of sinners, in answer to the apostles prayers, are a demonstration of this. What a handful had Peter s first sermon after Christ s ascension, when three thousand souls were converted by it ! The apostles (you know) went on to preach forgiveness through Christ, and in his name, and to invite men to him ; and what signs and wonders did accompany them, to confirm that ! And all were the fruits of Christ s intercession in heaven. So that what he promised (John xiv 12), as an evidence of his minding them in heaven, was abundantly fulfilled. They upon their asking did their preaching greater works than he ; so Acts iv. 29, 80, at the prayers of Peter. And Heb. ii. 3, 4. the apostle makes an argument of it, How shall we escape, says he, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wondersf and with divers miracles ? &c. Yea, let me add this, that take also the New Testa ment, and all the promises in it, and expressions of Christ s love, it was written all since Christ s being in heaven, by his Spirit, and that by com mission from Christ, and therefore all that you find therein you may build on as his very heart ; and therein see, that what he once said on earth, he repealeth not a word now he is in heaven, his mind continues the same. And the consideration hereof may add a great confirmation to our faith herein.

Thirdly, Some of the apostles spake with him since, even many years after his ascension. Thus John and Paul, of which the last was in heaven with him, and they both do give out the same thing of him. Paul heard not one sermon of Christ s (that he knew of) whilst on earth, and received the gospel from no man, apostle or other, but by the immediate revelation of Jesus Christ from heaven, as he speaks, Gal. i. 11, 12. But he was converted by Christ himself from heaven, by immediate speech and con ference of Christ himself with him, and this long after his ascension. And in that one instance Christ abundantly shewed his heart and purpose to continue to all sorts of sinners to the end of the world. Thus in two places that great apostle telleth us; the first is, 1 Tim. i. 1.8, I was a persecutor, a blasphemer, says he, but I obtained mercy, and the grace of our Lord, namely, Jesus Christ, was exceeding abundant ; and upon this he declares with open mouth, as it were, from Christ s own self, who spake to him from heaven, that this is the faithfullest saying that ever was uttered, that Christ came into the world to save sinners, whereof I am chief, says he, ver. 15. And to testify that this was the very scope of Christ in thus converting of Paul himself, and Paul s scope also in that place to Timothy, to shew so much, appears by what follows, ver. 16, For this cause I obtained this mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to all them that should hereafter believe on him unto life ever lasting. It is express, you see, to assure all sinners, unto the end of the world, of Christ s heart towards them. This was his drift. For this very cause, says Paul. The second place I allege in proof of this, is the story of Paul s conver sion, where he diligently inserts the very words that Christ spake to him from heaven (Acts xxvi. 16), which were these, I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, ... to send thee

to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me. Brethren, these are Christ s words since he went to heaven, and he tells Paul he appeared unto him to testify thus much. Thus for Paul s conference with him.

Then again, sixty years after his ascension, did the apostle John receive a revelation from him, even when all the apostles were dead, for after all their deaths was that book written, and the Revelation is said to be in a more immediate manner the revelation of Jesus Christ (so chap. i. ver. 1), than any other of the apostles writings ; and you read that Christ made an apparition of himself to him, and said, I am he that was dead, and am alive for evermore, chap. i. ver. 18. Now let us but consider

Christ s last words, in that his last book, the last that Christ hath spoken since he went to heaven, or that he is to utter till the day of judgment ; you have them in the last chapter, ver. 16, * I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David. . . . And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. They are the latter words I cite this place for. The occasion of these words was this : Christ was now in heaven, and had before promised to come again, and fetch us all to heaven. And in the mean time, mark what an echoing and answering of hearts and of desires there is mutually, between him from heaven and believing sinners from below. Earth calls upon heaven, and heaven calls upon earth, as the prophet speaks. The bride from earth says unto Christ, Come to me ; and the Spirit in the saints hearts below says Come unto him also; and Christ cries out as loud from heaven, Come, in answer unto this desire in them ; so that heaven and earth ring

Let him that is athirst come to me ; and let him that will again of it. come, come, and take of the waters of life freely. This is Christ speech unto men on earth. They call him to come unto earth, to judgment ; and he calls sinners to come up to heaven unto him for mercy. They cannot desire his coming to them, so much as he desires their coming to him. Now what is the meaning of this, that upon their calling upon him to come, he should thus call upon them to come ? It is in effect as if he had plainly uttered himself thus: I have a heart to come to you, but I must have all you my elect that are to be on earth, come to me first. You would have me come down to you, but I must stay here till all that the Father hath given me be come to me ; and then you shall be sure quickly to have me with you. Hereby expressing how much his heart now longs after them. This to be his meaning is evident by the words which he adds, ver. 20, 1 He which testifies these things, namely, Christ, * says, Surely I come quickly. And if we observe how much by the by, as it were, these words of Christ s do come in, it makes them the more remarkable to shew his heart in uttering them. This book was intended merely as a prophecy of the times of the gospel until his coming ; unto which period of it, when John had brought that prophetic story, he brings in the bride longing for * The bride says, Come. And no sooner says she so, but Christ by way of retortion doth likewise say Come unto her also ; that coming of Christ, yea, it puts the more observation upon it, that he had uttered the same words before, Rev. xxi. 6, but notwithstanding he will repeat them again, and have them to be his last words. All which shews how much his heart

110 THE HEAKT OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART I. was in this part of the gospel, to invite sinners to him ; that now when he is to speak but one sentence more, till we hear the sound to judgment, he. should especially make choice of these words. Let them therefore for ever stick with you, as being worthy to be your last thoughts when you come to die, and when you are a-going to him. He speaks indeed something else after them ; but that which he says afterwards is but to set a seal unto these words, and to the rest of the Scriptures, -whereof this is the chief. And further to shew that these words were singled out to be his last, and that he meant to speak no more till the day of judgment, therefore also he adds a curse to him, who should * add to them, or take from them. He adds indeed after that another speech, but it is only to ingeminate his will ingness to come quickly, were all his elect but once come in to him, so ver. 20. And all this tends to assure us that this is his heart, and we shall find him of no other mind until his coming again.

And that you may yet the more consider them as thus purposely brought in by him as his last words, to make them stick with us, let me add another observation about them, and that is this, that at another time when he was upon earth, he in like manner singled out these very words (I mean the matter of them) as the conclusion of many days preaching. Thus John

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. These words were vii. 37, * last day of the feast, after which he was to preach no more spoken on the at that time, and for a good while after, unto them; and he had preached upon all the former days of that feast, as his manner was ; and it was great day of the feast, when he had the greatest audience ; and you see he chooseth this for his last sentence of that his last sermon then ; and when he would give them something at parting, as a viaticum, which he would have them carry home with them to feed upon above all the rest, these are * If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink ; which him his words, self interprets to be believing on him, ver. 38, and he stands up to speak this ; yea, he cries, says the text, with open mouth, with utmost vehemency, to the intent that all might hear this above all sayings else. And thus in like manner, at this time also, when he is to speak no more, but to hold his tongue for ever till the day of judgment, nor is to write any more

Scriptures, he then sends his angel to testify these to be his last words ; and this although he had spoken them before. It was therefore assuredly done to shew his heart in them. They were his last words then, and they shall be mine in the closure of this discourse, for what can there be added to them?

PART II.] UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH. Ill

PART II.

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. HEB. IV. 15.

THE only use I shall make of these words is, to be a foundation unto that second part of that head or point of doctrine into which I have made an entrance ; which was to demonstrate the gracious inclination and temper of Christ s heart toward sinners, now he is in heaven.

II. The extrinsical demonstrations of this, which I make the first part of it, are despatched. And for a groundwork to these more intrinsical demon strations, which make a second part, I have chosen this text, as that which above any other speaks his heart most, and sets out the frame and workings of it towards sinners ; and that so sensibly that it doth, as it were, take our hands, and lay them upon Christ s breast, and let us feel how his heart beats and his bowels yearn towards us, even now he is in glory the very scope of these words being manifestly to encourage believers against all that may discourage them, from the consideration of Christ s heart towards them now in heaven.

To open them, so far as they serve to my present purpose.

First, all that may any way discourage us he here calls by the name of infirmities, thereby meaning both

1. The evil of afflictions, of what sort soever, persecutions, &c., from without.

2. The evil of sins, which do most of all discourage us, from within. And that both these are meant,

1. That under * infirmities he means persecutions and afflictions is manifest ; not only in that the word is often used in that sense, as 2 Cor. xi. 80, and xii. 5, but also it is plain that the phrase is here so intended, for his scope is to comfort them against what would pull from them their profession, as that foregoing exhortation, Let us hold fast our profession, implies. Now that which attempted to pull it from them were their perse cutions and oppositions from without. It appears also because his argu ment here of comforting them against these infirmities, is drawn from Christ s example, In that he was in all things tempted as we are.

2. Yet secondly, by infirmities are meant sins also, for so in the pro cess of this discourse he useth the phrase, and makes them the main object of our high priest s pity ; for in the next words, chap. v. 2, shewing what the qualifications of the high priests under the law were, who were types of our great high priest, he makes this one suitable to this here mentioned, that he was to be one that * could have compassion on the ignorant, and those that were out of the way ; that is, upon sinners, for sins are those ignorances and goings astray from God ; and then adds, in that himself was clothed with infirmities, that is, with sins. And although it is said

112 THE HEAET OF CHKIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. here that Christ was without sin in all, yet he was tempted by Satan unto all sorts of sins, even as we are. And that by infirmities sins are mainly here intended, is yet more evident from the remedy propounded against them, which they are here encouraged to seek for at the throne of grace, namely, grace and mercy. Therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may find grace and mercy to help in time of need. So it follows in the next words. Grace to help against the power of sin, and mercy against the guilt and punishment of it ; both which are the greatest discouragers to come boldly to that throne ; and therefore he must needs intend those kinds of infirmities chiefly in this his encouragement and comfortory given.

Now, secondly, for a support against both these, he lets us understand how feelingly and sensibly affected the heart of Christ is to sinners under all these their infirmities, now he is in heaven, for of him advanced into heaven he here speaks, as appeareth by verse 14. And if the coherence with that verse be observed, we shall see that he brings in this narration of it setly, by way of preventing an objection which might otherwise arise in all men s thoughts from that high and glorious description which he had given of him in that 14th verse. We have a great high priest, who is passed into the heavens, &c. He knew we would be apt from this pre sently to think, he may be too great to be an high priest for us to transact our affairs ; and that this greatness *of his might cause him to forget us, or * being passed into the heavens, and so having cast off the frailties of his flesh which he had here, and having clothed his human nature with so great a glory, that if he did remember us, and take notice of our miseries, yet, therefore he cannot now pity us, as he did when he dwelt among us here below, nor be so feelingly affected and touched with our miseries, as to be tenderly moved to compassionate and commiserate us, so he is not now capable of a feeling of grief, and so not of a fellow-feeling or sympathizing with us ; his state and condition now is above all such affections, which affections notwithstanding are they that should put him upon helping us, heartily and cordially. And for him to be exposed to such affections as these, were a weakness, an infirmity in himself, which heaven hath cured him of. His power and glory is so great that he cannot be thus touched, even as the angels are not. And he is * advanced far above all principalities and powers, Eph. i. 15. This the apostle carefully pre-occupates ; and it is the very objection which he takes away. We have not a high priest who cannot, &c. Dup lex negatio ccquipollet affirmationi ; nay, two negatives do not only make an : they make an affirmation contradic affirmative, but affirm more strongly tory to a contrary and opposite thought. Now this speech of his is as much as if he should have said, Well, let heaven have made what alteration soever upon his condition, in glorifying his human nature, which be it never so free from fleshly passions, and instead of flesh be made like heaven, let him be never so incapable of impressions from below ; yet he retains one tender part and bare place in his heart still unarmed, as it were, even to suffer with you, and to be touched if you be. The word is a deep one, ffup Kotiqaou. He suffers with you, he is as tender in his bowels to you as ever he was ; that he might be moved to pity you, he is willing to sufler, as it were, one place to be left naked, and to be flesh still, on which he: may be wounded with your miseries, that so he might be your merciful

| high priest.

And whereas it may be objected, that_this were a weakness. The

PAKT II.] UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH

apostle affirms that this is his power, and a perfection and strength of love surely, in him, as the word dwapsvov importeth ; that is, that makes him thus able and powerful to take our miseries into his heart, though glorified, and so to be affected with them, as if he suffered with us, and so to relieve us, out of that principle out of which he would relieve himself.

There are two things which this text gives me occasion to take notice of, and apart to handle.

First, more generally/ that Christ s heart now in heaven is as graciously affected unto sinners as ever it was on earth.

And, secondly, more particularly, the manner how. Or thus :

1. That he is touched with a feeling, or sympathises with us, as the word is.

2. The way how this comes to pass ; even through his having been tempted in all things like unto us. In handling the first, I shall give those intrinsical demonstrations of it that remain ; and in handling the other, further open the text. To come therefore first to those intrinsical demon strations of this doctrine, which I engraft upon these words, and shoot naturally from them, namely, That the heart of Jesus Christ, now he is in heaven, is as graciously inclined to sinners as ever it was on earth.

The first sort of intrinsical demonstrations, drawn from the influence all the three Persons have for ever into the heart of the human nature of Christ in heaven.

I. The first sort of demonstrations shall be fetched from all the three

Persons, and their several influence they have into Christ s heart in heaven, to incline it towards us.

1. The first shall be taken from God his Father, who hath thus advanced him ; and it hath two parts: (1.) That God hath given a perpetual com mand to Christ to love sinners ; (2.) That therefore his heart continues the same for ever.

(1.) For the first, God the Father hath given Jesus Christ a special com mand to love sinners ; and hath withal implanted a merciful, gracious dis position in his heart toward them. This I mention to argue it, because it is that which Christ allegeth, John vi. 37, as the original ground of this disposition of his, not to cast out those that come to him. For it is my Father s will, says he in the following verses, that I should perform that which I came down from heaven for, verse 38. And this lies now still

his will also is, upon him, now he is in heaven, as much as ever ; for says he, verses 39, 40, that I should raise them up at the last day, so as it must needs continue the same till then. And compare with this the 10th of John, from verse 15 to 18, where, having discoursed before of his care and love to his sheep, to give his life for them, to know and own them, and to * bring them into the fold, &c., he concludes at verse 18, This commandment have I received from my Father. It is his will, says the 6th of John, and if a good son knows that a thing is his father s mind and will, it is enough to move him to do it ; much more if it be his express command. And in this 10th of John, he further says, that it is the command which he had received from the Father. A command, is a man s will peremptorily expressed ; so as there must be a breach, if it be not fulfilled : and such a command hath God given Christ concerning us. Out of both which places I observe three things to be the matter of this will and command of God s.

VOL. IV. H

114 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II., First, that Christ should die for his sheep ; in respect to which command, he continued so to love them whilst here, as to lay down his life for them ; so John x. 15 ; but then he took it up again, and is ascended into heaven.

Therefore, those other two things commanded him, do concern him when he is in glory; namely, to receive all that come to him, which is the second ; and the third, to look that he lose none of those for whom he

raise them up. And for these his Father s command lies as died, but to strictly on him, now he is in heaven, as for dying for them whilst he was on * This command have I received from my Father, and this is his will. And together with this command, God did put it into his heart, as where he commands he ever useth to do, such an instinct of transcendent love to wards them, as shall so strongly incline him to perform it, that he shall need no more commands. He hath put such a 6rogyr\, such an especial love into him, as he hath put into the hearts of parents towards their own children, more than to all other men s children which they see besides, earth. although more beautiful and more witty than their own. And both this commandment, and this inclination of love towards them, we have at once expressed, Ps. xl. 8, where, giving the reason why he became our Mediator and sacrificed himself, he not only says, I come to do thy will, God ; but also, * Thy law is in my bowels. In which speech, both these two are mentioned : [1.] That command I mentioned is there expressed, for it is called a law. And, [2.] It was a law wrought into suitable dispositions in his heart ; and, therefore, said to be a law in his heart or bowels. You may easily conceive what law it was by the subject of it, his bowels, which are still put for the most tender affections (Col. iii. 12, Bowels of mercy, kindness, &c.). It was no other than that law of love, mercy, and pity to poor sinners which God gave him in charge, as he was to be Mediator. It was that special law which lay on him as he was the second Adam, like that which was given to the first Adam, non concedendi, over and above the moral law, not to eat the forbidden fruit ; such a law was this he there speaks of. It was the law of his being a Mediator and a sacrifice, for of that he expressly speaks, verses 6, 7, over and besides the moral law, which was common to him with us. The word in the original, is, In the midst of my bowels, to shew it was deeply engraven ; it had its, seat in the centre, it sat nearest and was most inward in his heart.

Yea, and as that special law of not eating the forbidden fruit was to Adam pr&ceptum symbolicum, as divines call it, given over and besides all the ten, commandments, to be a trial, a sign or symbol, of his obedience to all the rest, such was this law given unto Christ, the second Adam, so as that God would judge of all his other obedience unto himself by this. Yea, it was laid on him with that earnestness by God, and so commended* by him, as that if ever Christ would have him to love him, he should be sure to love us. Thus in that place fore-cited, John x. 17, 18, Christ comforts himself with this in his obedience, * Therefore doth my Father love me. It is spoken in relation unto his fulfilling this his command formerly mentioned, and so withal imports, as if God should love Christ the better for the love he should shew to us, it pleased him so well to see Christ love us. And so it is as if God, when he gave Christ that commandment, ver. 18, had said, Son, as you would have my love continue towards you, let me see your love towards me shewn in being kind to these I have given you, whom I * Qu. commanded ? ED.

PABT II. J UNTO SINNEKS ON EAETH. 115 have loved with the same love wherewith I have loved you, as you have it, John xvii. 23. As God would have us shew love unto him by loving his children, so he would have Christ also shew his love towards him by loving of us.

(2.) Now, for the second branch of this demonstration, namely, that that love which Christ when on earth expressed to be in his heart, and which made him die for sinners upon this command of his Father, that it doth certainly continue in his heart still, now that he is in heaven, and that as quick and as tender as ever it was on earth, even as when he was on the cross, and that because of his Father s command. It is evidenced thus, for it being a law written in the midst of his bowels by his Father, it be comes natural to him, and so indelible, and, as other moral laws of God written in the heart are, perpetual. And as in us, when we shall be in | heaven, though faith shall fail and hope vanish, yet love shall continue, as j the apostle speaks ; so doth this love in Christ s heart continue also, and suffers no decay, and is shewn as much now in receiving sinners and inter ceding for them, and being pitiful unto them, as then in dying for them. And this love to sinners being so commanded and pressed upon him, as | was said, that as he would have his Father love him, he should love them, I and so being urged upon all that great love that is between him and his Father, this, as it must needs work and boil up a strong love in him unto sinners, so likewise the most constant and neverdecaying love that could be. And this is argued from the analogy of that principle upon which Christ urgeth us to love himself, John xv. 10. He moveth his disciples to keep the commandments he gave them, and useth this argument, For so shall you abide in my love, and backs it with his own instance, as I have kept my Father s commandments, and abide in his love. Now, therefore, this being the great commandment that God layeth on him, to love and die for, and to continue to love and receive, sinners that come to him, and raise them up at the latter day, certainly he continues to keep it most exactly, as being one of the great ties between him and his Father, BO to continue in his love to him. Therefore, so long as he continues in his Father s love, and, now he is in heaven and at his right hand, he must needs continue in highest favour with him, so long, you may be sure, he continues to observe this. And thus that he should continue still to love us, both love to his Father and love to himself obligeth him ; we may therefore be sure of him, that he both doth it and will do it for ever. what a comfort is it, that as children are mutual pledges and ties of love between man and wife, so that we should be made such between God the Father and the Son ! And this demonstration is taken from the influence of the first person of the Trinity, namely, from God the Father.

2. Then, secondly, this his love is not a forced love, which he strives only to bear towards us, because his Father hath commanded him to marry us ; but it is his nature, his disposition, which, added to the former, affords a second demonstration of the point in hand, and is drawn from God the Son. This disposition is free and natural to him ; he should not be God s Son else, nor take after his heavenly Father, unto whom it is natural to shew mercy, but not so to punish, which is his strange work, but mercy pleaseth him ; he is * the Father of mercies, he begets them naturally. Now, Christ is his own Son, "810$ vibg, as by way of distinction he is called, and his natural Son ; yea, his human nature being united to the second person, is thereby become the natural Son of God, not adopted, as we are. And if he be his natural Son in privileges, then also his Father s properties

116 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. are natural to him, more natural than to us, who are but his adopted sons. And if we, as the elect of God, who are but the adopted sons, are exhorted

put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, &c. (as Col. iii. 12), then much more must these dispositions needs be found in Christ, the natural Son ; and these, not put on by him, but be as natural to him as his Sonship is. God is love, as John says, and Christ is love covered over with flesh, yea, our flesh. And besides, it is certain that as God hath fashioned the hearts of all men, and some of the sons of men unto more mercy and pity naturally than others, and then the Holy

Spirit, coming on them to sanctify their natural dispositions, useth to work according to their tempers, even so it is certain that he tempered the heart of Christ, and made it of a softer mould and temper than the tenderness of all men s hearts put together into one, to soften it, would have been of. When he was to assume a human nature, he is brought in saying, body hast thou fitted me, Heb. x. ; that is, a human nature, fitted, as in other things, so in the temper of it, for the Godhead to work and shew his perfections in best. And as he took a human nature on purpose to be a merciful high priest, as Heb. ii. 14, so such a human nature, and of so special a temper and frame as might be more merciful than all men or angels. His human nature was made without hands ; that is, was not of the ordinary make that other men s hearts are of; though for the matter the same, }^et not for the frame of his spirit. It was a heart bespoke for on purpose to be made a vessel, or rather fountain, of mercy, wide and capable enough to be so extended as to take in and give forth to us again all God s manifestative mercies ; that is, all the mercies God intended to manifest to his elect. And therefore Christ s heart had naturally in the temper of it more pity than all men or angels have, as through which the mercies of the great God were to be dispensed unto us ; and this heart of his to be the instrument of them. And then this man, and the heart of this man so framed, being united to God, and being made the natural Son of God, how natural must mercy needs be unto him, and therefore con tinue in him now he is in heaven ! For though he laid down all infirmities of our nature when he rose again, yet no graces that were in him whilst he

was below ; they are in him now as much as ever ; and being his nature, j for nature we know is constant, therefore still remains. You may observe, j that when he was upon earth, minding to persuade sinners to have good thoughts of him, as he used that argument of his Father s command given j him ; so he also lays open his own disposition, Mat. xi. 28, Come to me, you that are weary and heavy laden, ... for I am meek and lowly of heart. Men are apt to have contrary conceits of Christ, but he tells them his dis position there, by preventing such hard thoughts of him, to allure them unto him the more. We are apt to think that he, being so holy, is there fore of a severe and sour disposition against sinners, and not able to bear them. No, says he ; I am meek, gentleness is my nature and temper. As it was of Moses, who was, as in other things, so in that grace, his type ; he was not revenged on Miriam and Aaron, but interceded for them. So, says Christ, injuries and unkindnesses do not so work upon me as to make] me irreconcilable, it is my nature to forgive: * I am meek. Yea, but (may; we think) he being the Son of God and heir of heaven, and especially being now filled with glory, and sitting at God s right hand, he may now despisej the lowliness of us here below ; though not out of anger, yet out of thai height of his greatness and distance that he is advanced unto, in that w are too mean for him to marry, or be familiar with. He surely hath higheij

PART II.] UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH

thoughts than to regard such poor, low things as we are. And so though indeed we conceive him meek, and not prejudiced with injuries, yet he may be too high and lofty to condescend so far as to regard, or take to heart, the condition of poor creatures. No, says Christ ; I am lowly also, willing to bestow my love and favour upon the poorest and meanest. And further, all this is not a semblance of such an affable disposition, nor is it externally put on in the face and outward carriage only, as in many great ones, that will seem gentle and courteous, but there is all this sv rfi xaodia, * in the heart ; it is his temper, his disposition, his nature to be gracious, which nature he can never lay aside. And that his greatness, when he comes to enjoy it in heaven, would not a whit alter his disposition in him, appears by this, that he at the very same time when he uttered these words, took into consideration all his glory to come, and utters both that and his meekness with the same breath. So ver. 27, All things are de livered to me by my Father ; and presently after all this he says, Come unto me, all you that are heavy laden I am meek and lowly, ver.

28, 29. Look, therefore, what lovely, sweet, and delightful thoughts you use to have of a dear friend, who is of an amiable nature, or of some eminently holy or meek saint, of whom you think with yourselves, I could put my soul into such a man s hands, and can compromise my salvation to him, as I have heard it spoken of some. Or look how we should have been encouraged to have dealt with Moses in matter of forgiveness, who was the meekest man on earth ; or treated with Joseph, by what we read of his bowels towards his brethren ; or what thoughts we have of the tender hearts of Paul or Timothy unto the souls of men in begetting, and hi nurturing, and bringing them up to life, Being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing (says Paul) to impart our own souls to you, 1 Thes. ii. 8 ; and this naturally, as his word is, Philip, ii. 20 ; even such and infinitely more raised apprehensions should we have of that sweetness and candour that is in Jesus Christ, as being much more natural to him.

And therefore the same apostle doth make Christ s bowels the pattern of his, God is my witness, how greatly I long after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ, Philip, i. 8. This phrase, in the bowels of Christ, hath, according to interpreters, two meanings, and both serve to illustrate that which I intend. First, in the bowels of Christ is taken causally, as if he meant to shew that those bowels or compassions were infused into him from Christ, and so longed after them with such kind of bowels as Christ had wrought in him ; and if so that Christ put such bowels into him, hath he not then in himselfmuch more ? Paul had reason to say, * in the bowels of Christ, for (in this sense) I am sure he once had scarce the heart and bowels of a man in him ; namely, when he was out of Christ, how furious and lion-like a spirit had he against the saints, and what havoc made he of them, being ready even to pull out their bowels ! And how came Paul by such tender bowels now towards them ? Who gave him now such tender affections ? Even Jesus Christ, it was he that of a lion made him a lamb. If therefore in Paul these bowels were not natural, but the contrary rather were natural to him, and yet they so abounded in him, and that naturally, as himself speaks, how much more must they needs abound in Christ, to whom they are native and inbred? Or else, secondly, in the bowels, is put for wwtor, like the bowels, or after the bowels, according to the analogy of the Hebrew phrase. And so then the meaning were this, like as the bowels of Jesus Christ do yearn after you, so do mine. Bowels are a

118 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. metaphor to signify tender and motherly affections and mercies. So Luke i. 78, through the tender mercies. In the original it is the bowels of mercy. Thus Paul, when he would signify how tender his affections were, he instances in the bowels of Jesus Christ (he making Christ his * Be ye followers of me, as I am of Christ ). Now, how desirous was this great apostle to beget men to Christ ! He cared not what else he lost, so he might win some. He counted not his life dear, pattern in this in all, * wished himself accursed for his brethren, who yet were the greatest enemies Christ then had on earth. How glad was he when any soul came in ! How sorry when any fell off ! Falling nay, not his salvation dear, but * into a new travail (he knew not how better to express the anxiety of his spirit for the Galatians), till Christ was formed in them. How comforted was he when he heard tidings of the constancy and increase of any of their faith ! 1 Thes. iii. 6, 7 ; and ver. 8 he says, for now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord. Read all his epistles, and take the character of his spirit this way ; and when you have done, look up to Christ s human nature in heaven, and think with yourselves, * Such a man is Christ. Paul warbles out in all these strains of affections but the soundings of Christ s bowels in heaven, in a lower key. They are natural to Christ, they all and infinite more are eminent in him. And this is the second demonstration, taken from his own natural disposition as Son of God.

8. A third demonstration shall be taken from the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost. If the same Spirit that was upon him, and in him, when he was on earth, doth but still rest upon him now he is in heaven, then these dispositions must needs still entirely remain in him. This demonstration is made up of two propositions put together: (1.) That the Holy Ghost dwelling in him concurs to make his heart thus gra ciously affected to sinners; and (2.) That the same Spirit dwells and con tinues in and upon him for ever in heaven.

(1.) For the first : It was the Spirit who overshadowed his mother, and, in the meanwhile, knit that indissoluble knot between our nature and the second person, and that also knit his heart unto us. It was the Spirit who sanctified him in the womb. It was the Spirit that rested on him above measure, and fitted him with a meek spirit for the works of his mediation ; and indeed for this very grace sake of meekness did the Spirit come more especially upon him. Therefore, when he was first solemnly inaugurated into that office, at his baptism (for then he visibly and -professedly entered upon the execution of it), the Holy Ghost descended upon him ; and how ? i As a dove ; so all the evangelists jointly report it. But why in the shape of a dove ? All apparitions that God at any time made of himself, were not so much to shew what God is in himself, as how he is affected towards us, and declare what effects he works in us. So here, this shape of a dove resting upon him was to shew those special gracious dispositions wherewith the Holy Ghost fitted Jesus Christ to be a Mediator. A dove, you know, is the most innocent and most meek creature, without gall, without talons, j having no fierceness in it, expressing nothing but love and friendship to its! mate in all its carriages, and mourning over it in its distresses ; and was, therefore a fit emblem to express what a frame and temper of spirit the.

Holy Ghost did upon this his descending on him, fill the heart of Christ with, and this without measure, that as sweetly as doves do converse wrtk; doves, sympathising and mourning each over other, so may we with Christ for he thus sympathised with us. And though he had the Spirit before yet now he was anointed with him, in respect of such effects as these, whictj

PART II. J UNTO SINNERS ON EAETH. 119 appertained to the execution of his office, with a larger measure and more eminently than before. Therefore the evangelist Luke notes upon it (chap, iv. 1), Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan. And Peter also puts the like gloss upon it, as appears, Acts x. 87, for speaking there of the baptism of John, he shews how after that his being baptized, he began to preach, and how God having anointed him with the Holy Ghost, namely, at that baptism of his, he went about doing good, &c. And that this was the principal thing signified by this descending of the Holy Ghost as a dove upon him, even chiefly to note out his meekness, and sympathising heart with sinners, wrought in him by the Holy Ghost, is evident by two places, where Christ himself puts that very intendment on it.

The first presently after, in the first sermon that he preached after that his having received the Holy Ghost (in the same 4th of Luke), where first it is noted, ver. 1, that he returned from being baptized, full of the Spirit, and so was led to be tempted ; then, ver. 14, it is said that he returned from being tempted, * in the power of that Spirit, and after this is explained by himself, the mystery of his having received the Spirit in the likeness of a dove, and this is the subject matter of the first text which he opened in his first sermon, singled out by him on purpose, by choice, not chance, out of Isaiah, which he read to them (ver. 18), The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, that is, in spirit, the afflicted in conscience for sin ; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, &c. And when he had read so much as concerned the expressing the compassionate disposi tion of his Spirit unto sinners, whose misery he sets down by all sorts of outward evils, then he reads no further, but closeth the book, as intimating that these were the main effects of that his receiving the Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; that is, for this end, or for this very purpose hath he given me his Spirit, because I was designed or anointed to this work, and by that Spirit also hath he anointed or qualified me with these gifts and dispositions suitable to that work.

Another place that makes the fruit and end of his receiving the Spirit then at his baptism, to be these tender dispositions unto sinners, is that in Mat. xii. 18, 19, &c., out of another place in Isaiah, Behold my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased ; I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgments to the Gentiles, &c. That seems to be a terrible word, but be not afraid of it, for by judgment is meant even the doctrine of free grace and of the gospel, that changeth and reforms men. As in like manner (according to the Hebrew phrase), in ver. 20, by judgment is meant the work of God s grace on men s hearts, when he says, He will send forth judgment unto victory, the work of grace being the counterpart of the doctrine of grace. And in preaching this doctrine (which in itself is good tidings) the prophet shews how he should carry it with a spirit, answer able and suitable thereunto, even full of all meekness, stillness, calmness, and modesty, which he expresseth by proverbial speeches usual in those times, to express so much by, He shall not strive, nor cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets, that is, he shall deal with all still ness and meekness, without violence or boisterousness. John had the voice of a crier, he was a man of a severe spiritj; but Christ came piping and dancing, all melodious sweetness was in his ministry and spirit ; and, in the course of his ministry, he went so tenderly to work, he was so heedful

120 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. to broken souls, and had such regard to their discouragements, that it is said he would not break a bruised reed, that is, he would set his steps with such heed as not to tread on a reed that was broken in the leaf ; or he would walk so lightly or softly, that if it lay in his way, though he went over it, yet he would not have further bruised it : nor quenched either by treading out

the smoking flax, which is easily done, or with any rushing motion have raised so much wind as to blow out a wick of a candle, as some translate it, smoking in the socket, which the least stirring of the air puffs out. All this is to express the tenderness of his heart ; and this, upon his receiving the Spirit, and especially from the time of his baptizing ; for * This is my beloved Son, in whom lam well pleased; and they are the same words also, which, together with God s giving him the Spirit, are joined in that 40th of then, you know, those words were together therewith uttered, Isaiah, whence these words are taken, so that he was filled with the Spirit, to that end to raise up in him such sweet affections towards sinners.

(2.) Now, for the second part that goes to make up this demonstration: it is as certain that the same Spirit that was upon Christ, and acted * his spirit here below, doth still abide upon him in heaven. It must never be said, the Spirit of the Lord is departed from him, who is the sender and bestower of the Holy Ghost upon us. And if the Spirit once coming upon his mem bers abide with them for ever, as Christ promiseth, John xiv. 16, then much more doth this Spirit abide upon Christ the Head, from whom we all, since Christ was in heaven, receive that Spirit, and by virtue of which Spirit s dwelling in him, he continues to dwell in us. Therefore, of him it is said, Isa. xi. 2, The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Yea, and in that story of the Holy Ghost s descending upon him at his baptism, it is not only recorded, that he descended on him, but over and above it is added, and abode upon him. Yea, further, to put the greater emphasis upon it, it is twice repeated ; so John i. 32, I saw the Spirit (says the evangelist) descending from heaven like a dove ; and he adds this also as a further thing observed by him, * and it abode upon him. And then again, ver. 33, I knew him not (says he) but that he that sent me gave me this token to know him by, upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he. And further, as it is intimated there, he rested on him to that end, that he might bap tize us with the Holy Ghost unto the end of the world : The same (says he) is he that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. He at first descends as a dove, and then abides as a dove for ever upon him ; and this dove itself came from heaven first. And therefore, certainly, now that Christ himself is gone to heaven, he abides and sits upon him much more as a dove still there. Moreover, let me add this, that although the Spirit rested on him here without measure in comparison of us, yet it may be safely said, that the Spirit, in respect of his effects in gifts of grace and glory, rests more abundantly on him in heaven, than he did on earth, even in the same sense that at his baptism, as was said, he rested on him in such respects more abundantly than he did before his baptism, during the time of his private life. For as when he came to heaven he was installed king and priest, as it were, anew, in respect of a new execution ; so, for the work to be done in heaven, he was anew anointed with this oil of gladness above his fellows, as Ps. xlv. 7. Which place is meant of him especially as he is in heaven, at God s right hand, in fulness of joy ; as Ps. xvi. 11, it is also spoken of him, when also it is, that he goes forth in his majesty to con- * That is, actuated. ED.

PART II. J UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH. 121 quer, as ver. 4 of that 45th Psalm. And yet, then, meekness is not far off, but is made one of his dispositions in his height of glory. So it fol lows in the fore-cited verse, In thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth and meekness, &c. Therefore Peter says, Acts ii. 36, that that same Jesus whom you (Jews) have crucified, and who was risen and ascended, God hath made both Lord and Christ : Lord, that is, hath exalted him as King in heaven ; and Christ t that is, hath also anointed him ; and this oil is no other than the Holy Ghost, with whom, the same Peter tells us, he was anointed at his baptism, Acts x. 38. Yea, and because he then at once received the Spirit in the fullest measure that for ever he was to receive him, therefore it was that he shed him down on his apostles, and baptized them with him (as in that 2d of the Acts we read). Now it is a certain rule, that whatsoever we receive from Christ, that he himself first receives in himself for us. And so one reason why this oil ran then so plentifully down on the skirts of this our High Priest, that is, on his members the apostles and saints, and so continues to do unto this day, is because our High Priest and Head himself was then afresh anointed with it. Therefore, ver. 33 of that 2d of the Acts, Peter, giving an account how it came to pass that they were so filled with the Holy Ghost, says, that Christ having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, had shed him forth on them ; which receiving is not to be only understood of his bare and single receiving the promise of the Holy Ghost for us, by having power then given him to shed him down upon them, as God had promised, though this is a true meaning of it ; but further, that he had received him first as poured forth on himself, and so shed him forth on them, according to that rule, that whatever God doth unto us by Christ, he first doth it unto Christ. All promises are made and fulfilled unto him first, and so unto us in him ; all that he bestows on us he receives in him

the Spirit was self. And this may be one reason why (as John vii. 39) not as yet given, because Jesus was not as yet glorified. But now he is in heaven, he is said to have the seven spirits ; so Rev. i. 3, which book sets him out as he is since he went to heaven. Now those seven spirits are the Holy Ghost, for so it must needs be meant, and not of any creature, as appears by the 4th verse of that chapter, where grace and peace are wished from the seven spirits ; so called, in respect of the various effects of him both in Christ and us, though but one in person. And seven is a number of perfection, and is therefore there mentioned, to shew, that now

Christ hath the Spirit in the utmost measure that the human nature is capable of. And as his knowledge (which is a fruit of the Spirit) since his ascension is enlarged for before he knew not when the" day of judgment should be, but now when he wrote this book of the Revelation he did so are his bowels (I speak of the human nature) extended ; all the mercies that God means to bestow being now actually to run through his hands, and his particular notice, and he to bestow them, not on the Jews only, but on Gentiles also, who were to be converted after he went to heaven. And so he hath now an heart adequate to God s own heart, in the utmost extent of shewing mercy unto any whom God hath intended it unto.

And this is the third demonstration, from the Spirit s dwelling in him ; wherein you may help your faith, by an experiment of the Holy Ghost his dwelling in your own hearts, and there not only working in you meekness towards others, but pity towards yourselves, to get your souls saved ; and to that end, stirring up in you incessant and unutterable groans before the throne of grace, for grace and mercy. Now the same Spirit dwelling

122 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. in Christ s heart in heaven, that doth in yours here, and always working in his heart first for you, and then in yours by commission from him ; rest assured, therefore, that that Spirit stirs up in him bowels of mercy infinitely larger towards you than you can have unto yourselves.

A second sort of demonstrations, from several engagements now lying upon Christ in heaven.

II. There are a second sort of demonstrations, which may be drawn from many other several engagements continuing and lying upon Christ now he is in heaven, which must needs incline his heart towards us as much, yea more, than ever. As,

1. The continuance of all those near and intimate relations and alliances unto us of all sorts, which no glory of his can make any alteration in, and therefore not in his heart and love, nor a declining any respects and offices of love, which such relations do call for at his hands. All relations that are natural, such as between father and child, husband and wife, brother and brother, &c., look what world they are made for, in that world they for ever hold, and can never be dissolved. These fleshly relations, indeed, do cease in that other world, because they were made only for this world ; as, the wife is bound to her husband but so long as he lives, Horn. vii. 1. But these relations of Christ unto us were made in order to the world to come, as the Epistle to the Hebrews calls it ; and therefore are in their full vigour and strength, and receive their completement therein. Where fore it is that Christ is said to be the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever, Heb. xiii, 8. To illustrate this by the constant and indissoluble tie of those relations of this world, whereto no difference of condition, whether of advancement or abasement, can give any discharge. We see in Joseph, when advanced, how as his relations continued, so his affections remained the same to his poor brethren, who yet had injured him, and also to his father. So Gen. xiv., where in the same speech he mentioneth both his own greatest dignities and advancement : * God hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt ; so ver. 8, and yet withal he forgetteth not his relations, I am Joseph, your brother, ver. 4, even the same man still. And his affections appeared also to be the same ; for he wept over them, and could not refrain himself, as you have it, ver. 1, 2. And the like he expresseth to his father, Go to my father, and say, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord over all Egypt, ver. 9 (and yet thy son Joseph still). Take another instance, wherein there was but the relation of being of the same country and alliance, in Esther, when advanced to be queen of an hundred, twenty, and seven provinces ; who when she was in the arms of the greatest monarch on earth, and enjoyed highest favour with him, yet then she cries out, How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people, or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred ! So chap. viii. 6. She considered but her relation, and how doth it work in her veins by a sympathy of blood ! Now much more doth this hold good of husband and wife, for they are in a nearer relation yet. Let the wife have been one that was poor and mean, fallen into sickness, &c., and let the husband be as great and glorious as Solomon in all his royalty, all mankind would cry shame on such a man, if he should not now own his wife, and be a husband in all love and respect to her still. But beyond

all these relations, the relation of head and members, as it is most natural, eo it obligeth most ; No man ever yet hated his own flesh, says the * but loveth and cherisheth it. And apostle, though diseased and leprous, it is the law of nature, that if one member be honoured, all the members are to rejoice with it, 1 Cor. xii. 26 ; and if one member suffer, all the * Even so is Christ, as ver. 12. And these rest are to suffer with it. relations are they that do move Christ to continue his love unto us. Jesus knowing that he was to depart out of this world, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end, John xiii. 1. And the reason thereof is put upon his relation to them : they were his own, and his own by virtue of all relations whatsoever, his own brethren, his own

the very world will love its own, as himself spouse, his own flesh ; and speaks, much more will he himself love his own. He that provides not for his own family is worse than an infidel, says the apostle. Now though Christ be in heaven, yet his people are his family still ; they are retainers to him, though they be on earth, and this as truly as those that stand about his person now he is in his glory. So that speech evidently declares, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named ; they all together make up but one and the same family to him as their Lord. Christ is both the founder, the subject, and the most perfect exemplar and pattern to us, of the relations that are found on earth.

(1.) First, he is the founder of all relations and affections that accom pany them both in nature and grace. As therefore the Psalmist argues Shall he not see who made the eye ? so do I. Shall not he who put all these affections into parents and brothers, suitable to their relations, shall not he have them much more in himself? Though our father Abraham, being in heaven, be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not, yet, Lord, thou art our Father, and our Redeemer, &c., Isa. xxxvi. 16. The prophet speaks it of Christ, as appears by verses 1 and 2, and in a prophecy of the Jews call ; and he speaks it of Christ, as supposed in heaven, for he t Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and thy glory. There are but two things that should make him adds, to neglect sinners : his holiness, as they are sinners, and his glory, as they are mean and low creatures. Now he there mentions both, to shew that notwithstanding either as they are sinners he rejects them not, and as they are base and mean, he despiseth them not.

(2.) He is the subject of all relations, which no creature is. If a man be a husband, yet not a father, or a brother ; but Christ is all, no one relation being sufficient to express his love, wherewith he loveth and owneth us. And therefore he calls his church both sister and spouse, Cant. v. 1.

(3.) He is the pattern and exemplar of all these our relations, and they all are but the copies of his. Thus, in Eph. v., Christ is made the pattern of the relation and love of husbands. Husbands, says the apostle, love your wives, as Christ loved his church, so ver. 25. Yea, verses 31, 32, 33, the marriage of Adam, and the very words he then spake of cleaving to a wife, are made but the types and shadows of Christ s marriage to his church. Herein I speak, says he, * concerning Christ and the church, and this is a great mystery, First, a mystery ; that is, this marriage of Adam was ordained hiddenly, to represent and signify Christ s marriage with his church. And secondly, it is a great mystery, because the thing thereby signified is in itself so great, that this is but a shadow of it. And there fore all those relations, and the affections of them, and the effects of those affections, which you see and read to have been in men, are all, and were

124 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. ordained to be, as all things else in this world are, but shadows of what is in Christ, who alone is the truth and substance of all similitudes in nature, as well as the ceremonial t} rpes.

If, therefore, no advancement doth or ought to alter such relations in men, then not in Christ. He is not ashamed to call us brethren, as Heb. ii. 11. And yet the apostle had just before said of him, ver. 9, We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. Yea, and as when one member suffers the rest are touched with a sympathy, so is it with Christ. Paul persecuted the saints, the members, and Why persecutest thou me ? cries the Head in heaven ; the foot was trodden on, but the Head felt it, though

crowned with glory and honour. We are flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, Eph. v. 30 ; and therefore as Esther said, so says Christ, How can I endure to see the evil that befalls my people ? If a husband hath a wife that is mean, and he become a king, it were his glory, and not his shame, to advance her ; yea, it were his shame to neglect her, especially if, when the betrothment was first made, she was then rich and glorious, and a king s daughter, but since that fallen into poverty and misery. Now, Christ s spouse, though now she be fallen into sin and misery, yet when she was first given to Christ by God the Father, who from all eternity made the match, she was looked upon as all glorious ; for in election at first both Christ and we were by God considered in that glory which he means to bring him and us unto at last, that being first in God s intention, which is last in execution. For God at the beginning doth look at the end of his works, and at what he means to make them ; and so he then, primitively intending to make us thus glorious, as we shall be, he brought and presented us to his Son in that glass of his decrees under that face of glory wherewith at last he meant to endow us. He shewed us to him as appareled with all those jewels of grace and glory which we shall wear in heaven. He did this then, even as he brought Eve unto Adam, whose marriage was in all the type of this ; so that as this was the first idea that God took us up in, and that we appeared in before him, so also wherein he presented us then to Christ, and as it were said, Such a wife will I give thee ; and as such did the second person marry us, and undertook to bring us to that estate. And that God ordained us thus to fall into sin and misery was but to illustrate the story of Christ s love, and thereby to render this our lover and husband the more glorious in his love to us, and to make this primitive condition whereunto God meant again to bring us the more eminently illustrious ; and, therefore, we being married unto him, when we were thus glorious in God s first intention, although in his decrees about the execution of this, or the bringing us to this glory, we fall into meanness and misery before we attain to it, yet the marriage still holds. Christ took us to run the same fortune with us, and that we should do the like with him ; and hence it was, that we being fallen into sin, and so our flesh become frail and subject to infir mities, that he therefore took part of the same, as Heb. ii. 14. And answerably on the other side, he being now advanced to the glory ordained for him, he can never rest till he hath restored us to that beauty wherein at first we were presented to him, and till he hath purged and cleansed us, that so he may present us to himself a glorious church, as you have it, Eph. v. 26, 27, even such as in God s first intention we were shewn to him to become, having that native and original beauty, and possessing that estate, wherein he looked upon us when he first took liking to us and married us. This is argued there from this very relation of his being our husbandver. 25, 26 ;

and, therefore, though Christ be now in glory, yet let not that discourage you, for he hath the heart of a husband towards you, being betrothed unto you for ever in faithfulness and in lovingkindness, as Hos. ii. 19, and the idea of that beauty is so imprinted on his heart, which from everlasting was ordained you, that he will never cease to sanctify and to cleanse you till he hath restored you to that beauty which once he took such a liking of.

A second engagement. This love of his unto us is yet further increased by what he both did and suffered for us here on earth before he went to heaven. Having loved his own so far as to die for them, he will cer tainly love them unto the end, even to eternity. We shall find in all sorts of relations, both spiritual and natural, that the having done much for any beloved of us doth beget a further care and love towards them ; and the like effect those eminent sufferings of Christ for us have certainly pro duced in him. We may see this in parents, for besides that natural affec tion planted in mothers towards their children, as they are theirs, the very pains, hard labour, and travail they were at in bringing them forth, increaseth their affections towards them, and that in a greater degree than fathers bear ; and, therefore, the eminency of affection is attributed unto that of the mother towards her child, and put upon this, that it is * the son of her womb, Isa. xlix. 15. And then the performing of that office and work of nursing them themselves, which yet it is done with much trouble and disquietment, doth in experience yet more endear those their children unto them, which they so nurse to an apparent difference of bowels and love, in comparison of that which they put forth to others of their own children which they nursed not ; and, therefore, in the same place of Isaiah, as * the son of her womb, so to her sucking child the mother s affection to is mentioned as being the highest instance of such love. And as thus in paternal affection, so also in conjugal, in such mutual loves in the pursuing of which there have any difficulties or hardships been encountered ; and the more those lovers have suffered the one for the other, the more is the edge of their desires whetted and their love increased, and the party for whom they suffered is thereby rendered the more dear unto them.

And as it is thus in these natural relations, so also in spiritual. We may see it in holy men, as in Moses, who was a mediator for the Jews, as Christ is for us, Moses therein being but Christ s type and shadow, and therefore I the rather instance in him. He under God had been the deliverer of the people of Israel out of Egypt with the hazard of his own life, and had led them in the wilderness, and given them that good law that was their wisdom in the sight of all the nations, and by his prayers kept off God s wrath from them. And who ever, of all those heroes we read of, did so much for any nation, who yet were continually mur muring at him, and had like once to have stoned him ? And yet what he had done for them did so mightily engage his heart, and so immovably point and fix it unto their good, that although God in his wrath against them offered to make of him alone a greater and mightier nation than they were, yet Moses refused that offer, the greatest that ever any son of Adam was tempted with, and still went on to intercede for them, and, among other, used this very argument to God, even the consideration of what he had already done for them, as with what great might and power he had brought them out of Egypt, &c., thereby to move God to continue his goodness unto them ; so Exod. xxxii. 11, and elsewhere. And this overcame God, as you may read in the 14th verse of the forenamed chapter. Yea, so set was Moses his heart upon them, that he not

126 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. only refused that former offer which God made him, but he made an offer unto God of himself to sacrifice his portion in life for their good

Rather, says he, blot me out of the book of life. So ver. 32. And we may observe the like zealous love in holy Paul, towards all those converts of his whom in his epistles he wrote unto ; towards whom that which so much endeared his affections was the pains, the cost, the travail, the care, and the sufferings that he had had in bringing them unto Christ.

Thus, towards the Galatians how solicitous was he ! how afraid to lose his labour on them !

I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain : so he expresseth himself, Gal. iv. 11 ; and, ver. 19, he

My little children (says he), of whom I utters himself yet more deeply, again travail in birth, until Christ be formed in you. He professeth him self content to be in travail again for them, rather than lose that about which he had been in travail for them once before.

Now from both these examples, whereof the one was Christ s type, and the other the very copy and pattern of Christ s heart, we may raise up our hearts to the persuasion of that love and affection which must needs be in the heart of Christ, from that which he hath done and suffered for us.

First, for Moses ; did Moses ever do that for that people which Christ hath done and suffered for you ? He acknowledged that he had not borne that people in his womb ; but Christ bare us all, and we were the travail of his soul, and for us he endured the birth -throes of death (as Peter calls

Was Paul crucified for you ? (says Paul likewise of himself). But Christ was, and he speaks it the more to enhance the love of Christ. Or if Paul had been crucified, would or could them, Acts ii. 24). And then for Paul, it have profited us ? No. If therefore Paul was contented to have been in travail again for the Galatians, when he feared their falling away, then how doth Christ s heart work much more toward sinners ! he having put in so infinite a stock of sufferings for us already, which he is loath to lose, and hath so much love to us besides, that if we could suppose that other wise we could not be saved, he could be content to be in travail again, and to suffer for us afresh. But he needed to do this but once, as the apostle to the Hebrews speaks, so perfect was his priesthood. Be assured then, that his love was not spent or worn out at his death, but increased by it. His love it was that caused him to die, and to lay down his life for his sheep ; and greater love than this hath no man, said himself before he did it. But now, having died, this must needs cause him from his soul to cleave the more unto them.

A cause or a person that a man hath suffered much for, according to the proportion of his sufferings, is one s love and zeal thereunto ; for these do lay a strong engagement upon a man, because otherwise he loseth the thanks and the honour of all that is already done and passed by him.

Have you suffered so many things in vain ? says the apostle to the Galatians, chap. iii. 4, where he makes a motive and an incitement of it, that seeing they had endured so much for Christ, and the profession of him, they would not now lose all for want of doing a little more. And doth not the same disposition remain in Christ ? Especially seeing the hard work is over and despatched which he was to do on earth ; and that which now remains for him to do in heaven is far more sweet and full of * sown in tears. If glory, and as the reaping in joy, of what he had here his love was so great, as to hold out the enduring so much ; then now when that brunt is over, and his love is become a tried love, will it not continue ? If when tried in adversity (and that is the surest and strongest

love), and the greatest adversity that ever was ; if it then held, will it not still do so in his prosperity much more ? Did his heart stick to us and by us in the greatest temptation that ever was ; and will his glorious and prosperous estate take it off, or abate his love unto us ? Certainly no. Jesus the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever, Heb. xiii. 8. When he was in the midst of his pains, one for whom he was then asuffering, said unto him, * Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom; and could Christ mind him then ? as you know he did, telling him, < This day shalt thou be with me in paradise. Then surely when Christ came to para dise he would do it much more ; and remember him too, by the surest token that ever was, and which he can never forget, namely, the pains which he was then enduring for him. He remembers both them and us still, as the prophet speaks of God. And if he would have us remember his death till he comes, so to cause our hearts to love him, then certainly himself doth it in heaven much more. No question but he remembers us, as he promised to do that good thief, now he is in his kingdom. And so much for this second engagement. A third engagement is the engagement of an office which still lies upon him, and requires of him all mercifulness and graciousness towards sinners that do come unto him. And therefore whilst he continues in that place, and invested with that office, as he for ever doth, his heart must needs continue full of tenderness and bowels. Now that office is the office of his priesthood, which this text mentions as the foundation of our encourage ment to come boldly to the throne of grace, for grace and mercy, .... seeing we have a great high priest entered into the heavens.

Two things I am to shew to make up this demonstration.

First, that this office of high priesthood is an office erected wholly for the shewing of grace and mercy.

And secondly, that this office doth therefore lay upon Christ a duty to be in all his dispensations full of grace and mercy, and therefore his heart remains most certainly suited and framed thereunto.

For the first. The office of high priesthood is altogether an office of grace. And I may call it the pardon-office, set up and erected by God in heaven ; and Christ he is appointed the lord and master of it. And as his kingly office is an office of power and dominion, and his prophetical office an office of knowledge and wisdom, so his priestly office is an office of grace and mercy. The high priest s office did properly deal in nothing else. If there had not been a mercyseat in the holy of holies, the high priest had not at all been appointed to have gone into it. It was mercy, and recon ciliation, and atonement for sinners that he was to treat about, and so to officiate for at the mercyseat. He had had otherwise no work, nor any thing to do when he should come into the most holy place. Now this was but a typical allusion unto this office of Christ s in heaven. And therefore the apostle (in the text), when he speaks of this our high priest s being entered into heaven, he makes mention of a throne of grace, and this in answer to that in the type both of the high priest of old, and of the mercyseat in the holy of holies. And further to confirm this, the apostle goes on to open that very type, and to apply it unto Christ, unto this very pur pose which we have now in hand. And this in the very next words to my text, chapter v. 1st, 2d, and 3d verses ; in which he gives a full description of a high priest, and all the properties and requisites that were to be in him, together with the eminent and principal end that that office was ordained for. Now the great and essential qualifications there specified,

128 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. that were to be in a high priest, are mercy and grace, and the ends for which he is there said to be ordained are works of mercy and grace. And besides what the words in their single standing do hold forth to this pur pose, observe that they come in to back and confirm that exhortation in the * high priest touched with the text, wherein he had set forth Christ as an feeling of infirmities : and that therefore we should come with boldness for grace and mercy ; for every high priest (says he) taken from among men, is ordained for men in things pertaining to God : that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin. One who can have compassion, &c. So that these words are a confirmation of what he had before said, and do set out Christ the substance, in his grace and mercifulness, under Aaron and his sons the shadows ; and all this for the comfort of believers. Now for the ends for which those high priests were appointed, they speak all nothing but grace and mercy unto sinners ; it is said, he was one or dained for men, to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. There is both therms ciijus, the end for whom, and the finis cui, the end for which, he was ordained.

(1.) For ichom. He was ordained for men, that is, for men s cause, and for their good. Had it not been for the salvation of men, God had never made Christ a priest. So that he is wholly to employ all his interest and power for them for whose cause he was ordained a priest, and that in all things that are between God and them. He is to transact ra vgog rbv Qtbv, all things that are to be done by us towards God, or for us with God, he is to take up all our quarrels with God, and to mediate a reconciliation between us and him. He is to procure us all favour from God, and to do all that which God would have done for our salvation. And that he might do this willingly, kindly, and naturally for us, as every high priest was taken from among men, so was Christ, that he might be a priest of our own kind, and so be more kind unto us, than the nature of an angel could have been. And how much this conduceth to his being a merciful high priest, I shall shew anon.

(2.) The end for which every high priest was ordained, shews this ; he was to * offer gifts and sacrifices for sins : sacrifices for sins, to pacify God s wrath against sin, and gifts to procure his favour. You know the apostle, in the foregoing words, had mentioned grace and mercy, and encouraged us to come with boldness unto this high priest for both ; and answerably toencourage us the more, he says, the high priest by his office was to offer for both : gifts for to procure all grace, and sacrifices to procure all mercy for us, in respect of our sins. Thus you see the ends which he is ordained for are all matter of grace and mercy, and so of encouragement unto men for the obtaining of both, verse 1.

(8.) The qualification that was required in a high priest was, that he should be one that could have compassion, &c., and this is set forth, verse 2. He that was high priest was not chosen into that office for his deep wis dom, great power, or exact holiness ; but for the mercy and compassion that was in him. That is it which is here made the special, and therefore the only mentioned, property in a high priest as such ; and the special essential qualification that was inwardly and internally to constitute him and fit him for that office : as God s appointment did outwardly and exter

that can or nally, as verse 4 hath it. And the word dwapevoe, able, imports an inward faculty, a spirit, a disposition, a heart that knows

how to be compassionate. And it is the same word that the apostle had before used to express Christ s heart by, even in the words of the text,

that is, who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And he had also used it of him afore that, in the point of mercy, chap. ii. 18, dvvarai, &c., he is able to succour, &c., which is not meant of any external power (which we usually call ability), but of an in ternal touch in his will ; he hath a heart able to forgive, and to afford help. Now, therefore, if this be so essential a property to a high priest as such, then it is in Christ most eminently. And as Christ had not been fit to have been God s king, if he had not had all power and strength in him, which is essential to constitute him a king, so not to have been God s high priest, if he had not had such an heart for mercifulness ; yea, and no longer to have been a priest than he should continue to have such a heart. Even as that which internally qualifies a minister for the ministry is his * which if he loseth, he is no longer to be in that office ; or as rea son makes a man a man, which if he loseth he becomes a beast ; thus no gifts, longer should Christ continue to be a priest than he hath a heart that * can have compassion, as this second verse hath it. And the word which we translate to have compassion, is exceeding emphatical, and the force of it observable ; it is in the original /curg/Mtt&fr, and signifies

to have compassion according to every one s measure and proportion. He had said of Christ in the words of my text, that he was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, or that < he had a suffering with us in all our evils ; and this word also here used imports a suffering.

But then, some greatly distressed souls might question thus : Though he pities me, and is affected, yet my misery and sins being great, will he take them in to the full, lay them to heart, to pity me according to the greatness of them ? To meet with this thought therefore, and to prevent even this objection about Christ s pity, the apostle sets him out by what was the duty of the high priest, who was his shadow ; that he is one that * can have compassion according to the measure of every one s distress ; and one that considers every circumstance in it, and will accordingly afford his pity and help, and if it be great, he hath a great fellow-feeling of it, for he is a great high priest. Thy misery can never exceed his mercy. The word here used comes from ftergov, a measure, and flra&TP, to suffer. And that it is the apostle s scope to hold this forth in this word, is evident by what follows, for he on purpose makes mention of those several degrees, proportions, and ranks of sinners under the old law, who were capable of mercy and com passion, who can have compassion (says he) on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way. In the old law you may read of several degrees and kinds of sinners, for which God appointed or measured out differing and proportionable sacrifices, Lev. iv. ver. 2 and 5, and another for sins against knowledge, or such as were wittingly committed, chap. vi. ver. 2, 3, compared with ver. 6. Now when any sinner came to the high priest to make atonement for him, the priest was wisely to consider the kind and proportion of his sin ; as whether it were a sin of mere ignorance, or whether it were against knowledge ; and accordingly he was to proportion a sacrifice, and to mediate for him. And so he did (jt,eTgioira6e7v, pity him according to measure, or according to reason or discretion, as in the margin it is varied. And therefore the apostle here mentions both the ignorant, that is, those that sin out of mere ignorance, and them that are gone out of the way, namely, by wilful and witting iniquity. And so by this property that was to be in the high priest, doth he here set forth Christ. As the measure of any man s need and distress is from sin and misery, accordingly is he affected towards him. And as we have sins of several VOL. IV. I

130 THE HEAET OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. sizes, accordingly hath he mercies, and puts forth a mediation proportion able ; whether they be ignorances, or sins of daily incursion, or else sing more gross and presumptuous. And therefore let neither of them discourage any from coming unto Christ for grace and mercy.

So that (for the closure of this) here is both the qualification disposing him for this office, merciful compassionateness ; and here are the ends of this office, even to deal mercifully with all sorts of sinners, according to the proportion and measure of their sins and miseries. From each of which do arise these corollaries, which make up the demonstration in hand, as the conclusion : 1. That he is no longer fit for this place, than he continues to be of a gracious disposition, and one that can have compassion. 2. That he can no longer be faithful in the discharge of this office, according to the ends for which it was appointed, than he shews all grace and mercy unto them that come unto his throne of grace for it.

And that is the second thing which I at first propounded: that this office did lay a duty upon him to have compassion ; and it necessarily follows from the former. And answerably to confirm this, we have both these two brought to our hands in one place together, and which is a parallel place to this last interpreted. It is Heb. ii. 17, * That he might be a merciful and a faithful high priest, &c. He is at once here said to be both merciful and faithful ; and both are attributed to him, in respect of this high priest s office, faithful high priest; and that, as it is to be executed in heaven, after the days of his flesh ended. For the apostle giving the reason of it, and shewing what it is that fits him to be such a high priest, adds, ver.

28, in that himself hath suffered ; so that it relates to the time after his sufferings ended. Now in that he is said to be merciful, this relates to that internal disposition of his heart, before spoken of, qualifying him for this office ; and in that he is said to be faithful, that respects his execution of it ; he is faithful in the discharge of the duty which that place lays on him.

So then this goes further than the former, for it shews, that to exercise mercy is the duty of his place, and that, if he will be faithful, he must be merciful. For faithfulness in any office, imports an exact performance of something appointed by him, who designs one to that office, and that as a duty ; and that this is a true description of faithfulness, and also that this faithfulness so described is in Christ, we have at once implied, in that which immediately follows in the beginning of the 3d chap. ver. 3, Who was * faithful to him that (says the apostle, going on to speak of Christ) appointed him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house ; we have the same thing as expressly spoken in that fore-quoted place, Heb. v., in the next words to those we even now opened, ver. 3, * And by reason hereof he ought to offer for sins. He speaks it of Christ s type, the high priest (as the former also he had done), but thereby to shew that it is Christ s duty also to mediate for all that come to him, He ought to do it. Now then to enforce this consideration, for the help of our faith herein. If this office doth by God s appointment thus bind him to it, and if it be the duty of his place, then certainly he will perform it most exactly, for else he doth not do his duty. And our comfort may be, that his faithfulness lies in being merciful ; therefore, you see, they are both here joined together. Every one is to do the proper duty of his place, and exactly to see to that. And therefore the apostle, Rom. xii., exhorting to the discharge of the duties of each office in the church, ver. 7, he says, Let him that hath a ministry, committed to him, wait on his ministry ; and, among others, if his place of ministration be to * shew mercy, as ver. 8 (which was an office in the

church, upon which lay the care of the poor and sick), he is to do it with * The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to bind up the broken-hearted, to open the prison doors to them that are bound, to visit and relieve them, and to preach good tidings to the meek. Such kind of souls are they that he hath the cheerfulness. And so says Christ of himself, Isa. Ixi. 1, 2, charge of. He is the great shepherd and bishop of souls, 1 Peter ii. 25, and the sick, and the broken, they are his sheep, his charge, his diocese, as Ezekiel hath it, c"hap. xxxiv. 16. And to tend such as these, he looks for ever upon it as his duty, as his own expression upon the like occasion

them I must importeth, in John x. 16, Other sheep I have (says Christ), bring, &c. Observe how he puts a pi flg/j an I must upon it ; looking at it as his duty, strictly laid upon him by his place of being a shepherd. And the proper duty of his place being to shew merey, he doth it with cheer fulness, as the apostle speaks. For mercy makes one do what they do with cheerfulness. And Christ, as he is the bishop, so the bia Kovoc,, the deacon also (for he bears all offices to his church), as of the circumcision, so of the uncircumcision also ; so he is called, Bom. xv. 8. And these offices of high priest, shepherd, bishop, &c., he hath still in heaven ; for * he continues a priest for ever, Heb. vii. 24. Now, therefore, to conclude this head. Never fear that Christ s great advancement in heaven should any whit alter his disposition ; for this his * entered very advancement engageth him the more. For although he be into the heavens, yet consider withal that it is here added, to be an high priest there ; and so long fear not, for his place itself will call for mercy from him unto them that treat with him about it. And although in the heavens he be advanced far above all principalities and powers, yet still his high priesthood goes with him, and accompanies him ; for such an high priest became us, as was higher than the heavens, Heb. vii. 26. And further, though he sits at God s right hand, and on his Father s throne, yet that throne it is a throne of grace, as the text hath it, upon which he sits. And as the mercyseat in the type was the farthest and highest thing in the holy of holies, so the throne of grace (which is an infinite encouragement unto us) is the highest seat in heaven. So that if Christ will have and keep the greatest place in heaven, the highest preferment that heaven itself can bestow upon him, it engageth him unto grace and mercy. The highest honour there hath this attribute of grace annexed to it in its very title, A throne of grace ; and as Solomon says, A king s throne is established by righteousness, it continues firm by it, so is Christ s throne by grace. Grace was both the first founder of his throne, or his raiser to it, and also it is the establisher of it.

First, it is the founder of it ; for the reason why God did set him up in that place was, because he had more grace and mercy in his heart than all the creatures had, or could be capable of. All favourites are usually

raised for something that is eminent in them, either beauty, pleasantness of wit, state policy, or the like. Now if you ask what moved God to advance Christ to this high throne, it was his grace. So Ps. xlv. 3, Grace is poured into thy lips, and so dwells much more in his heart : therefore God hath blessed thee ; so it follows, namely, with all those glories in heaven, which are God s blessings to his Son.

And then, secondly, grace is the upholder of his throne ; so ver. 4 of the aforesaid Ps. xlv., In thy majesty . . . prosper thou, as well because of meekness as of righteousness, and also because of * truth ; that is, the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, as Paul exegetically expoundeth

132 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. it, Eph. i. 13. These are the pillars and supporters of his throne and majesty. And there are two of them, you see, that are of grace (meekness, and the gospel of our salvation), unto one of justice, or righteousness, and yet that one is for us too. And these establish Christ s throne. So it fol lows, ver. 6, Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever, and you know who applies this unto Christ, Heb. i. 8. Fear not then, whenas meekness sup ports his majesty, and grace his throne, and whenas he holds his place by shewing these. And thus much from that office that is laid upon Christ as he is a priest. A fourth engagement, which added to the former may mightily help our faith in this, is, his own interest, both in that our salvation is the purchase of his blood, and also that his own joy, comfort, happiness, and glory are increased and enlarged by his shewing grace and mercy, in pardoning, re lieving, and comforting his members here on earth, under all their infirmi ties. So that, besides the obligation of an office undertaken by him for us, there is the addition of a mighty interest of his own, coincident therewith, to fix his heart unto faithfulness for us, in all that doth concern us. We see that advocates and attorneys who plead for others, although that they have no share in the estate for which they plead, no title to, or interest therein, yet when they have undertaken a client s cause (if honest), how diligent will they be to promote and carry it for that their client, simply because it is their office, and the duty of their place ; and yet they have but a very small fee given them, in comparison of that estate which ofttimes they follow suit about. How much more would their diligence be whetted, if the lands and estates they sue for were their own, or a purchase of theirs

! Now such is the pardon for their wives jointure, or children s portions ing of our sins, the salvation of our souls, and the conforming of our hearts unto Christ ; these are the purchase of Christ s blood, and whilst he is exercised in promoving these, he doth good to his own child and spouse, &c., which is in effect a doing good unto himself. Yea, to do these, bringeth in to himself more comfort and glory than it procures to them. And therefore the apostle, in the beginning of the following chapter (namely, Heb. iii.), says, that Christ is engaged to faithfulness in the execution of his office, not as a mere servant only, who is betrusted by his master, but as an owner, who hath an interest of possession in the things committed to his care, and a revenue from these. So ver. 5, Moses verily (says he) was faithful as a servant in God s house, but Christ as a Son over his own house, that is, as an heir of all, whose house (or family) are we, says the apostle, ver. 6 ; If a physician for his fee will be faithful, although he be a stranger, much more will he be so if he be father to the patient, so as his own life and comfort are bound up in that of the child s, or when much of his estate and comings in are from the life of the party unto whom he minis ters physic. In such a case they shall be sure to want for no care and cost, and to lack no cordials that will comfort them, no means that will cure them and keep them healthful, and no fit diet that may nourish and strengthen them ; as the care of that prince of the eunuchs, in the first of Daniel, was, to have those children committed to his charge, to eat and drink of the best, because that on their looks and good liking his place depended. Now so God hath ordered it, even for an everlasting obliga tion of Christ s heart unto us, that his giving grace, mercy, and comfort to us, is one great part of his glory, and of the revenue of his happiness in heaven, and of his inheritance there.

First, to explain how this may be, consider, That the human nature of

Christ in heaven hath a double capacity of glory, happiness and delight ; one on that mere fellowship and communion with his Father and the other persons, through his personal union with the Godhead. Which joy of his in this fellowship, Christ himself speaks of, Ps. xvi. 11, as to be enjoyed by him, In thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are plea sures for evermore. And this is a constant and settled fulness of pleasure, such as admits not any addition or diminution, but is always one and the same, and absolute and entire in itself ; and of itself alone sufficient for the Son of God, and heir of all things to live upon, though he should have had no other comings in of joy and delight from any creature. And this is his natural inheritance.

But God hath bestowed upon him another capacity of glory, and a revenue of pleasure to come in another way, and answerably another fulness, namely, from his church and spouse, which is his body. Thus Eph. i., when the apostle had spoken the highest things of Christ s personal advancement in heaven that could be uttered, as of his sitting down at God s right hand, far above all principalities and powers, &c., verses 20, 21 ; yet, ver. 22, he adds this unto all, and gave him to be an head to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who filleth all in all. So that although he of himself personally be so full, the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him, that he overflows to the filling all things ; yet he is pleased to account and it is so in the reality his church, and the salvation of it, to be another fulness unto him, super-added unto the former. As Son of God he is com plete, and that of himself ; but as an head, he yet hath another additional fulness ofjoy from the good and happiness of his members. And as all plea sure is the companion, and the result of action, so this ariseth unto him, from his exercising acts of grace, and from his continual doing good unto, and for those his members ; or, as the apostle expresseth it, from his filling them with all mercy, grace, comfort, and felicity, himself becoming yet more full, by filling them ; and this is his inheritance also, as that other was. So as a double inheritance Christ hath to live upon : one personal, and due unto him, as he is the Son of God, the first moment of his incar nation, ere he had wrought any one piece of work towards our salvation ; another acquired, purchased, and merited by his having performed that great service and obedience ; and, certainly, besides the glory of his person, there is the glory of his office of mediatorship, and of headship to his church. And though he is never so full of himself, yet he despiseth not this part of his revenue that comes in from below. Thus much for explication. Now, secondly, for the confirmation and making up the demonstration in hand. This superadded glory and happiness of Christ is enlarged and increased still, as his members come to have the purchase of his death more and more laid forth upon them ; so as when their sins are pardoned, their hearts more sanctified, and their spirits comforted, then comes he to see the fruit of his labour, and is comforted thereby, for he is the more glorified by it, yea, he is much more pleased and rejoiced in this than themselves can be. And this must needs keep up in his heart his care and love unto his children here below, to water and refresh them every moment (as Isaiah speaks, chap, xxvii. 3). For in thus putting forth acts of grace and favour, and in doing good unto them, he doth but good unto himself, which is the surest engagement in the world. And therefore the apostle exhorts men to love their wives upon this ground, that in so doing they love themselves : So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies : he that loveth his wife loveth himself, Eph. v. 28, so strict

134 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. and near is that relation. Now, the same doth hold true of Christ in his loving his church. And therefore in the same place the love of Christ unto his church is held forth as the pattern and exemplar of ours ; so ver.

25, Even as Christ alsc loved the church. And so it may well be argued thence, by comparing the".. one speech with the other, that Christ in loving his church doth but love himself; and then the more love and grace he shews unto the members of that his body, the more he shews love unto himself. And accordingly it is further added there, ver. 27, that he daily

1 washeth and cleanseth his church, that is, both from the guilt and power of sin, * that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, &c. Observe, it is to himself. So that all that he doth for his members is for himself, as truly, yea, more fully, than for them ; and his share of glory out of theirs is greater than theirs, by how much the glory of the cause is greater than that of the effect. And thus indeed the Scripture speaks of it, as whilst it calls the saints the glory of Christ. So 2 Cor. viii. 23. And Christ, in John xvii. 13, and verses 22, 23, says, that he is glorified in them. And Psalm xlv., where Christ is set forth as Solomon in all his royalty and majesty ; yet, ver. 11, he is said greatly to desire or delight in the beauty of his queen, that is, the graces of the saints; and that not with an ordinary delight, but he greatly desires; his desire is increased as her beauty is. For that is there brought in as a motive unto her to be more holy and conformed unto him, to incline her ear, and forsake her father s house, ver. 10. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. Christ hath a beauty that pleaseth him as well as we have, though of another kind ; and therefore ceaseth not till he hath got out every spot and wrinkle out of his spouse s face, as we heard the apostle speak even now, so to present her glorious unto himself, that is, delightful and pleasing in his eye. And suitably unto this, to confirm us yet more in it, Christ in that sermon which was his solemn farewell before his going to heaven, assures his disciples that his heart would be so far from being weaned from them, that his joy would still be in them, to see them prosper and bring forth fruit ; so John xv. 9, 10, 11, where his scope is to assure them of the continuance of his love unto them when he should be gone ; so verses 9, 10, As my Father hath loved me, so have I loved: continue in my love, &c. As if he had said, Fear not you my love, nor the continuance of it in my absence ; but look you to do your duty, &c. And to give them assurance of this, he further tells them, that even when he is in heaven, in the greatest fulness of pleasure at God s right hand, you yet even then his joy will be in them, and in their well-doing ; so ver. 11, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. He speaks just like a father that is taking his leave of his children, and comforting them at his departure, and giving them good counsel to take good courses when he is gone from them, to keep his commandments, and to love one another, so verses 10 and 12, and backs it with this motive, so shall my joy remain in you: it is as fathers use to speak ; and it will be for your good too, your joy will be also full.

To open which words a little : the word remain, used concerning their abiding in his love, and his joy abiding in them, is used in reference to the continuing of both these towards them in heaven. And when Christ says, 1 that my joy may remain in you, it is as if he had said, that I may even in heaven have cause to rejoice in you when I shall hear and know of you, that you agree and are loving each to other, and keep my commandments.

The joy which he there calls his joy, my joy, is not to be understood objective, of their joy in him, as the object of it ; but subjective, of the joy that should be in himself, and which he should have in them. So Augus tine long since interpreted it. Quidnam, says he, est illud gaudium Christi in nobis, nisi quod ille dignatur gaudere de nobis ? What is Christ s joy in us, but that which he vouchsafeth to have of and for us ? And it is evi dent by this, that otherwise, if it were their joy which he meant in that first sentence, then that other that follows, and your joy shall be full, were a tautology. He speaks therefore of his joy and theirs, as of two distinct things ; and both together were the greatest motives that could be given to encourage and quicken his disciples in obedience. Now, take an estimate of Christ s heart herein, from those two holy apostles Paul and John, who were smaller resemblances of this in Christ. What, next to immediate communion with Christ himself, was the greatest joy they had to live upon in this world, but only the fruit of their ministry, appearing in the graces both of the lives and hearts of such as they had begotten unto Christ ? See how Paul utters himself, 1 Thess. ii. 19, * What is our hope, says he, * or joy, or crown of rejoicing ? Ye are our glory and our joy, ver. 20. And in the 3d Epistle of John, ver. 3, John says the like, that he greatly rejoiced of that good testimony he had heard of G-aius ; for, says he, * I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth, ver. 4. Now what were Paul and John but instruments by whom they believed and were begotten ? and not on whom. Neither of these were crucified for them ; nor were these children of theirs the travail of their souls. How much more then unto Christ, whose interest in us and our welfare is so infinitely much greater, must his members be his joy and his crown ? And to see them to come in to him for grace and mercy, and to walk in truth, rejoiceth him much more ; for he thereby sees of the travail of his soul, and so is satisfied. Certainly what Solomon says of parents, Prov. x. 1, that * a wise son maketh a glad father, &c., is much more true of Christ. Holiness, and fruitfulness, and comfortableness in our spirits while we are here below, do make glad the heart of Christ, our * everlasting Father. Himself hath said it, I beseech you believe him, and carry your selves accordingly. And if part of his joy arise from hence, that we thrive and do well, then doubt not of the continuance of his affections ; for love unto himself will continue them towards us, and readiness to embrace and receive them when they come for grace and mercy.

There is a fifth engagement, which his very having our nature, which he still wears in heaven, and which the end or intention which God had or dained Christ s assuming it, do put upon him for ever. For one great end and project of that personal union of our nature unto the Godhead in the second Person for ever, was, that he might be a merciful high priest. So that as his office lays it as a duty upon him, so his becoming a man qualifies him for that office and the performance of it, and so may afford a farther demonstration of the point in hand. This we find both to have been a requisite in our high priest, to qualify him the better for mercy and bowels ; and also one of those great ends which God had in that assumption of our nature.

First, a requisite, on purpose to make him the more merciful. So, Heb. v. 1, the place even now insisted on, when yet this primary qualification I then passed over, and reserved unto this mention, it is said, Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men, and that to this end, that so he might be one that can have compassion : namely, with a pity

136 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART II. that is natural and kindly, such as a man bears to one of his own kind. For otherwise the angels would have made higher and greater high priests than one of our nature ; but then they would not have pitied men, as men do their brethren, of the same kind and nature with them.

And secondly, this was also God s end and intention in ordaining Christ s assumption of our nature, which that other place before cited, namely, Heb. ii. 16, 17, holds forth, Verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham : that is, an human nature, and that made, too, of the same stuff that ours is of, and it behoved him to be made like us in all things, that he might be a merciful high priest, &c., iva eteqf Auv ysvqrai, to the end he might become, or be made merciful. But was not the Son of God as merciful (may some say) without the taking of our nature, as afterwards, when he had assumed it ? Or is his mercy thereby made larger than of itself it should have been, had he not took the human nature on him ?

I answer, Yes ; he is as merciful, but yet, [1.] Hereby is held forth an evident demonstration (and the greatest one that could have been given unto men) of the everlasting continuance of God s mercies unto men, by this, that God is for everlasting become a man; and so we thereby assured that he will be merciful unto men, who are of his own nature, and that for ever. For as his union with our nature is for everlasting, so thereby is sealed up to us the continuation of these his mer cies, to be for everlasting ; so that he can andwill no more cease to be merciful unto men, than himself can now cease to be a man ; which can never be. And this was the end of that assumption.

[2.] But, secondly, that was not all. His taking our nature not only adds unto our faith, but some way or other even to his being merciful. Therefore it is said, * that he might be made merciful, &c. That is, mer ciful in such a way as otherwise God of himself had never been ; namely, even as a man. So that this union of both natures, God and man, was projected by God to make up the rarest compound of grace and mercy in the result of it that ever could have been, and thereby fully fitted and ac commodated to the healing and saving of our souls. The greatest of that mercy that was in God, that contributes the stock and treasury of those mercies to be bestowed on us : and unto the greatness of these mercies nothing is or could be added by the human nature assumed ; but rather Christ s manhood had all his largeness of mercy from the Deity. So that, had he not had the mercies of God to enlarge his heart towards us, he could never have held out to have for ever been merciful unto us. But then, this human nature assumed, that adds a new way of being merciful. It assimi lates all these mercies, and makes them the mercies of a man ; it makes them human mercies, and so gives a naturalness and kindness untp them to our capacities. So that God doth now in as kindly and as natural a way pity us, who are flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, as a man pities a man, thereby to encourage us to come to him, and to be familiar with God, and treat with him for grace and mercy, as a man would do with a man ; as knowing that in that man Christ Jesus (whom we believe upon) God dwells, and his mercies work in and through his heart in a human way.

I will no longer insist upon this notion now, because I shall have occa sion to touch upon it again, and add unto it under that next third general head, of shewing the way how Christ s heart is affected towards sinners.

Only take we notice what comfort this may afford unto our faith, that Christ

must cease to be a man if he continue not to be merciful ; seeing the very plot of his becoming a man was, that he might be merciful unto us, and that in a way so familiar to our apprehensions, as our own hearts give the experience of the like, and which otherwise, as God, he was not capable of. And add but this bold word to it, though a true one, that he may now as soon cease to be God as to be a man. The human nature, after he had once assumed it, being raised up to all the natural rights of the Son of God ; whereof one (and that now made natural unto him) is to continue for ever united. And he may as soon cease to be either as to be ready to shew mercy. So that not only the scope of Christ s office, but also the intention of his assuming our nature, doth lay a farther engagement upon him, and that more strong than any or than all the former.

138 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART III

PART III.

For we have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all things tempted like as we are, yet without sin. HEB. IV. 15.

Some generals to clear how this is to be understood, that Christ s heart is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, together with the way how our infirmities come to be feelingly let into his heart.

I. HAVING thus given such full and ample demonstrations of the tenderness and sameness of Christ s heart unto us now he is in heaven, with that which it was whilst he was here on earth ; and those, both extrinsical (in the first part) and intrinsical (in the second) ; I now come to the last head which I propounded in the opening of these words, namely, the way and manner of Christ s being affected with pity unto us ; both how it is to be understood by us, and also how such affections come to be let into his heart, and therein to work these bowels of compassion unto us. This in the begin ning of the second part I propounded to be handled, as being necessary both for the opening and clearing the words of the text, which mainly holds forth this, as also for the clearing of the thing itself, the point in hand. For, as I there shewed, these words come in by way of preoccupation or prevention of an objection, as if his state now in heaven were not capable of such affection as should tenderly move him to pity and commiseration, he being now glorified both in soul and body. Which thought, because it was apt to arise in all men s minds, the apostle therefore forestalls it, both by affirming the contrary, We have not an high priest that cannot be touched, &c., that is, he both can be, or is capable of it, and likewise is touched, notwithstanding all his glory, as also by his annexing the reason of it, or * in all points he was tempted like as we are. shewing the way how it comes to pass, in that Now in handling and opening these, which is* a matter full of difficulty, I shall, with all wariness, proceed to the discovery of what manner of affection in Christ this is, and that by these steps and degrees. 1. This affection of compassion, or his being touched with the feeling of our infirmities, is not w holly to be understood in a metaphorical or a similitudinary sense, as those speeches used of God in the Old Testament are to be understood, when bowels of compassion are attributed unto him, and his bowels are said to be rolled together, or as whenas it is said of God, that he repented, and was afflicted in all his people s afflictions. All which expressions were of God (as we all know) but merely xatf &v6gwru*afaait after the manner of men ; so to convey and represent to our apprehensions, by what affections use to be in parents or friends in such and such cases (what provoke them unto such and such actions), which like effects proceed

PART III.] UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH

from God towards us when he sees us in distress. And so they are spoken rather per modum effectus, than affectus, rather by way of like effect, which God produceth, than by way of such affection in God s heart, which is not capable of any such passions as these are. Now towards the right under standing of this, the first thing which I affirm is, that barely in such a sense as this, that which is here spoken of Christ, is not to be understood, and my reason for it is grounded upon these two things put together. First, that this affection of his towards us here spoken of, is manifestly meant of his human nature, and not of his Godhead only, for it is spoken of that nature wherein he once was tempted as we now are. So expressly in the next words, which can be meant of no other than his human nature.

And secondly, that those kind of expressions which were used of God before the assumption of our nature, only in a way of metaphor and similitude, after the manner of men, should in no further or more real and proper sense be spoken of Christ and his human nature now assumed, and when he is a man as truly and properly as we are, I cannot imagine ; when I consider and remember that which I last insisted on, that one end of Christ s taking a human nature, was that he might be a merciful high priest for ever, in such a way as, he being God alone, could not have been. I confess I have often wondered at that expression there used, He took the seed of Abraham, that he might be made a merciful high priest, Heb. ii., which at the first reading sounded as if God had been made more merciful by taking our nature. But this solved the wonder, that this assumption added a new way of God s being merciful, by means of which it may now be said, for the comfort and relief of our faith, that God is truly and really merciful, as a man. And the consideration of this con tributes this to the clearing of the thing in hand, that whereas God of himself was so blessed and perfect, that his blessedness could not have been touched with the least feeling of our infirmities, neither was he in himself capable of any such affection of pity or compassion

He is not as a man, that he should pity or repent, &c. He can indeed do that for us in our distress, which a man that pities us useth to do ; but the affections and bowels themselves he is not capable of. Hence, therefore, amongst other ends of assuming man s nature, this fell in before God as one, that God might thereby become loving and merciful unto men, as one man is to another. And so, that what before was but improperly spoken, and by way of metaphor and similitude, in the Old Testament, so to convey it to our apprehensions, might now be truly attributed unto him in the reality ; that God might be for ever said to be compassionate as a man, and to be touched with a feeling of our infirmities as a man. And thus by this happy union of both natures, the language of the Old Testament, uttered only in a figure, becomes verified and fulfilled in the truth of it, as in all other things the shadows of it were in Christ fulfilled. And this is the first step towards the understanding of what is here said of Christ, taken from this comparison with the like attributed unto God himself.

2. A second and further step to let in our understanding to the appre hension of this, is by the like further comparison to be made with the angels, and those affections of love and pity that are certainly found in them. In comparison of which, these affections in Christ s human nature, though glorified, must needs be far more like to ours, even more tender, and more human ; for in that Heb. ii. it is expressly said, He therefore took not the nature of Ce angels, that he might be a merciful high priest. Part of the intendnient of those words is to shew and give the reason, not

140 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART III. only why lie took our nature under frail flesh, though that the apostle mentions, ver. 14, but why a human nature for the substance of it, and not the nature of angels ; because in his affections of mercy he would for ever come nearer to us, and have such affections, and of the same kind with ours. Whereas otherwise, in other respects, an angel would have been a higher and more glorious high priest than a man.

Now the angels being fellowservants with us, as the angel called him self, Rev. xxii. 9, they have affections towards us more assimilated unto ours than God hath, and so are more capable of such impressions from our miseries than God is. Although they be spirits, yet they partake of something analogical, or resembling and answering to those affections of pity, grief, &c., which are in us. And indeed, so far as these affections are seated in our souls, and not drenched in the passions of the body, unto which our souls are united, they are the very same kind of affections in us that are in them. Hence the same lusts that are in men are said to be in devils, John viii. 44, and therefore the devils also are said to fear and tremble, &c. And so, oppositely, the same affections that are in men, so far as they are spiritual, and the spirit or soul is the seat of them, they must needs be found in the good angels. But Christ having a human nature, the same for substance that ours is, consisting both of soul and body, although through glory made spiritual, yet not become a spirit ; A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have, says Christ of himself, after his resurrection, Luke xxiv. 39 ; therefore he must needs have affec tions towards us, yet more like to those of ours than those are which the angels have. So then by these two steps we have gained these two things, that even in Christ s human nature, though glorified, affections of pity and compassion are true and real, and not metaphorically attributed to him as they are unto God ; and also more near and like unto ours here than those in the angels are ; even affections proper to man s nature, and truly human. And these he should have had, although this human nature had, from the very first assumption of it, been as glorious as it is now in heaven.

3. But now, thirdly, add this further, that God so ordered it, that before Christ should clothe this his human nature with that glory he hath in heaven, and put this glory upon it, he should take it as clothed with all our infirmities, even the very same that doth cleave unto us, and should live in this world, as we do, for many years. And during that time God prepared for him all sorts of afflictions and miseries to run through, which we ourselves do here meet withal ; and all that time he was acquainted with, and inured unto, all the like sorrows that we are ; and God left him to that infirmity and tenderness of spirit, to take in all distresses as deeply as any of us (without sin), and to exercise the very same affections under all these distresses that we at any time do find stirring in our hearts. And this God thus ordered, on purpose thereby to fit him and to frame his heart, when he should be in glory, unto such affections as these spoken of in the text. And this both this text suggests to be God s end in it, as also

Forasmuch as we, namely, his that fore-mentioned place, Heb. ii. 13, * are partakers of flesh and blood, which phrase doth ever note members, out the frailties of man s nature, as 1 Cor. xv. 50, &c., he himself took part of the same, .... that he might be a merciful high priest, &c., verse 17. And then the apostle gives this reason for it, verse 18, * For in that himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able this ability is, as was before interpreted, the having an heart fitted and enabled, out of experience, to pity and to succour them that are tempted. The meaning of which

is, that it is not the bare taking of a human nature, if glorious from the first, that would thus fully have fitted him to be affectionately pitiful out of experience, though, as was said, the knowledge of our miseries taken in thereby would have made him truly and really affectionate towards us, with affections human and proper to a man, and so much nearer and liker ours than what are in the angels themselves, or than are attributed to God, when he is said to pity us ; but further, his taking our nature at first clothed with frailties, and living in this world as we, this hath for ever fitted his heart by experience to be in our very hearts and bosoms ; and not only or barely to know the distress, and as a man to be affected with a human affection to one of his kind, but experimentally remembering the like in himself once. And this likewise the text suggests as the way where by our distresses are let into his heart the more feelingly, now he is in heaven. We have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. And the more to comfort us herein, observe how fully and universally the apostle speaks of Christ s having been tempted here below.

First, for the matter of them, or the several sorts of temptations, he says he was tempted Kara, navra, in all points, or things of any kind, where with we are exercised. Secondly, for the manner, he adds that too, na$ opoiorqra, like as we are. His heart having been just so affected, so wounded, pierced, and distressed, in all such trials as ours use to be, only without sin, God, on purpose, left all his affections to their full tender ness, and quickness of sense of evil. So that Christ took to heart all that befell him as deeply as might be ; he slighted no cross, either from God or men, but had and felt the utmost load of it. Yea, his heart was made more tender in all sorts of affections than any of ours, even as it was in love and pity; and this made him a man of sorrows, and that more than any other man was or shall be.

Now therefore, to explicate the way how our miseries are let into his heart, and come to stir up such kindly affections of pity and compassion in him, it is not hard to conceive from what hath now been said, and from what the text doth further hint unto us.

(1.) The understanding and knowledge of that human nature hath notice and cognisance of all the occurrences that befall his members here. And for this the text is clear ; for the apostle speaks this for our encouragement, that * Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; which could not be a relief unto us, if it supposed not this, that he particularly and dis tinctly knew them ; and if not all as well as some, we should want relief in all, as not knowing which he knew, and which not. And the apostle affirms this of his human nature, as was said, for he speaks of that nature that was tempted here below. And, therefore, the Lamb that was slain, and so c seven eyes, as well as seven horns, which seven eyes are the seven spirits sent forth into all

1 the man Chri&t Jesus is, Rev. v. 6, said to have the earth. His eyes of providence, through his anointing with the Holy Ghost, are in all corners of the world, and view all the things that are done under the sun. In like manner he is there said to have seven horns for power, as seven eyes for knowledge ; and both are defined to be seven, to shew the perfection of both, in their extent reaching unto all things. So that, as all power in heaven and earth is committed unto him as Son of man, as the Scripture speaks, so all knowledge is given him of all things done in heaven and earth, and this as Son of man too ; his know ledge and power being of equal extent. He is the Sun as well in respect

142 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART III. of knowledge as of righteousness, and there is nothing hid from his light and beams, which do pierce the darkest corners of the hearts of the sons of men. He knows the sores, as Solomon expresseth it, and distresses of their hearts. Like as a looking-glass made into the form of a round glohe, and hung in the midst of a room, takes in all the species of things done or that are therein at once, so doth the enlarged understanding of Christ s human nature take in the affairs of this world, which he is appointed to govern, especially the miseries of his members, and this at once.

I know thy works, thy labour, and thy patience, &c., Kev. ii. 2 he therewithal hath an act of memory, and recalls how himself was once affected, and how distressed whilst on (2.) His human nature thus knowing all earth, under the same or the like miseries. For the memory of things here below remains still with him, as with all spirits in either of those two

Son, remember thou in thy lifetime receivedst other worlds, heaven or hell. thy good things, and Lazarus evil, &c., says Abraham to the soul of Dives

Kemember me when thou comest into thy kingdom, said the good thief to Christ ; and, Rev. i., I am he, says Christ, that was dead, and am alive. He remembers his death still, and the sufferings of it ; and as he remembers it, to put his Father in mind thereof, so he remembers it also, to affect his own heart with what we feel. And his memory presenting the impression of the like now afresh unto him, how in hell, Luke xv. 25. it was once with him ; hence he comes feelingly and experimentally to know how it is now with us, and so affects himself therewith ; as Dido in Virgil Hand ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.

Having experience of the like miseries, though a queen now, I know how to succour those that are therein. As God said to the Israelites when they should be possessed of Canaan their own land, Exod. xxiii. 9, Ye know the hearts of strangers, seeing ye were strangers, &c., and therefore doth command them to pity strangers, and to use them well upon that motive, so may it be said of Christ, that he doth know the hearts of his children in misery, seeing himself was once under the like. Or, as the apostle exhorts the Hebrews, Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them, and them that suffer adversity, as being yourselves in the body, Heb. xiii. 8, and so ere you die, may come to suffer the like. So Christ, the head of the body, which is the fountain of all sense and feeling in the body, doth remember them that are bound and in adversity, having himself been once in the body, and so he experimentally compassionates them. And this is a further thing than the former. We have gained this further, that Christ hath not only such affections as are real and proper to a human nature, but such affections as are stirred up in him, from experience of the like by himself once tasted in a frail nature like unto ours. And thus much for the way of letting in all our miseries into Christ s heart now, so as to strike and affect it with them.

A more particular disquisition, what manner of affection this is; the seat thereof, whether in his spirit or soul only, or the whole human nature. Some cautions added.

II. But concerning this affection itself of pity and compassion, fellowfeeling and sympathy, or suffering with (as the text calls it), which is the product, result, or thing produced in his heart by these, there still remains

another thing more particularly to be inquired into, namely, what manner of affection this is ; for that such an affection is stirred up in him, besides and beyond a bare act of knowledge or remembrance how once it was with himself, is evident by what we find in the text. The apostle says, not only that he remembers how himself was tempted with the like infirmities that we are, though thatpbe necessarily supposed, but that he is struck and touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; to the producing of which this act of remembrance doth but subserve. And he tells us, Christ is able, and his heart is capable of thus being touched. And the word Gu/AiraQqffou is a deep word, signifying to suffer with us until we are relieved. And this affection, thus stirred up, is it which moveth him so cordially to help us. Now, concerning this affection, as here thus expressed, how far it extends, and how deep it may reach, I think no man in this life can fathom. If car regis, the heart of a king, be inscrutable, as Solomon speaks, the heart of the King of kings now in glory is much more. I will not take upon me to intrude into things which I have not seen, but shall endeavour to speak safely, and therefore warily, so far as the light of Scripture and right reason shall warrant my way.

I shall set it forth three ways

1. Negatively; 2. positively; 3. privatively. 1. Negatively. It is certain that this affection of sympathy or fellow-feel ing in Christ is not in all things such a kind of affection as was in him in the days of his flesh. Which is clear, by what the apostle speaks of him and of his affections then, Heb. v. 7, Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong cryings and tears, was heard in that which he feared. Where we see his converse and state of life here below, to be called by way of difference and distinction from what is now in heaven, the days of his flesh : lay flesh, meaning not the substance of the human nature, for he retains that still, but the frail quality of subjection to mortality, or possibility.* So flesh is usually taken, as when all flesh is said to be grass ; it is spoken of man s nature, in respect to its being subject to a fading, wearing, and decay, by outward casualties, or inward passions. So in this epistle, chap ii. 14, Forasmuch as the chil dren, we his brethren, did partake of flesh and blood, that is, the frailties

he himself also took part of the same. And accordingly the apostle instanceth in the following words of that 14th verse, as in death, which in the days of his flesh Christ was subject to, so also in such frail of man s nature, passions and affections as did work a suffering in him, and a wearing and wasting of his spirits ; such as passionate sorrow, joined with strong cries and tears, both which he mentioneth, and also fear, in these words, He was heard in that which he feared. Now these days of his flesh being over and past, for this was only, as says the apostle, in the days of his flesh, hence therefore all such concomitant passionate overflowing of sorrow, fear, &c., are ceased therewith, and he is now no way capable of them, or sub jected to them. Yet ; 2. Positively. Why may it not be affirmed that for substance the same kind of affection of pity and compassion, that wrought in his whole man, both body and soul, when he was here, works still in him now he is in heaven ? if this position be allayed with those due cautions and considera tions which presently I shall annex. For, if for substance the same flesh and blood and animal spirits remain and have their use, for though Christ, in Luke xxiv. 29, mentiod only his having flesh and bones after his resur-

* Qu. passibility ?- ED.

144 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART III. rection, unto Thomas and the other disciples, because these two alone were to be the object of his touch and feeling ; yet blood and spirits are included in that flesh, for it is caro vitalis, living flesh, and therefore hath blood and spirits that flow and move in it ; then why not the same affections also ? And those not stirring only and merely in the soul, but working in the body also, unto which that soul is joined, and so remaining really human affec tions. The use of blood and spirits is, as to nourish (which end is now ceased) so to affect the heart and bowels by their motion to and fro, when the soul is affected. And why this use of them should not remain (and if not this, we can conceive no other) I know not. Neither why this affection should be only restrained to his spirit or soul, and his corporeal powers not be supposed to communicate and partake in them. That so as he is a true man, and the same man that he was, both in body as well as in soul, for else it had not been a true resurrection, so he hath still the very same true human affections in them both ; and such as whereof the body is the seat and instrument, as well as the soul. And seeing this whole man, both body and soul, was tempted, and that (as the text says) he is touched with a feel ing in that nature which is tempted, it must therefore be in the whole man, both body and soul. Therefore, whenas we read of the wrath of the Lamb, as Rev. vi. 16, namely, against his enemies, as here of his pity and com passion towards his friends and members, why should this be attributed only to his deity, which is not capable of wrath, or to his soul and spirit only ? And why may it not be thought he is truly angry as a man, in his whole man, and so with such a wrath as his body is affected with, as well as that he is wrathful in his soul only, seeing he hath taken up our whole nature, on purpose to subserve his divine nature in all the executions of it ?

But now, how far, in our apprehensions of this, we are to cut off the weakness and frailty of such affections as in the days of his flesh was in them, and how exactly to difference those which Christ had here, and those which he hath in heaven, therein lies the difficulty ; and I can speak but little unto it.

Yet, first y this we may lay down as an undoubted maxim, that so far, or in what sense his body itself is made spiritual (as it is called, 1 Cor. xv. 44), so far, and in that sense, all such affections as thus working in his body are made spiritual, and that in an opposition to that fleshly and frail way of their working here. But then, as his body is made spiritual, not spirit (spiritual in respect of power, and likeness to a spirit, not in respect of substance or nature), so these affections of pity and compassion do work not only in his spirit or soul, but in his body too, as their seat and instrument, though in a more spiritual way of working, and more like to that of spirits, than those in a fleshly frail body are. They are not wholly spiritual in this sense, that the soul is the sole subject of them, and that it draws up all such workings into itself, so that that should be the difference between his affec tions now and in the days of his flesh. Men are not to conceive as if his body were turned into such a substance as the sun is of, for the soul, as through a case of glass, to shine gloriously in only ; but further it is united to the soul, to be acted by it, though immediately, for the soul to produce operations in it. And it is called spiritual, not that it remains not a body, but because it remains not such a body, but is so framed to the soul that both itself and all the operations of all the powers in it are immediately and entirely at the arbitrary imperium and dominion of the soul ; and that as the soul is pleased to use it, and to sway it and move it, even as imme diately and as nimbly, and without any clog or impediment, as an angel

PAKT III.l UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH. 145 moves itself, or as the soul acteth itself. So that this may perhaps be one difference, that these affections, so far as in the body of Christ, do not affect his soul, as here they did, though as then under the command of grace and reason, to keep their motions from being inordinate or sinful ; but further, the soul being now too strong for them, doth at its own arbitrement raise them, and as entirely and immediately stir them as it doth itself.

Hence, secondly, these affections of pity and sympathy so stirred up by himself, though they move his bowels and affect his bodily heart as they did here, yet they do not afflict and perturb him in the least, nor become a burden and a load unto his Spirit, so as to make him sorrowful or heavy, as in this life here his pity unto Lazarus made him, and as his distresses at last, that made him sorrowful unto death. So that as in their rise, so in their effect, they utterly differ from what they were here below. And the reason of this is, because his body, and the blood and spirits thereof, the instruments of affecting him, are now altogether impassible, namely, in this sense, that they are not capable of the least alteration tending to any hurt whatever. And so, his body is not subject to any grief, nor his spirits to any waste, decay, or expense. They may and do subserve the soul in its affections, as they did whilst he was here ; but this merely by a local motion, moving to and fro in the veins and arteries, to affect the heart and bowels, without the least diminution or impair to themselves, or detriment to him. And thus it comes to pass, that though this blood and spirits do stir up the same affections in his heart and bowels which here they did, yet not, as then, with the least perturbation in himself, or inconvenience unto himself. But as in this life he was troubled and grieved

without sin or inordinacy ; so now when he is in heaven he pities and compas sionates without the least mixture or tang of disquietrnent and perturbation, which yet necessarily accompanied his affections whilst he was here, because of the frailty in which his body and spifits were framed. His perfection destroys not his affections, but only corrects and amends the imperfection of them. Passiones perfectivas to be now in him, the best of schoolmen do acknowledge.

Thirdly, All natural affections that have not in them indecentiam status, something unbefitting that state and condition of glory wherein Christ now is, both schoolmen and other divines do acknowledge to be in him, humanee affectiones qucc naturales sunt, neque cum jrobro vel peccato conjunct, sed omni ex parte rationi subduntur ; denique ab us conditionibus liberantur qiue vel animo, vel corpori aliquo modo officiunt, beatis ncquaquam repugnare censemlce sunt. Those affections which are natural to man, and have no adhesion of sin or shame unto them, but are wholly governed by reason, and lastly are exempt from such effects as may any way hurt either the soul or the body, there is no ground to think that such affections may not well stand with the state of souls in bliss, says Justinian upon this place. Now if we consider it, Christ his very state in glory is such, as it becomes him to have such human affections of pity and compassion in his whole man, so far as to quicken and provoke him to our help and succour : not such as to make him a man of sorrows in himself again (that were uncomely, nay, incompatible to him), but such as should make him a man of succours unto us, which is his office. To this end it is to be remembered that Christ in heaven is to be considered, not personally only as in himself made happy in his Father, but withal in his relations and in his offices as an head unto us; and in that relation row he sits there, as Eph. i. 21, 22 (and the head is the seat of all the senses for the good of the body), and therefore most VOL. rv. K

146 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART III. sensible of any other part. Wherefore because his members, unto whom he bears this relation, are still under sin and misery, therefore it is no way uncomely for him in that estate to have affections suitable to this his rela tion. If his state of glory had been wholly ordained for his own personal happiness, then indeed there had been no use of such affections to remain in him ; but his relation to us being one part and ingredient of his glory, therefore they are most proper for him, yea, it were uncomely if he had them not. Neither are they a weakness in him, as so considered, but rather part of his strength, as the apostle calls them, dumpis. And although such affections might in one respect be thought an imperfection, yet in another respect, namely, his relation to us and office for us, they are his perfection. As he is our head, which he is as he is a man, it is his glory to be truly and really, even as a man, sensible of all our miseries, yea, it were his imperfection if he were not.

And, fourthly, let me add this for our comfort, that though all such affec tions as are any way a burden to his spirit, or noxious to his body, be not now compatible to him ; and though that passionate frailty and infirmity which did help him here to pity and relieve men in misery, out of a suffering hurtful to himself ; though these be cut off, yet in those workings of affections and bowels which he hath now, which for substance are the same, there is, instead of that passionate frailty, a greater capaciousness, vastness, and also quickness in his affections now in heaven, so to make up a compensation, and so no less effectually to stir and quicken him to relieve us, than those former affections did. For it is certain that as his knowledge was enlarged upon his entering into glory, so his human affections of love and pity are enlarged in solidity, strength, and reality, as true conjugal love useth to be, though more passionate haply at first. They are not less now, but are only made more spiritual. And as Solomon s heart was as large in bounty and royalty as in knowledge, so Christ s affections of love are as large as his knowledge or his power. They are all of a like extent and measure. So far as God s intention to shew mercy doth reach (and who knows the end of those riches ?), so far doth Christ s disposition to bestow it. Eph.

passeth knowledge. It hath not iii. 19, The love of Christ, God-man, lost or been diminished by his going to heaven. Though God in his nature be more merciful than Christ s human nature, yet the act and exercise of Christ s affections is as large as God s purposes and decrees of mercy are. And all those large affections and mercies are become human mercies, the mercies of a man unto men.

3. Privatively. If these affections of Christ s heart be not suffering and afflicting affections, yet we may, by way of privation, express this of them, that there is a less fulness of joy and comfort in Christ s heart, whilst he sees us in misery and under infirmities, comparatively to what will be when we are presented to him free of them all. To clear this I must recall, and I shall but recall, that distinction I made (in the fourth demonstration, sect. 2, part II.) of a double capacity of glory, or a double fulness of joy which Christ is ordained to have : the one natural, and so due unto his person as in himself alone considered ; the other addi tional, and arising from the completed happiness and glory of his whole church, wherewith mystically he is one. So in Eph. i. 23, although he by reason of his personal fulness is there said to fill all in all, yet as he is an head in relation to his church as his body, as in the verses before he is spoken of, thus the perfection of this his body s beatitude, it is reciprocally called his fulness ; and therefore, until he hath filled them with all happi-

PAET III.] UNTO SINNERS ON EARTH. 147 ness, and delivered them from all misery, himself remains under some kind of imperfection, and answerably his affections also, which are suited to this his relation, have some want of imperfection in them, whilst they lie under misery, in comparison of what his heart shall have when they receive this fulness. We may warrantably say Christ shall be more glad then, and is now, as his children are grown up from under their infirmities, and as they do become more obedient and comfortable in their spirits, so John xv. 10, 11.

I shall add some illustration to this by this similitude (which though it hold not in all things, yet it will hold forth some shadow of it). The spirits of just men departed are said to be perfect, Heb. xii., yet because they have bodies unto which they have a relation, and unto which they are or dained to be united, they in this respect may be said to be imperfect, till these bodies be reunited and glorified with them, which will add a further fulness to them. Thus in some analogy it stands between Christ personal and Christ mystically considered. Although Christ in his own person be complete in happiness, yet in relation to his members he is imperfect, .and so accordingly hath affections suited unto this his relation, which is no derogation from him at all. The Scripture therefore attributes some affec tions to him which have an imperfection joined with them, and those to be in him until the day of judgment. Thus expectation and desire, which are but imperfect affections in comparison to that joy which is in the full fruition of what was expected or desired, are attributed to him, as he is man, until the day of judgment. Thus, Heb. x. 12, 13, he is said to sit l expecting till his enemies be made his footstool ; the destruc in heaven, tion of which enemies will add to the manifestative glory of his kingdom. Now, as that will add to the fulness of his greatness, so the complete sal vation of his members will add to the completeness of his glory. And as the expectation of his enemies ruin may be said to be an imperfect affec tion, in comparison of the triumph that one day he shall have over them, so his joy which he now hath in his spouse is but imperfect, in comparison of that which shall fill his heart at the great day of marriage. And accord ingly, the Scripture calls the accomplishment of these his desires a satis faction ; so Isa. liii. 11, He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied, which argues desires to be in him, lying under a want of some thing in the end to be obtained. Only we must take in this withal, that Jesus Christ indeed knows and sees the very time when this his fulness, through the exaltation of his members up to himself, shall be completed, and when he shall trample upon the necks of all his and their enemies ; he sees their day a-coming, as the Psalmist hath it, which alleviates and detracts something from this imperfection, that he should thus expect or tarry.

This scruple satisfied, how his heart can be feelingly touched with our sins (our greatest infirmities), seeing he was tempted without sin.

III. There remains one great unsatisfaction to be removed, which cannot but of itself arise in every good heart. You told us, may they say, that by infirmities sins were meant, and that the apostle s scope was to encourage us against them also ; and they are indeed the greatest discomforts and discouragements of all other. Now, against them this which the apostle here speaks affordeth us but litc, seeing Christ knows not how experimentally to pity us therein, for he knew no sin. Yea, the apostle himself doth

148 THE HEART OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN [PART III. here except it, He was tempted in all things, yet without sin. It may comfort us, indeed, that Christ doth and will pity us in all other infir mities, because he himself was subject to the like, but he never knew what it was to be under sin and vexed with lust, as I am ; and how shall I re lieve myself against that by what the apostle here speaks of him ? I shall endeavour to give some satisfaction and relief in this by these following considerations.

* he was tempted, yet without

First, The apostle puts it, indeed, that sin. And it was well for us that he was thus without sin, for he had not been a fit priest to have saved us else ; so Heb. vii. 26, Such an High Priest became us as was separate from sinners, innocent, &c. Yet for your relief withal, consider that he came as near in that point as might be.

He was tempted in all things, so says the text, though without sin on his part ; yet tempted to all sin so far as to be afflicted in those temptations, and to see the misery of those that are tempted, and to know how to pity them in all such temptations. Even as in taking our nature in his birth he came as near as could be, without being tainted with original sin, as, namely, by taking the very same matter to have his body made of that all ours are made of, &c., so in the point of actual sin, also, he suffered him self to be tempted as far as might be, so as to keep himself pure. He suffered all experiments to be tried upon him by Satan, even as a man who hath taken a strong antidote suffers conclusions to be tried on him by a mountebank. And, indeed, because he was thus tempted by Satan unto sin, therefore it is on purpose added, yet without sin ; and it is as if he had said sin never stained him, though he was outwardly tempted to it. He was tempted to all sorts of sins by Satan, for those three temptations in the wilderness were the heads of all sorts of temptations, as interpreters upon the gospels do shew.

Then, secondly, to fit him to pity us in case of sin, he was vexed with the filth and power of sin in others whom he conversed with, more than * righteous soul was vexed with it, as Lot s righteous soul is said to have been with the impure conversation of the Sodomites. He endured the contradiction of sinners against him any of us with sin in ourselves. His self, Heb. xii. 3. The reproaches of them that reproached thee, that is, upon his God, fell upon me, Rom. xv. 3. It was spoken by the Psalmist of Christ, and so is quoted of him by the apostle ; that is, every sin went to his heart. So as in this there is but this difference betwixt him and us, that the regenerate part in us is vexed with sin in ourselves, and that as our own sin, but his heart with sin in others only, yet so as his vexation was the greater by how much his soul was more righteous than ours, which makes it up ; yea, in that he sustained the persons of the elect, the sins which he saw them commit troubled him as if they had been his own. The word here translated tempted is read by some crgg/ga/Aevov, that is, vexed.

Yea, and thirdly; to help this also, it may be said of Christ whilst he was here below, that in the same sense or manner wherein he bore our sickness, Mat. viii. 17, who yet was never personally tainted with any disease, in the same sense or manner he may be said to have borne our sins, namely, thus : Christ, when he came to an elect child of his that was sick, whom he healed, his manner was, first by a sympathy and pity to afflict himself with their sickness, as if it had been his own. Thus at his raising of Lazarus, it is said that he groaned in spirit, &c. ; and so by the merit of taking the disease upon himself, through a fellow-feeling of it, he took it off from them, being for them afflicted, as if he himself had

been sick. And this seems to be the best interpretation that I have met with of that difficult place in Mat. viii. 16, 17, where it is said, he healed all that were sick : that it might be fulflled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness. Now, in the like way or manner unto this, of bearing our sicknesses, he might bear our sins too ; for he being one with us, and to answer for all our sins, therefore when he saw any of his own to sin, he was affected with it, as if it had been his own. And thus is that about the power of sin made up and satisfied.

A&d. fourthly, as for the guilt of sin, and the temptations from it, he knows more of that than any one of us. He tasted the bitterness of that, in the imputation of it, more deeply than we can, and of the cup of his Father s wrath for it, and so is able experimentally to pity a heart wounded with it, and struggling under such temptations. He knows full well the heart of one in his own sense forsaken by God, seeing himself felt it when he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?

Uses of all.

Use 1. Thus that which hatli been said may afford us the strongest con solations and encouragements against our sins of any other consideration whatsoever, and may give us the greatest assurance of their being removed off from us that may be ; for, First, Christ himself suffers (as it were), at least is affected under them, as his enemies, which therefore he will be sure to remove for his own quiet sake. His heart would not be quiet, but that he knows they shall be re moved. As God says in the prophet, so may Christ say much more, My bowels are troubled for him, I remember him still, Jer. xxxi. 20.

Secondly, There is comfort concerning such infirmities, in that your very sins move him to pity more than to anger. This text is plain for it, for he suffers with us under our infirmities, and by infirmities are meant sins, as well as other miseries, as was proved ; whilst therefore you look on them as infirmities, as God here looks upon them, and speaks of them in his own, and as your disease, and complain to Christ of them, and do cry out, miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me ? so long fear not. Christ he takes part with you, and is so far from being provoked against you, as all his anger is turned upon your sin to ruin it ; yea, his pity is increased the more towards you, even as the heart of a father is to a child that hath some loathsome disease, or as one is to a member of his body that hath the leprosy, he hates not the member, for it is his flesh, but the disease, and that provokes him to pity the part affected the more. What shall not make for us, when our sins, that are both against Christ and us, shall be turned as motives to him to pity us the more ? The object of pity is one in misery whom we love ; and the greater the misery is, the more is the pity when the party is beloved. Now of all miseries, sin is the greatest ; and whilst yourselves look at it as such, Christ will look upon it as such only also in you. And he, loving your persons, and hating only the sin, his hatred shall all fall, and that only upon the sin, to free you of it by its ruin and destruction, but his bowels shall be the more drawn out to you; and this as much when you lie under sin as under any other affliction.

* What shall separate us from Christ s love?

Therefore fear not,, Use 2. Whatever trial, or temptation, or misery we are under, we may

150 THE HEAET OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN TO SINNERS ON EARTH. [PART III. comfort ourselves with this, that Christ was once under the same, or some one like unto it, which may comfort us in these three differing respects that follow, by considering

First, That we are thereby but conformed to his example, for he was tempted in all, and this may be no small comfort to us.

Secondly, We may look to that particular instance of Christ s being under the like, as a meriting cause to procure and purchase succour for us under the same now ; and so in that respect may yet further comfort ourselves. And, Thirdly, His having once borne the like, may relieve us in this, that there fore he experimentally knows the misery and distress of such a condition, and so is yet further moved and quickened thereby to help us.

Use 3. As the doctrine delivered is a comfort, so the greatest motive against sin and persuasive unto obedience, to consider that Christ s heart, if it be not afflicted with and how far it may suffer with us we know not yet for certain hath less joy in us, as we are more or less sinful, or obedient. You know not by sin what blows you give the heart of Christ. If no more but that his joy is the less in you, it should move you, as it useth to do those that are ingenuous. And take this as one incentive to obedience, that if he retained the same heart and mind for mercy towards you which he had here on earth, then to answer his love, endeavour you to have the same heart towards him on earth which you hope to have in heaven ; and as you daily pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Use 4. In all miseries and distresses you may be sure to know where to have a friend to help and pity you, even in heaven, Christ ; one whose nature, office, interest, relation, all, do engage him to your succour ; you will find men, even friends, to be oftentimes unto } rou unreasonable, and their bowels in many cases shut up towards you. Well, say to them all, If you will not pity me, choose, I know one that will, one in heaven, whose heart is touched with the feeling of all my infirmities, and I will go and beinoan myself to him. Come boldly (says the text), ^tra ^asing, even with open mouth, to lay open your complaints, and you shall find grace and mercy to help in time of need. Men love to see themselves pitied by friends, though they cannot help them ; Christ can and will do both.

AGGRAVATION OF SIN.

[ORIGINAL TITLE.]

AGGRAVATION

( SINNE:

\ AND (SINNING

(KNOWLEDGE. Against 4

(MERCIE.

Delivered in severall SERMONS

upon divers occasions.

THO : GOODWIN, B. D.

LONDON.

Printed by J. G. for R. DAWLMAN.

AGGRAVATION OF SIN.

Was that then which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good ; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sin/id. ROM. VII. 13.

WE find our apostle in the 9th verse to have been alive, but struck upon the sudden dead, by an apparition presented to him in the glass of the law, of the sinfulness of sin. Sin revived, says the 9th verse, appeared to be sin, says the 13th verse, looks but like itself, above measure sinful ; and he falls down dead at the very sight of it ; I died, says he in the 9th ; it wrought death in me, says the 13th, that is, an apprehension of death and hell, as due to that estate I was then in. But yet as the life of sin was the death of Paul, so this death of his was but a preparation to a new life, I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live to God, Gal. ii. 19. And here he likewise speaks of God s work upon him at his first conversion ; for then it was that he relates how sin became in his esteem, so above measure sinful. The subject then to be insisted on is the sinfulness of sin, a subject therefore as necessary as any other, because if ever we be saved, sin must * above measure sinful. And first, because all knowledge begins at the effects, which are obvious first appear to us all, as it did here to him, to sense, and interpreters of the nature of things, therefore we will begin this demonstration of the evil of sin, from the mischievous effects it hath filled the world withal, it having done nothing but wrought mischief since it came into the world, and all the mischief that hath been done, it alone hath done, but especially towards the poor soul of man, the miserable subject of it.

Which, first, it hath debased the soul of man, the noblest creature under heaven, and highest allied, made to be a companion fit for God himself, but sin hath striptit of its first native excellency, as it did Reuben, Gen. xlix. 4, debased the soul more worth than all the world, as Christ himself saith, that only went to the price of it ; yet sin hath made it a drudge and slave to every creature it was made to rule ; therefore the prodigal as a type is said to serve swine, and feed on husks, so as every vanity masters it.

servants to wine, Titus ii. 3, servants to riches, and divers lusts, &c. And hence it is that shame attends upon it, Rom. vi. 21. Now shame

Therefore we find in Scripture, that men are said to be

154 AGGRAVATION OF SIN. ariseth out of an apprehension of some excellency debased ; and by how much the excellency is greater, by so much is the shame the greater ; and therefore unutterable confusion will one day befall sinners, because sin is the debasement of an invaluable excellency.

Secondly, It not only debaseth it, but denies it also ; and indeed there was nothing else that could defile it, Mat. xv. 20, for the soul is a most pure beam, bearing the image of the Father of lights, as far surpassing the sun in pureness as the sun doth a clod of earth ; and yet all the dirt in the world cannot defile the sun, all the clouds that seek to muffle it, it scatters them all ; but sin hath defiled the soul, yea, one sin, the least, defiles it in an instant, totally, eternally.

(First.) One sin did it in the fall of Adam, Kom. v. 17, one offence polluted him, and all the world. Now suppose you should see one drop of darkness seizing on the sun, and putting out that light and eye of heaven, and to loosen it out of the orb it moves in, and cause it to drop down a lump of darkness, you would say it were a strange darkness ; this sin did then in the soul, to which yet the sun is but as a taper.

(Secondly.) It defiles it thus in an instant. Take the most glorious angel in heaven, and let one of the least sins seize upon his heart, he would in an instant fall down from heaven, stript of all his glory, the ugliest creature that ever was beheld. You would count that the strongest of all poisons, that would poison in an instant ; as Nero* boiled a poison to that height, that it killed Germanicus as soon as he received it ; now such an one is sin.

(Thirdly.) Sin defiles it totally. It rests not in one member only, but beginning at the understanding, eats into the will and affections, soaks through all. Those diseases we account strongest, which seize not on a joint or a member only, but strike rottenness through the whole body.

(Fourthly.) It defiles eternally, it being cBterna macula, a stain which no * wash out, Jer. ii. 22. There was once let in a deluge of water, and the world was all overflowed with it ; it washed away sinners indeed, but not one sin. And the world shall be nitre or soap or any creature can afire again at the latter day, and all that fire, and those flames in hell that follow, shall not purge out one sin.

Thirdly, It hath robbed the soul of the image of God, deprived us of the glory of God, Kom. iii. 33, the image of God s holiness, which is his beauty and ours. We were beautiful and all glorious once within, which though but an accident is more worth than all men s souls devoid of it, * a divine nature, without which no man shall it being a likeness unto God, see God. Though man in innocency had all perfections united in him via eminentid, that are to be found in other creatures, yet this was more worth than all ; for all the rest made him not like to God, as this did ; without which all paradise could not make Adam happy, which when he had lost, he was left naked, though those his other perfections remained with him, which is profitable for all things, as the apostle says. The least dram of which, the whole world embalanced with, would be found too light, without which the glorious angels would be damned devils, the saints in heaven damned ghosts, this it hath robbed man of.

* Your sins sepa

Fourthly, It hath robbed man even of God himself. rate, says God, betwixt you and me ; and therefore they are said to * That is, Tiberius Nero. Suetonius only says, that Germanicus died at Antioch, not without suspicion of poison ; and again, that the common belief was that he died through the treachery of Tiberius, by the agency of C. Piso. ED.

AGGRAVATION OF SIN

without God in the world ; and in robbing a man of God, it robs him of all things, for all things are ours, but so far as God is ours, of God whose face makes heaven, he is all in all, his lovingkindness is better than life, and containeth beauty, honours, riches, all, yea, they are but a drop to him.

But its mischief hath not stayed here, but as the leprosy of the lepers in the old law sometimes infected their houses, garments, so it hath hurled confusion over all the world, brought a vanity on the creature, Rom. viii. 20, and a curse ; and had not Christ undertook the shattered condition of the world to uphold it, Heb. i. 3, it had fallen about Adam s ears. And though the old walls and ruinous palace of the world stands to this r of the hangings is soiled and marred with many imperfections cast upon every creature. day, yet the beauty, the gloss, and glor}

But as the house of the leper was to be pulled down, and traitors houses use to be made Jakes, so the world (if Christ had not stepped [in) had shrunk into its first nothing ; and you will say, that is a strong carrion that retains not only infection in itself, but infects all the air about ; so this, that not the soul the subject of it only, but all the world.

Lastly, It was the first founder of hell, and laid the first corner-stone thereof. Sin alone brought in and filled that bottomless gulf with all the fire, and brimstone, and treasures of wrath, which shall never be burnt and consumed. And this crucified and pierced Christ himself, poured on him his Father s wrath, the enduring of which for sin was such as that all the angels in heaven had cracked and sunk under it.

But yet this estimate is but taken from the effects of it ; the essence of it, which is the cause of all these evils, must needs have much more mischief in it. Shall I speak the least evil I can say of it ? It contains all evils

filthiness, and abun dance of superfluity, or excrement, as it were, of naughtiness, Kzoi66=ia. else in it ; therefore, James i. 21, the apostle calls it

Hazing. As if so transcendent, that if all evils were to have an excre ment, a scum, a superfluity, sin is it, as being the abstracted quintessence of all evil an evil which, in nature and essence of it, virtually and emi nently contains all evils of what kind soever that are in the world, insomuch as in the Scriptures you shall find that all the evils in the world serve but to answer for it, and to give names to it. Hence sin, it is called poison, and sinners serpents ; sin is called a vomit, sinners dogs ; sin the stench of graves, and they rotten sepulchres ; sin mire, sinners sows ; and sin darkness, blindness, shame, nakedness, folly, madness, death, whatso ever is filthy, defective, infective, painful. Now as the Holy Ghost says of Nabal, as is his name, so is he ; so may we say of sin : for if Adam gave names to all things according to their nature, much more God, who calls things as they are. Surely God would not slander sin, though it be his only enemy. And besides, there is reason for this, for it is the cause of all evils. God sowed nothing but good seed in the world ; He beheld, and saw all things were very good. It is sin hath sown the tares, all those evils that have come up, sorrows and diseases, both unto men and beasts. Now whatsoever is in the eflect, is via eminentia in the cause.

Surely therefore it is to the soul of man, the miserable vessel and subject of it, all that which poison, death, and sickness is unto the other creatures, and to the body ; and in that it is all these to the soul, it is therefore more than all these to it, for corruptio optimi pessima ; by how much the soul exceeds all other creatures, by so much must sin, which is the cor ruption, poison, death, and sickness of it, exceed all other evils.

150 AGGRAVATION OF SIN.

But jei this is the least ill that can be said of it. There is, secondly, some further transcendent peculiar mischief in it, that is not to be found in all other evils, as will appear in many instances.

For, first, all other evils God proclaims himself the author of, and owns them all ; though sin be the meritorious cause of all, yet God the efficient and disposing cause.

There is no evil in the city, but I have done it. He only disclaimeth this, James i. 13, as a bastard of some other s breed ing, for he is the Father of lights, verse 17.

Secondly, The utmost extremity of the evil of punishment God the Son underwent, had a cup mingled him of his Father, more bitter than if all the evils in the world had been strained in, and he drank it off heartily to the bottom ; but not a drop of sin, though sweetened with the offer of all the world, would go down with him.

Thirdly, Other evils the saints have chosen and embraced as good, and refused the greatest good things the world had as evil, when they came in competition with sin. So Moses chose rather te suffer, much rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin, Heb. xi. 24-28. So Chrysostom, when Eudoxia the empress threatened him, Go tell her, says he, Nil nisi peccatum timeo, I fear nothing but sin.

Fourthly, Take the devil himself, whom you all conceive to be more full of mischief than all the evils in the world, called therefore in the abstract spiritual wickedness, Eph. vi. 12, yet it was but sin that first spoiled him, and it is sin that possesseth the very devils ; he was a glorious angel till he was acquainted with it, and could there be a separation made between him and sin, he would be again of as good, sweet, and amiable a nature as any creature in earth or heaven.

Fifthly, Though other things are evil, yet nothing makes the creature accursed but sin ; as all good things in the world do not make a man a blessed man, so nor all the evils accursed. God says not, Blessed are the honour able, and the rich, nor that accursed are the poor ; but Cursed is the man that continues not in all things, Gal. iii. 10, a curse to the least sin; and, on the contrary, Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, &c., Rom. iv. 7.

Sixthly, God hates nothing but sin. Were all evils swept down into one man, God hates him not simply for them, not because thou art poor and disgraced, but only because sinful. It is sin he hates, Rev. ii. 15, Isa. xxvii. 11, yea, it alone; and whereas other attributes are diversely commu nicated in their effects to several things, as his love and goodness, himself, his Son, his children, have all a share in, yet all the hatred, which is as large as his love, is solely poured out upon, and wholly, and limited only unto sin.

All the question will be, What transcendency of evil is in the essence of it, that makes it above all other evils, and hated, and it only, by God, Christ, the saints, &c., more than any other evil?

Why ? It is enmity with God, Rom. viii. 7. Abstracts, we know, speak essences ; the meaning is, it is directly contrary to God, as any thing could be, for contrary it is to God, and all that is his.

As, 1. Contrary to his essence, to his existence, and being God; for it makes man hate him, Rom. i. 30, and as he that hateth his brother is a murderer, 1 John iii. 15, so he that hateth God may be said to be a murderer of him, and wisheth that he were not. Peccatum est Deicidium.

2. Contrary it is to all his attributes, which are his name. Men are jealous

of their names. God s name is himself; as (1.) it makes a man slight God s goodness, and to seek happiness in the creature, as if he were able to be happy without him ; and (2.), it deposeth his sovereignty, and sets up other gods before his face ; (8.) it contemns his truth, power, and jus tice ; and (4.), turns his grace into wantonness. And as to himself, so to whatever is his, or dear to him. Besides, a king hath three things in an especial manner dear to him : his laws, his favourites, his image stamped upon his coin ; and so hath God.

First, His laws and ordinances : God never gave law, but it hath been broken by sin ; avo/^/a is the definition of it, * the transgression of the law, 1 John iii. 4 ; yea, it is called

destroying the law, Ps. cxix. 126. And know that God s law, the least tittle of it, is more dear to him than all the world. For, ere the least tittle of it shall be broken, heaven and earth shall pass. The least sin, therefore, which is a breach of the least law, is worse than the destruction of the world ; and for his worship (as envying God should have any) it turns his ordinances into sin.

Secondly, For his favourites, God hath but a few poor ones ; upon whom because God hath set his love, sin hath set his hatred, h Lastly, For his image, even in a man s own breast; the law of the members fights against the law of the mind, and endeavoureth to expel it, though a man should be damned for it, Gal. v. 17. The flesh, namely, sin, eth against the spirit, for they are contraries. Contrary, indeed, for methinks though it hates that image in others, that yet it should spare it in a man s self, out of self love ; but yet, though a man should be damned, if this image be expelled, it yet laboureth to do this, so deadly is that hatred, a man hates himself as hoty, so far as he is sinful.

It abounds now so high as our thoughts can follow it no farther. Divines say, it aspires unto infinity, the object against whom it is thus contrary unto being God, who is infinite, they tell us, that objectively sin itself is infinite. Sure I am, the worth of the object or party offended, aggravates the offence ; an ill word against the king is high treason, not the greatest indignity to another man. Sure I also am, that God was so offended with it, as though he loves his Son as himself, yet he, though without sin, being but * made sin by imputation, yet God spared him not ; and because the creatures could not strike a stroke hard enough, he himself was pleased to bruise him, Isa. liii. 16. He spared not his own Son, Rom. viii. 32. His love might have overcome him to have passed by it to his Son ; at least a word of his mouth might have pacified him ; yet so great was his hatred of it, and offence at it, as he poured the * though he vials of his wrath on him. Neither would entreaty serve, for cried with strong cries it should pass from him, God would not till he had outwrestled it. And as the person offended aggravates the offence, as before, so also the person suffering, being God and man, argues the abounding sinfulness of it. For, for what crime did you ever hear a king was put to death ? their persons being esteemed in worth above all crime, as civil. Christ was the King of kings.

And yet there is one consideration more to make the measure of its iniquity fully full, and to abound to flowing over, and that is this, that the least sin, virtually, more or less, contains all sin in the nature of it. I mean not that all are equal, therefore I add more or less ; and I prove it thus : because Adam by t le offence contracted the stain of all, no sooner did one sin seize upon his heart, but he had all sins in him.

158 AGGRAVATION OF SIN.

And so every sin in us, by a miraculous multiplication, inclines our nature more to every sin than it was before ; it makes the pollution of nature of a deeper die, not only to that species of sin whereof it is the proper individual act, but to all else. As, bring one candle into a room, the light spreads all over ; and then another, the light is all over more increased : so it is in sin, for the least cuts the soul off from God, and then it is ready to go a whoring after every vanity that will entice it or entertain it. And this shews the fulness of the evil of it, in that it contains not only all other evils in the world in it, but also all of its own kind. As you would count that a strange poison the least drop of which contains the force of all poison in it; that a strange disease, the least infection whereof brought the body subject to all diseases : yet such an one is sin, the least making the soul more prone and subject to all. And now you see it is a perfect evil ; and though indeed it cannot be said to be the chiefest in that full sense wherein God is said to be the chiefest good, because if it were as bad as God is good, how could he pardon it, subdue it, bring it to nothing as he doth ? And then how could it have addition to it, one sin being more sinful than another ? Ezek. viii.

15, John xix. 11. But yet it hath some analogy of being the chiefest evil, as God the chiefest good.

For, first, as God is the chiefest good, who therefore is to be loved for himself, and other things but for his sake, so also is sin the chiefest evil, because it is simply to be avoided for itself; but other evils become good, yea, desirable, when compared with it.

Secondly, As God is the chiefest good, because he is the greatest happi ness to himself, so sin, the greatest evil to itself, for there can be no worse punishment of it than itself ; therefore when God would give a man over as an enemy he means never to deal withal more, he gives him up to sin.

And thirdly, it is so evil, as it cannot have a worse epithet given it than itself; and therefore the apostle, when he would speak his worst of it, and wind up his expression highest, usque ad hyperbolem, calls it by its own name, sinful sin, a//,agrwXo$ af Aagrta, Rom. vii. 13, that as in God being the greatest good, quicquid est in Deo est Deus ipse, therefore his attributes and names are but himself, idem pradicatur de seipso ; so it is with sin, quicquid est in peccato, peccatum est, &c., he can call it no worse than by its own name, sinful sin.

Use I. And what have I been speaking of all this while ? Why of one sin in the general nature of it. There is not a man here, but hath millions of them, as many as the sands upon the sea shore ; yea, as there would be atoms were all the world pounded to dust, it exceeds in number also ; and therefore, ere we go any further, let all our thoughts break off here in wonderment at the abounding of sin above all things else : for other things if they be great, they are but a few ; if many, they are but small ; the world it is a big one indeed, but yet there is but one ; the sands, though innumerable, yet they are but small ; your sinfulness exceeds in both. And next, let all our thoughts be wound up to the most deep and intense consideration of our estates ; for if one sin abounds thus, what tongue can express, or heart can conceive their misery, who, to use the apostle s phrase, 1 Cor. xv., are yet in their sins ? that is, stand bound to God in their own single bond only, to answer for all their sins themselves, and cannot

in the estate wherein yet they stand of impenitency and unbelief, plead the benefit of Christ s death, to take off and ease them of the guilt of one sin, but all their sins are yet all their own, which to a man in Christ they are not ; for his own bonds are cancelled and given in, and Christ entered into bonds for him, and all his sins translated upon him.

Now for a proper character of their estate, and suitable to this expres sion : First, then a man s sins may be said to be still his own, when he committeth sin out of his own, that is, the full frame and inclination of his heart. Thus the devil is said to sin, John viii. 44, 1% roD /6/o-j, out of his own, the whole frame of his spirit is in it ; which a man in Christ cannot be so fully said to do, for he hath a new creature in him that sinneth not, 1 John iii. 1, 9, that can say even when he sins, It is not I, but sin. And secondly, then sin is a man s own, when he hates it not, but loves it : The world loves his own, saith Christ, John xv. 27, and so doth a wicked man his sin more than any good, which is David s character, Ps. Iii. 3. And thirdly, what is a man s own, he nourisheth and cherisheth ; there fore Eph. v. 19, No man hates his own flesh, but loveth it and cherisheth it ; so do men their sins, when they are their own. Those great and rich oppressors, James v. 5, are said to nourish their hearts in wantonness, and in pleasure, as in a day of slaughter ; as living upon the cream of sinning, and having such plenty, they pick out none but the sweetest bits to nourish their hearts withal.

Fourthly, so what a man provides for, that is his own ; so says the apostle, A man that provides not for his own is worse, &c. When there fore men make provision for the flesh, as the phrase is, Kom. xiii. 14, have their caterers and contrivers of their lusts, and whose chiefest care is every morning what pleasures of sin they have that day to be enjoyed, it is a sign that their sins are their own.

In a word, when men live in sin, it is the expression used, 1 Tim. v. 6, * She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. When the revenues of the comfort of men s lives come in from the pleasures of sin, and that supplies them with all those necessaries that belong to life ; as when it is their element they drink in like water ; their meat, they eat the bread of wickedness, Prov. iv. 17, and it goes down, and troubleth them not ; their * they cannot sleep till they have done or contrived some mis sleep also, chief, ver. 16 ; their apparel, as when violence and oppression covers them as a garment, and pride compasseth them as a chain, Ps. Ixxiii. ; their re creation also, It is a pastime for a fool to do wickedly, he makes sport and brags of it, Prov. x. 23 ; yea, their health, being sick and discontented, when their lusts are not satisfied, as Ahab was for Naboth s vineyard, Amnon grew lean when he could not enjoy his paramour.

All these, as they live in their sins here, and so are dead whilst they live, and so are miserable, making the greatest evil their chiefes-t good ; so when they come to die, as we all! must do one day, and how soon and how sud denly we know not ; we carry our souls, our precious souls, as precious water in a brittle glass, soon cracked, and then we are spilt like water which none can gather up again, 2 Sam. xiv. 14 ; or but as a candle in a paper lantern, in clay walls, full of crannies, often but a little cold comes in and blows the candle out ; and then, without a thorough change of heart before, wrought from all s ri to all godliness, they will die in their sins. And all, and the utmost of all, miseries is spoken in that one word ; and

160 AGGRAVATION OF SIN. therefore Christ, when he would sum up all miseries in one expression, tells the Pharisees they should die in their sins, John viii. 28.

Use II. And let us consider further, that if sin be thus ahove measure sin ful, that hell, that followeth death, is then likewise above measure fearful ; and so it is intimated to be a punishment without measure, Jer. xxx. 11, compared with Isa. xxvii., Punish them as I punish thee, says God to his own, * but I will punish thee in measure. And, indeed, sin being com mitted against God, the King of kings, it can never be punished enough. But as the killing of a king is amongst men a crime so heinous that no tortures can exceed the desert of it, we use to say all torments are too little, and death too good, for such a crime. Now, peccatum est Deicidium, as I said before, a destroying God as much as in us lies ; and therefore none but God himself can give it a full punishment ; therefore it is called a falling into God s hands, Heb. x. 31, which, as he says there, is fearful. For if his breath blows us to destruction, Job iv. 9, for we are but dust

he nods to destruction, Ps. Ixxx. 16 ; then what is the weight of his hands, even of those hands heaps, yea, his nod, * which span the heavens, and hold the earth in the hollow of them ? Isa. xl. 12. And if God take it into his hands to punish, he will be sure to do unto the full. Sin is man s work, and punishment is God s, and God will shew himself as perfect in his work as man in his.

If sin be malum catholicum, as hath been said, that contains all evils in it ; then the punishment God will inflict shall be malum catholicum also, * a cup full of mixture, so called Ps. containing in it all miseries. It is Ixxv. 8, as into which God hath strained the quintessence of all miseries, and * the wicked of the earth must drink the dregs of it, though it be eter nity unto the bottom. And if one sin deserves a hell, a punishment above

every sin measure, what will millions of millions do ? And we read that shall receive a just recompence, Heb. ii. 2. Oh let us then take heed of dying in our sins, and therefore of living in them ; for we shall lie in prison till we have paid the very utmost farthing.

And therefore if all this that I have said of it will not engender answerable apprehensions of it in you, this being but painting the toad, which you can look upon and handle without aifrightment, I wish that if without danger you could but lay your ears to hell, that standing as it were behind the screen, j ou might hear sin spoken of in its own dialect by the oldest sons of perdition there, to hear what Cain says of murdering his brother Abel ; what Saul of his persecuting David and the priests of Jehovah ; what Balaam and Ahithophel say of their cursed counsels and policies ; what Ahab says of his oppression of Naboth ; what Judas of treason ; and hear what expressions they have, with what horrors, yellings, groans, distrac tions, the least sin is there spoken of. If God should take any man s soul here, and as he rapt his* into the third heavens, where he saw grace in its fullest brightness ; so carry any one s soul into those chambers of death, as Solomon calls them, and leading him through all, from chamber to chamber, shew him the visions of darkness, and he there hear all those bedlams cry out, one of this sin, another of that, and see sin as it looks in hell ! But there is one aggravation more of the evil and misery sin brings upon men I have not spoken of yet, that it blinds their eyes and hardens their hearts, that they do not see nor lament their misery till they be in hell, and then it is too late.

* That is, Paul s. ED.

Use III. But what, doth sin so exceed in sinfulness, and is the venom of it boiled up to such a height of mischief, that there should be no name in heaven and earth able to grapple with it and destroy it ? Is there no an tidote, no balm in Gilead more sovereign than it is deadly ? Surely yes ; God would never have suffered so potent and malicious an enemy to have set foot in his dominions, but that he knew how to conquer it, and that not by punishing of it only in hell, but by destroying it ; only it is too potent for all the creatures to encounter with. This victory is alone reserved for Christ, it can die by no other hand, that he may have the glory of it ; which therefore is the top of his glory as mediator, and his highest title, the memory of which he bears written in his name JESITS, for he shall save his people from their sins, Mat. i. 21. And therefore the apostle Paul, his chiefest herald, proclaims this victory with a world of solemnity and triumph,. 1 Cor. xv. 55, death, where is thy sting ? grave, where is thy victory ? The sting of death is sin ; the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, that gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus

Christ ; which yet again adds to the demonstration of the sinfulness of it, for the strength of sin was such, that, like Goliah, it would have defied the whole host of heaven and earth. It was not possible the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin, Heb. x. 4 ; nor would the riches of the world or the blood of men have been a sufficient ransom.

Will the Lord be pleased with rivers of oil ? shall I give my first-born for my transgres sion ? No, says he, there is no proportion, for thy first-born is but the fruit of thy body, and sin is the sin of the soul, Micah vi. 7. It must cost more to redeem a soul than so, Ps. xlix. 7. No; couldst thou bring rivers of tears instead of rivers of oil which, if anything were like to pacify God, yet they are but the excrements of thy brains, but sin is the sin of thy heart yea, all the righteousness that we could ever do, cannot make amends for one sin ; for suppose it perfect, whenas yet it is but dung, Mai. ii. 3, and a menstruous cloth, yet thou owest it already as thou art a creature, and one debt cannot pay another. If then we should go a begging to all the angels who never sinned, let them lay all their stock together, it would beggar them all to pay for one sin. No ; it is not the merit of angels will do it, for sin is the transgression, the destruction of the law, and the least iota is more worth than heaven and all that is therein.

Only, though it be thus unconquerably sinful by all created powers, it hath not gone beyond the price that Christ hath paid for it. The apostle compares to this very purpose sin and Christ s righteousness together, Rom. v. 15, 20. It is true, says he, that sin abounds, and that one sin, rb vetgdff Tuf&a, and instanceth in Adam s sin, which staineth all men s natures to the end of the world ; yet, says he, the gift of righteousness by Christ abounds much more, abounds to flowing over, u4rs0MrXc<fvot0 ff, says the apostle, 1 Tim. i. 14, as the sea doth above mole-hills, Mai. vii. 14.*

Though therefore it would undo all the angels, yet Christ s riches are un searchable, Eph. iii. 8. He hath such riches of merit as are able to pay all thy debts the very first day of thy marriage with him, though thouhadst been a sinner millions of years afore the creation to this day ; and when that is done, there is enough left to purchase thee more grace and glory than all the angels have in heaven. In a word, he is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him, Heb. vii. 5, let their sins be what they will.

But then we must come to him, and to God by him, and take him as * This is of course a misprint. I suppose the reference is to Micah vii. 19. ED. VOL. IV. L

162 AGGKAVATION OF SIN. our lord, and king, and head, and husband, as he is freely tendered ; we must be made one with him, and have our hearts divorced from all our sins for ever. And why not now ? Do we yet look for another Christ ? and to allude to us as Naomi said to Ruth, Is there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands ? So say I, Hath God any more such sons ? Or is not this Christ good enough ? or are we afraid of being happy too soon in being married to him ?

But yet if we will have Christ indeed, without whom we are undone, how shall we then continue in sin, Rom. vi., which is thus above measure sinful ? No, not in one. The apostle speaks there in the language of im possibility and inconsistency. Christ and the reign of one sin, they cannot stand together.

And, indeed, we will not so much as take Christ until first we have seen more or less this vision here, and sin appear to us, as to him, above measure sinful. Naturally we slight it, and make a mock of, and account it preciseness to stick and make conscience of it ; but if once sin thus appears to any but in its own colours, that man will look upon the least sin then as upon hell itself, and like a man affrighted fear in all his ways lest he should meet with sin, and starts at the very appearance of it : he weeps if sin do but see him, and he do but see it in himself and others, and * How shall I do this, and sin ? And then a man cries out, as Joseph did, will make out for Christ as a condemned man for life, as a man that can no longer live, Oh, give me Christ, or else I die ; and then, if upon this Christ appears to him, and manifests himself, as his promise is to them that seek him, John xiv. 21, his heart thereupon will much more detest and loathe it ; he saw it evil afore, but then it comes to have a new tincture added, which makes it infinitely more sinful in his eyes, for he then looks upon every sin as guilty of Christ s blood, as dyed with it, though covered by it. The grace of God appearing, teacheth us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts. The love of Christ constrains him. Thinks he, Shall I live in that for which Christ died ? Shall that be my life which was his death ? Did he that never knew sin undergo the torment for it, and shall I be so unkind as to enjoy the pleasure of it ? No ; but as David, when he was very thirsty, and had water of the well of Bethlehem brought him, with the hazard of men s lives, poured it on the ground, for, says he, It is the blood of these men, so says he, even when the cup of pleasures is at his very lips, It cost the blood of Christ, and so pours it upon the ground. And as the love of Christ constrains him, so the power of Christ doth change him. Kings may pardon traitors, but they cannot change their hearts ; but Christ pardons none he doth not make new creatures, and all old things pass away, because he makes them friends, favourites to live with and delight in ; and if men put on Christ, and have learned him, as the truth is in Jesus, they put off as concerning the former conversation the old man, with the deceitful lusts, Eph. iv. 21, 22, and he ceaseth from sin, that is, from the course of any known sin. They are the apostle s own words which shall judge us ; and if we should expect salvation from him

the author of salva upon any other terms, we are deceived, for Christ is tion to them only that obey him, Heb. v. 9.

AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING AGAINST

KNOWLEDGE.

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ROM. I. 21.

THERE are two general aggravations the apostle insists on, in these two chapters, of the Gentiles sirifulness: First, their unthankfulness, ver. 21, in despising the riches of God s goodness, chap. ii. 4; secondly, of rebellion, in sinning against knowledge, that when they knew him, they glorified him not as God. And of all other, he inculcateth this of sinning against know ledge as the greatest, for, bringing in a long, large, and particular indictment of many several sins, idolatry, ver. 23, unnatural uncleanness, ver. 26, &c., and all kinds of unrighteousness, ver. 29, he doth, both in the beginning and end of the bill, bring in this aggravation, that they sinned against knowledge in call these. So, ver. 18, he begins the indictment and pro mulgation of God s wrath above all for this, that they withheld the truth in unrighteousness, which was as much as all that unrighteousness com mitted, barely in itself considered. And then again, in the end, when he comes to pronounce sentence, he comes in with this, after all particulars had been reckoned up, Who, knowing the judgment of God against thoso which do such things, yet do them.

So that this doctrine is clear from hence, that to sin against knowledge, either in omitting good duties which we know we ought to perform, or com mitting of sins we know we ought not to do, is the highest aggravation of sinfulness.

I put both in ; both sins of omission and commission for so the pariicular sins the Gentiles are taxed for here are of both sorts, as not glorify ing or worshipping God, as well as turning his glory into a lie, &c. to omit prayer when your consciences tell you you ought to do it, to omit holy dis course, examining the heart, when you know you ought to do them, are as well sins against knowledge as to tell a lie against your knowledge, or as to steal and forswear, or murder, or be drunk, &c.

Now, when I say it is an aggravation to these sins, my meaning is this, that, take any sin thou thinkest most gross, and view it barely in the act of it, put the act nakedly in *he one scale, be it a sin of uncleanness or drunkenness, and then put this circumstance which was added to it in the

164 AGGKAVATIONS OF SINNING other scale, that before and when thou didst it thou knewest it to be a sin, this alone weighs as much, yea, more than the sin itself doth ; that as it is said of Herod that he added this to all his other sins, that he cast John in prison, who told him of his Herodias, and so is made as much as all his former sins, so is this brought in here, that in and unto all their unrighteousness this was added, they withheld the truth, the light of their consciences (which is as a prophet from God) they did imprison in un righteousness, ver. 18. And therefore when Daniel would convince Belshazzar of his deservedness to lose his kingdom, and that he was not able to hold weight in the balance, Dan. v. 22, what puts he into the other scale against him to weigh him up, and to shew he was too light ? ver. 21, 22, he tells him how his father knew the God of heaven, and how that his knowledge cost him seven years the learning among wild beasts, and thou (says he) his son knewest all this, and yet didst not humble thy self. Here is the aggravation weighs down all ; he knew the God of heaven against whom he sinned, and that judgment on his father for his pride ; and then withal he tells him, that this God, in whose hands is thy breath, and all thy ways, thou hast not glorified.

I name this place among many others, because it is parallel with this in the text. I ll name no more, but give reasons and demonstrations for it.

I. First, demonstrations. The greatness of this kind of sinning might many ways be made appear: we will demonstrate it only by comparing it with other kinds of sinning. To sin, though out of simple ignorance, when that ignorance is but th< causa sine qua non of sinning, that is, so as if a man had known it a sin, he had not done it, doth not yet make the fact not to be a sin, though it lesseneth it. For, Luke xii. 48, He that did not know his master s wil was beaten, when the thing committed was worthy of stripes, though h< did not know so much, because the thing deserves it. And the reason is, because the law being once promulged, as first to Adam it was, and put into his heart, as the common ark of mankind, though the tables be lost yet our ignorance doth not make the law of none effect. For the law nature for ever binds, that is, all that was written in Adam s heart, becauj it was thereby then published in him, and to him for us. But positive laws, as I may call them, as to believe in Christ, &c., anew delivered, him not but where they are published. Josiah rent his clothes when the bool of the law was found, because the ordinances were not kept, although th( had not known the law of many years ; yet because they ought to have known it, therefore for all their ignorance he feared wrath would come upon all Israel. So also, Lev. v. 17, sins of ignorance were to be sacrificed for; * he shall be beaten with few yet however it lesseneth the sin, therefore stripes.

And sure, if ignorance lesseneth them, knowledge aggravates ; for contrariorum eadem est ratio, therefore he that knows shall be beaten with many stripes. Yea, such difference is there that God is said to wink at sins of ignorance. Acts xvii. 30, The time of this ignorance God winks at. Whiles they had no knowledge, God took no notice ; yea, and he abates something for such sins, because the creature hath a cloak, hath something to say for itself (as Christ says, John xv. 22) ; but when against knowledge, they have no cloak. Yea, farther, Christ makes a sin of ignorance to be no sin in comparison : so there, If I had not spoken and done those works never man did, they had had no sin, that is, none in com-

AGAINST KNOWLEDGE

parison ; but now they have no cloak, no shelter to award* the stripes, or plea to abate of them.

1. And that you may see the ground of this vast difference between sins of ignorance and against knowledge, consider first, that if a man sin (suppose the act the same) out of ignorance merely, there may be a supposition that if he had known it he would not have done it, and that as soon as he doth know it he would or might repent of it. So, 1 Cor. ii. 8, If they had known, they had not crucified the Lord of glory. The like says Christ of Tyre, Sodom, and Gomorrah, that if the same things had been done in them, they would have repented. But now, when a man knows it afore, and also considers it in the very committing it, and yet doth it, then there is no room for such a supposition, and less hope. For what is it that should reduce this man to repentance ? Is it not his knowledge ? Now if that had no power to keep him from his sin, then it may be judged that it will not be of force to bring him to repentance for it ; for by sinning the heart is made more hard, and the knowledge and the authority of it weakened and lessened, as all power is when contemned and resisted, Rom. i. 21, * Their foolish heart becomes darker. Aristotle himself hath a touch of this notion in the third of his Ethics, that if a man sin out of ignorance, when he knows it, he repents of it ; if out of passion, when the passion is over, he is sorry for what he hath done ; but when a man sins deliberately, and out of knowledge, it is a sign he is fixed and set in mischief, and there fore it is counted wickedness and malice. And hence it is that those that have been enlightened with the highest kind of light but that of saving grace, Heb. vi. 4, 5, and Heb. x., if they sin wilfully after such a know ledge of the truth, God looks on them as those that will never repent. And therefore likewise the school gives this as the reason why the devils sin obstinately, and cannot repent, because of their full knowledge they sin with ; they know all in the full latitude that it may be known, and yet go on.

2. Secondly, The vast difference that in God s account is put between sins of knowledge and of ignorance, will appear by the different respect and regard that God hath to them, in the repentance he requires and accepts for them ; and that both in the acts of repentance and also in the state of grace and repentance, upon which God accepts a man, or for want of which he rejecteth him.

First. When a man comes to perform the acts of repentance, and to humble himself for sin, and to turn from it, God exacteth not, that sins of ignorance should particularly be repented of. But if they be repented of but in the general, and in the lump, be they never so great, God accepts it. This is intimated, Ps. xix. 12, Who can understand his error? cleanse me from my secret sins ; that was confession enough. But sins of know ledge must be particularly repented of, and confessed, and that again and again, as David was forced to do for his murder and adultery, or a man shall never have pardon. Yea,, farther, greater difference will appear in regard of the state of grace and repentance, for a man may lie in a sin he doth not know to be a sin, and yet be in the state of grace, as the patriarchs in polygamy, and in divorcing their wives ; but to lie in a sin of knowledge is not compatible with grace, but unless a man maintaineth a constant fight against it, hateth it, confesseth it, forsaketh it, he cannot have mercy. This cannot stand with uprightness of heart. A friend may keep corre spondency with one he suspects not to be an enemy unto his friend, and be * i hat is, to ward off. ED.

166 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING true to his friendship notwithstanding ; but if he knows him to be an enemy, he must break utterly with the one if he leans to the other.

3. Thirdly, Yet farther, in the third place, so vast is the difference, that some kind of sins committed out of and against knowledge, utterly exclude from mercy from time to come, which done out of ignorance remained capable of and might have obtained it ; as persecuting the saints, blas pheming Christ, &c. Paul s will was as much in those acts themselves, and as hearty as those that sin against the Holy Ghost ; for he was mad against the church, and in these sins, as himself says, not sinning willingly herein only, but being carried on with fury as hot and as forward as the Pharisees that sinned that sin ; only, says he, 1 Tim. i. 13, * I did it ignorantly, therefore I obtained mercy. Though it was ignorantly done, yet there was need of mercy ; but yet in that he did it but ignorantly, there was a capacity and place for mercy which otherwise had not been. But * after a man hath received the knowledge of the truth, shuts a man out from mercy, Heb. x., and thus to sin, * there is no more sacrifice for sin, for such sins; I say, such sins as these, thus directly against the gospel, when committed with knowledge. For sins against the law, though against knowledge, there was an atonement, as appears, Lev. vi. 1-8, where he instanceth in forswearing. But to persecute the saints, and Christ s truth, with malice, after knowledge of it, there is no more sacrifice ; not that simply the sin is so great in the act itself of persecution, for Paul did it out of ignorance, but because it is out of knowledge: so vast a difference doth knowledge and ignorance put between the guilt of the same sin.

4. And therefore indeed, to conclude this in the last place, this is the highest step of the ladder, next to turning off, the very highest but sinning against the Holy Ghost ; which must needs argue it the highest aggrava tion of sinning, when it ascends so high, when it brings a man to the brink, and next to falling into the bottomless pit, irrecoverably. And therefore to * sin presumptuously (which is all one) and to sin against knowledge, as appears, Num. xv. 26-30, it being there opposed to sinning out of ignorance

he despised the word of the Lord; which phrase also is used to express sins of pre sumption, verse 31 of that 15th chapter of Numbers). To sin, I say, pre sumptuously is the highest step. So in David s account, Ps. xix. 12, 13. For first he prays, (such a sin as David did, of whom it is said, 2 Sam. xii. 9, that * Lord, keep me from secret sins, which he niaketh sins of ignorance, and then next he prays against presumptuous sins, which, as the opposition shews, are sins against knowledge ; for (says he), if they get dominion over me, I shall not be free from that great offence, that is, that unpardonable sin which shall never be forgiven, so as these are nearest it of any other, yet not so as that every one that falls into such a sin commits it, but he is nigh to it, at the next step to it. For to commit that sin, but two things are required light in the mind, and malice in the heart ; not malice alone, unless there be light, for then that apostle had sinned it, so as knowledge is the parent of it, it is * after receiving the knowledge of the truth, Heb. x. 27, 28.

II. These are the demonstrations of it ; the reasons are, , 1. First, Because knowledge of God and his ways is the greatest mercy next to saving grace: He hath not dealt so with every nation. Where in ? In giving the knowledge of his ways ; and as it is thus, so to a nation, so to a man ; and therefore Christ speaking of the gift of knowledge, and giving the reason why it so greatly condemneth, Luke xii. 48, says,

1 For to whom much is given, much is required. As if he had said, To know his master s will, that is the great talent of all other. There is a much in that. Thus it was in the heathens esteem also. They acknow ledged their foolish wisdom in moral and natural philosophy, their greatest excellency ; and therefore Plato thanked God for three things, that he was a man, an Athenian, and a philosopher. And Rom. i. 22, the apostle mentions it as that excellency they did profess. And Solomon, of all

exceeds folly as light doth darkness, Eccles. ii. 13. But surely much more is the knowledge of vanities, says this is the best vanity, and that it the law, and of God, as we have it revealed to us ; this must needs be much more excellent. And so the Jews esteemed theirs, as in this second chapter of the Romans, the apostle shews also of them, that they their boast of the law, and their form of knowledge of it, and approving the things that are excellent. And what do the two great books of the creatures, and the word, and all means else serve for, but to increase knowledge ? If therefore all tend to this, this is then the greatest mercy of all the rest.

2. For, secondly, God hath appointed knowledge as the immediate guide of men in all their ways, to bring them to salvation and repentance ; for to that it leads them. It is that same rb TJ /^OVIKOV, as the philosopher called it ; and therefore the law, Rom. vii. 1, 2, is compared to a husband, so far as it is written in or revealed in the heart, that as a husband is the guide of the wife in her youth, so is the law to the heart. And whereas beasts are ruled by a bit and bridle, God he rules men by knowledge. And therefore if men be wicked, notwithstanding this light, they must needs sin highly, seeing there is no other curb for them, as they are men, but this : if he will deal with them as men, this is the only way, and therefore if that will not do it, it is supposed nothing will.

It is knowledge makes men capable of sin, which beasts are not ; there fore the more knowledge, if men be wicked withal, the more sin must necessarily be reckoned to them ; so as God doth not simply look what men s actions and affections are, but chiefly what their knowledge is, and accordingly judgeth men more or less wicked. I may illustrate this by that comparison, which I may allude unto : that as in kingdoms God measures out the wickedness thereof, and so his punishments accordingly, principally by the guides, the governors thereof, what they are, and what they do ; as in Jer. v. 4 it appears, where first God looks upon the poor people, but he excuseth them, These are foolish, and know not the way of tile Lord ; and therefore God would have been moved to spare the kingdom, notwithstanding their sins. But from them, at the 5th verse, he

I will get me to the great men, for these have known the way of the Lord ; and when he saw that goes to view the rulers, * these had broken the bands, then how shall I pardon thee for this ? So is it in his judgments towards a particular man : when God looks down upon a man, and sees him in his courses exceeding loose and wicked, he looks first upon those rude affections in him, which are unclean, profane, debauched, greedy of all wickedness. Ay, but, says he, these are foolish of themselves, but I will look upon his understanding, and upon the superior faculties, which are the guides of these affections, and see what they dictate to these unruly affections to restrain them. And when he finds that the guides themselves are enlightened, * and have known the way of the Lord, and that the will and the affections, though informed with much knowledge, yet break all bands, then how shall I pardon thee? thee, who art a knowing

168 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING drunkard, and a knowing unclean person, &c., so as thus to sin aggravates and maketh sin out of measure sinful.

Now that knowledge and reason is a man s guide, will further appear by this : that even erroneous knowledge doth put an obligation, a bond, and a tie upon a man, which can be in no other respect, but because knowledge is appointed to be a man s guide. Thus, if a man thinks a thing which is in itself common and indifferent to be a sin, and forbidden, as Rom.

to him it is unclean, though in Christ it is not unclean, that is, by the law of Christ. For this his xiv. 14, although the law forbids it not, yet knowledge and judgment of the thing hath to him the force of a law, for it propounds it to him as a law, and as from God, which reason of his God hath appointed as his immediate guide ; and the will is to follow nothing that is evil, which is represented to it as evil. This is the law of mere nature in all conditions ; therefore if a man should do an action which is in itself good, if he thought it to be evil, he should sin, and so e contra, for he goes against the dictate of nature. So that erroneous knowledge, though against the law, is a law to me, though not per se, yet per accidens. Now therefore if to go against a false light of conscience be yet a sin, though it proves that the commandment allows the thing was done, and was for it, then to go against the true light of the law, how sinful is it !

3. Again, thirdly, the knowledge of the law binds the person so much the more to obedience, by how much the more he knows it ; so as though it would be a sin when he knows not the law to transgress it, yet when he knows it, it is a greater sin. It is true, indeed, that conscience and the law, when they meet, make up but one law, not two distinct laws ; and therefore in sinning against knowledge, though a man doth not commit two distinct sins, yet the knowledge of it doth add a further degree of sinfulness to it ; as a cloth is the same cloth when it is white that it was when it is dyed with a scarlet dye, yet then it hath a dye, a tincture given it, which is more worth than the cloth : and so, when you sin not knowing the law, the sin is the same for substance it would be if you had known it, yet that * scarlet sin, as Isaiah speaks, far greater and knowledge dyes it, makes it a deeper in demerit than the sin itself ; and the ground of this is, because laws then come to be in force when they are promulged and made known, so as the more they are promulged and made known, the more is the force of their binding, and so the greater guilt. Therefore, Deut. xii. 3, 8, God straightens the cords more, the binding force of the law more upon those Jews consciences, to whom he at first personally with majesty had promul gated it, than upon their children, though upon theirs also. Now if all God s laws, being made known to Adam, bind us, and are in force, and this when we know them not, then, if we do know them, or might know them, they bind much more, and still the more clearly we know them the obligation increaseth, and the guilt ensuing with it ; and the rather, because now when we come to know them, they are anew promulged in a way of a peculiar mercy, we having defaced the knowledge of them in our fall.

4. Fourthly, When the law, being known, is broken, there is the more contempt cast upon the law, and the lawgiver also, and so a higher degree of sinning. And therefore, Num. xv. 30, He that sins out of knowledge is said to reproach the Lord, and to despise the word. And therefore Saul sinning against knowledge, Samuel calleth it rebellion ; and though it were but in a small thing, yet he parallels it with witchcraft. So also, Job xxiv. 13, they are said to rebel when they sin against light ; because rebel lion is added to disobedience. For knowledge is an officer set to see the

law executed and fulfilled, and makes God present to the conscience.

Therefore, Rom. ii. 14, it is called a witness, and therefore in sinning against knowledge men are said to sin before the face of the Lord himself; now what a great contempt is that ? Therefore also, Ps. 1. 17, the hypocrite sinning against knowledge is said to cast the law of God behind his back, so as there is a contempt in this sinning, which is in no other.

5. Fifthly, The more knowledge a man sinneth against, the more the will of the sinner is discovered to be for sin, as sin. Now voluntarium est regula et mensura actionum moralium, willingness in sinning is the standard and measure of sins. The less will, the less sin ; so much is cut off, the less the will closeth with it, at leastwise so much is added by how much the will is more in it ; and therefore the highest degree of sinning is expressed to us by sinning willingly, and this after knowledge, Heb. x. Now though an ignorant man commits the act as willingly, as when Paul persecuted the church, yet he commits it not considered as sin till he hath the knowledge of it ; but then when it is discovered to be sin, and the more clearly it is so discovered, the will may be said to join with it as sin. Therefore the * To him that knows to do well, and doth it not, to him it is apostle says, sin, James iv. 17, because by his knowledge the thing is represented as sin ; and so he closeth with it the more, under that notion and apprehension. 6. Sixthly, In sinning against knowledge a man condemns himself, but when out of ignorance merely, the law only doth condemn him ; so Rom. ii. 1, a man having knowledge in that wherein he judgeth another, he condemneth himself; so Rom. xiv., now as self-murder is the highest degree of murder and an aggravation of it, so self-condemning must needs be reckoned. God took it as a great advantage over him that hid his talent, that out of thine own mouth I will condemn thee, thou wicked servant.

The doctrine being thus proved ; first, I will explain what it is to sin against knowledge.

Secondly, I will give the aggravations of it.

Thirdly, I will give rules to measure sins of knowledge by, and the great ness of them in any act.

Lastly, the use of all.

1. For the first, what it is to sin against knowledge. First, to explain it, I premise these distinctions.

(1.) The first distinction: that it is one thing to sin with knowledge, another thing against knowledge.

There are many sins do pass from a man with his knowledge, which yet are not against knowledge. This is to be observed for the removal of a scruple which may arise in some that are godly, who else may be wounded with this doctrine through a mistake.

A regenerate man is, and must needs be, supposed guilty of more known sins than an unregenerate man ; and yet he commits fewer against know ledge than he.

[1.] First, I say, he is guilty of more known sins ; for he takes notice of every sinful disposition that is stirring in him, every by-end, every con trariety unto holiness, deadness to duty, reluctancy to spiritual duties, and when regenerated, beginneth to see and know more evil by himself, than ever he did before ; he sees as the apostle says of himself, Rom. vii. 8, * all concupiscence ; and the holier a man is, the more he discerns and knows his sins. So says the apostle, Rom. vii. 18,

* I know that in me

I find when I would do good, evil

d\vells no good thing. And ver. 21,

170 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING is present with rne. And ver. 23, I see another law. All these, he says, he perceived and found daily in himself ; and the more holy that he grew, the more he saw them. For the purer and clearer the light of God s Spirit shines in a man, the more sins he knows, he will see lusts streaming up, flying in his heart, like motes in the sun, or sparks out of a furnace, which else he had not seen. The clearer the sunbeam is which is let into the heart, the more thou wilt see them.

[2.] But yet, in thesecond place, I add, that nevertheless he sins less against knowledge ; for then we are properly said to sin against knowledge, when we do take the fulfilling of a lust, or the performance of an outward action, a duty, or the like, into deliberation and consideration, and consider motives against the sin, or to the duty, and yet commit that sin, yield to it, and nourish that lust, and omit that duty. Here now we sin not only with knowledge, but against knowledge, because knowledge stepped in, and opposed us in it, comes to interrupt and prevent us ; but now in those failings in duty, and stirring of lusts in the regenerate aforementioned, the case is otherwise, they are committed s indeed with knowledge, but not against it. For it is not in the power of knowledge to prevent them, for motus primi non cadunt sub libertatem ; but yet though such sins will arise again and again, yet, says a good heart, they must not think to pass uncon trolled and unseen. Therefore let not poor souls mistake me, as if I meant throughout this discourse of all sins which are known to be sins, but I mean such sins as are committed against knowledge, that is, when know ledge comes and examines a sin in or before the committing of it, brings it to the law, contests against it, condemns it, and yet a man approveth it, and consenteth to it ; when a duty and a sin are brought before knowledge, as Barabbas and Christ afore Pilate, and thy knowledge doth again and again tell thee such a sin is a great sin, and ought to be crucified, and yet thou criest, let it go ; and so for the duty, it tells thee again and again it ought to be submitted unto, and yet thou omittest it, and committest the sin, choosest Barabbas rather than Christ : these are sins against knowledge. Now such sins against knowledge break a man s peace, and the more con sideration before had, the more the peace is broken.

(2.) The second distinction is, that men sin against knowledge, either directly or collaterally, objectively or circumstantially.

[1.] First, directly, when knowledge itself is the thing men abuse, or fight against, becometh the object, the terminus, the butt and mark shot at, this is to sin directly against knowledge itself.

[2.] The second way, collaterally, is, when knowledge is but a circum stance in our sins, so as the pleasure of some sin we know to be a sin is the thing aimed at, and that our knowledge steps but in between to hinder us in it, and we commit it notwithstanding though we do know it ; here knowledge is indeed sinned against, yet but collaterally, and as a stander by, but as a circumstance only, shot aijMT accidens, concornitanter, and by the by, as one that steps in to part a fray is smitten, for labouring to hinder them in their sin, as the Sodomites quarrelled with Lot ; they are both found in this chapter, and therefore come fitly within the compass of this discourse.

First, this collateral kind of sinning against knowledge is mentioned in * They knew God, yet they glorified him the 21st verse, where he says, not ; there knowledge is made but a circumstance of their sinning, they sinned against it but collaterally. But then that other kind of sinning directly against knowledge is mentioned, verse 28, They liked not to

retain God in their knowledge ; that is, they hated this knowledge itself, so as now they did not only love sin they knew to be sin, but also they loved not the knowledge of it ; so that because both are thus clearly in stanced in, we will speak of both more largely.

Now, sins directly against knowledge itself are many. I will reduce the chief heads of them into two branches :

First, In regard of ourselves.

Secondly, In regard of others.

(1.) First, In regard of ourselves, five ways we may thus sin against knowledge itself.

[1.] First, When we abuse knowledge to help us to sin : as, first, to plot and contrive a sin, as Judas plotted to betray his Master, if he could con veniently; so the text says, Mark xiv. 11, he would do it wisely; and thus those that came to entrap Christ with most cunning questions did sin, and those who plot against the just, Ps. xxxvii. 12.

[2.] So, secondly, when men use their wisdoms to tell a cunning lie to cover a sin ; as Plato says, men of knowledge sunt ad mendacia potentiores et sapientiores, whereas fools, though they would lie, yet often tell truth ere they are aware.

[3.] But also, thirdly, when they abuse moral knowledge, which yet, as Aristotle says, is least apt to be (I am sure should least be) abused, so as to make a show of good pretences to cover their sins and dissemble them, not only by finding out some cunning artificial colour, as David did in the matter of Uriah, Chance of war (says he) falls to all alike ; but when men are so impudently hypocritical as to make use of religious pretexts, as the devil sometimes doth, as Saul, who pretends to Samuel I. have done the will of the Lord ; and when Samuel told him of the cattle, Oh, says he, * they are for a sacrifice, when God had expressly commanded to kill them all. But this shift shifted him out of his kingdom, Samuel pro nounced him a rebel in it, rebellion is sin against knowledge, there he knew it. Thus also Jezebel coloured over the stoning of Naboth with a solemn fast. So Judas fisheth for money with a charitable pretence, This might have been sold, and given to the poor. In sins against knowledge, usually the mind endeavours to find out a colour, and that provokes God more than the sin, because we go about to mock him. We see men cannot endure a shift, much less the all-knowing God not to be mocked ; and we see it hard to convince such an one. David was fain to be brought to the rack ere he would confess, when he had a shift ; and men do seek such shifts only in case of sinning against conscience, for else there were no need, they would be sure to plead ignorance, as Abimelech did.* Secondly, When men neglect the getting and obtaining of knowledge, which knowledge might keep and hinder them from sinning, and might make them expert in duties. This is as much as to sin against knowledge, although the sins be committed out of ignorance ; jet that ignorance being through their own default, it comes all to one, when it may be said of men, as the apostle doth of the Hebrews, chap. v. 12, * that for the time they have had to learn, they might have been teachers, they had yet need be taught again the first principles. If a man had an apprentice, who through negligence and want of heeding and observing what he daily sees and hears about his trade, might have got for his time much knowledge in his trade, whereby he might have saved his master much, which he now hath lost him, and rid and perfected much work he daily spoils him ; such

* 1 Sam. xxii. 15. ED.

172 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING careless, blockish ignorance it is just for his master to correct him for, and to charge on him all that waste and loss, because he might have known how to have done better. And therefore even they who thought ignorance in itself no sin (wherein they erred), yet the neglect of knowledge upon this very ground they thought a great sin, and that it would be so far from excusing sins, as that it would aggravate them. So here we see these Gentiles shall not only be reckoned with for the actual knowledge they had attained to, and sinned against ; but also for what they might have had and have picked out of the creatures. For so the apostle brings in this here in the 20th verse, that the power of God being clearly seen in the creatures, they neglecting to spell and read it, so much knowledge as they might have got God will reckon to them, and aggravate their sins by.

Thirdly, Which is yet much worse, when men refuse knowledge that they may sin the more freely, and so stop the ear, lest they should be charmed. As when men are loath, and afraid, and dare not read such a book as dis covers or might discover that truth to them, the submission to which would prejudice them, and this to the end that they may plead ignorance of their sin. Thus also those that assent not to truth when it comes strongly upon them, but seek to evade it. But, 1 Cor. xiv. 37, when the apostle had clearly discovered the truth in those things controverted, so as whoever was spiritual, or not fully blind, might see, and would acknowledge the truth, then he shuts up his discourse about them, ver. 38, If any be igno rant, let him be ignorant ; for it is wilful, it is affected ; he speaks it as elsewhere, Rev. xxii. 11, it is said, He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; that is, he that will be unjust, and refuseth to turn, let him go on. This is a great sin, for God, you see, gives such a man over. One that is but neglectful, or dull of capacity, God will take pains with him, to teach him, and bear with him, as Christ did with his disciples ; but if he be wil fully ignorant, he lets him die in his ignorance, and yet will reckon with him, as if all his sins had been committed against knowledge, because he refused to know.

[4.] The fourth is to hate the light, and to endeavour to extinguish it. This is yet much worse, when men hate the word, and the ministers of it, the examples of God s people, and the light they carry with them, they shining as lights in a crooked generation, Phil. ii. 15, and yet they hate these, as thieves do a torch in the night, and fly against the light as bats do, and as the Jews did, John iii. 20. This Christ says is the great con demning sin of all others. So these Gentiles put Socrates to death for re proving them. And thus men sin also, when they labour to extinguish the * like not to retain God in their know light in their own consciences, and ledge, ver. 28, but would study the art of forgetfulness, when men have put the candle out, and drawn the curtains, that they may sin, and sleep in sin more freely and securely. Thus those also sin in a higher measure, who have had a clear conviction that they ought to be thus strict, and ought to sanctify the Lord s day, and pray privately, but now have lost this light, and think they need not be so strict ; when men continue not in what they were once assured of, as the apostle speaks, 2 Tim. iii. 14, these sin against their knowledge, and are the worst of such sinners. And this estate

Aristotle himself makes statum maligni, the state of a wicked one, namely, when the sparks of light are extinguished or hated. For when any man s light is lost and turned into darkness by sinning, then, as Christ says, how great is that darkness ! When good laws are not only not enacted and embraced, but repealed also (it is Aristotle s similitude, to distinguish an

incontinent person and a wicked man), this is an high kind of sinning. So of these Gentiles it is said, their foolish heart was darkened, they had extinguished some of that light God gave them. As some drink away their wits, so some sin away their consciences, and thus by degrees they first

Bin away the light of the word they had, as they in Jude who were religious once, and then they quench even that little spark of nature that is left.

Also ver. 10, corrupting themselves in what they know naturally.

[5.] Fifthly, Men sin against knowledge yet worse, when they hold opinion against their knowledge. So many are said to do. In 1 Tim. iv. 2, he fore tells they should speak lies in hypocrisy, and invent lies that should have a pretence of holiness, which they know to be a lie, or else they should not be said to speak lies in hypocrisy ; but they do it to maintain their honour and greatness, which must down if their doctrine prove false ; and though many are given up to believe their lies, 2 Thes. ii. 11, as a punishment of their not loving the truth, yet others of them shall know they are lies, and yet vent them for truths. Thus when men fashion their opinion to the times and ways of preferment, and their dependencies on great ones, or to maintain[ and uphold a fashion, or out of pride having broached an error maintain it, though the pulling out that one tile doth untile all the house. These are the two causes given of perverting the truth, 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5, namely, pride and covetousness, and supposing gain godliness, and so fashion ing their religion accordingly; when men are knights of the post, that will write or speak anything, whereby they may get gain and preferment.

(2.) Secondly, Men sin against knowledge in regard of others.

[l.j First, By concealing it. The apostle indeed says in a certain case, Hast thou knowledge ? keep it to thyself. He speaks it of opinions or practices about things indifferent, which might scandalize the weak ; but if thou hast knowledge which may edify thy brother, thou oughtest to com municate it. Socrates, knowing there was but one God, said, in his apo logy for his life, that if they would give him life upon condition to keep that truth to himself, and not to teach it to others, he would not accept life upon such a condition ; and I remember he expresseth his resolution in words very nigh the same words the apostles used, Acts iv. 40, Whether it be better to obey God than men, judge you ; and We cannot but teach the things we have heard and seen, says Christ ; for knowledge is a thing will boil within a man for vent, and cannot be imprisoned. It is light, and the end why light was made was to be set up to give light. And Christ argues from an apparent absurdity to put a light under a bushel, which may give light to all the house. Hast thou knowledge of God and of his ways ? thou canst not but speak (if withal thou hast but a good heart) to all in the family, to thy wife in thy bosom, &c. God took it for granted that Abraham would teach his children what he should know from him : the game disposition is in all the children of Abraham.

[2.] Secondly, WTien men endeavour to suppress knowledge. As the Pharisees, they kept the keys of it in their hands, and would not open the treasures of it themselves, nor let others do it neither. So they (Acts iv. 16) could not deny but a great miracle was done by the apostles (say themselves), but that it spread no further, let us threaten them, and charge them, that they speak no more in his name. And this they did against their consciences, by their own profession, we cannot deny it ; as if they had said, if we could we would, but it was too manifest it was the truth. So when masters keep thor servants from the means of knowledge, they are thus guilty.

174 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING

[3.] Thirdly, When we would make others sin against their consciences. The Pharisees, when the blind man would not say as they said, they cast him out ; they would have had him say that Christ was a sinner, when through the small light he had he judged it evident enough that a sinner should not do such a miracle as was never done since the world began. And so Jezebel made the judges and witnesses sin against conscience in accusing Naboth ; and so some of the Gentiles, that would hold corres pondency with the Jews, would have constrained the Galatians to be cir cumcised, Gal. vi. 12. Those that knew that circumcision was to be abo lished, yet they would persuade them to it by club-argument, drawn from avoiding persecution, not from evidence of the truth, or by reasons that might convince them and their consciences ; therefore, he says, they strained them. The persuaders might indeed glory, as having their cause and side strengthened, but they won little credit to their cause by it ; for as the persuaders arguments were suited to flesh, so the others yield ing was out of flesh, and so they glory in your flesh and weakness, says he ; as the papists urged Cranmer, not by arguments, but threats and pro mises, to recant ; this is the greatest cruelty in the world, to have a man murder himself, stab his conscience. To offend a weak conscience is a sin, if but passively, when thou dost something before his face, which his con science is against ; but if thou makest him wound his own conscience, and to do an act himself which his own conscience is against, it is much worse ; as if thou beest a master, and hast a servant who pleadeth con science that he cannot lie for thy advantage in thy shop, or who will not do unlawful business on the Sabbath day, and pleads conscience, wilt thou smite him and whip him ? God will smite thee, thou whited wall. How darest thou smite him and so cause him to do that for which God will whip him worse ? Shew mercy to those under you, inform their con sciences, wring them not, you may hap to break the wards if you do.

2. Now for sins committed collaterally, or per modmn circumstantial (that I may so express it), against knowledge, they are done either when particular acts of sin are committed, and duties omitted, against light and knowledge ; and so the saints may and do often sin against know ledge. Or, Secondly, in regard of a known estate of sin and impenitency persisted in, when men continue and go on in such a state against conviction of con science, that such is their estates.

(1.) For the first, because particular acts of sin committed against know ledge are infinite, and there will be no end of instancing in particulars, therefore I will not insist. Only in brief this distinction concerning such acts may be observed , and the observation of it may be useful, that some acts of sins against knowledge are merely transient, that is, are done and ended at once. And though the guilt of them is eternal, yet the extent of the act is finished with the committing it, and reaches no further: as a vain oath, breach of the Sabbath, &c., which acts cannot be repealed, though they may be repented of. But others there are, which though the act may be but once outwardly and professedly done, yet have an habitual and continued permanency, life, and subsistence given it, such as that until a man doth recall them, he may be said continually to renew those acts, and every day to be guilty of them, and to maintain it, and so habitually to commit them. As it is with laws, which, though made but once, are yet continued acts of the state whilst they stand in force unrepealed, so is it in some sins. For instance, when a man doth take goods from his neigh-

bour unjustly, the act indeed is done but once ; but till he restores them, he may be said to steal them ; every day, every hour, he continues to do it habitually. So a man having subscribed to falsehood, or recanted the truth publicly, the act, though done but once, yet until a retraction bo someways made, he continues that act, and so is daily anew guilty of it. So if a man should marry one whom it is unlawful for him to marry, as Herod did, though that sinful act of espousals whereby they entered into it was soon despatched, yet, till a divorce, he lives in a continual sin. And such acts (of this latter sort I mean) against knowledge, are most dangerous to commit ; because, to continue thus in them, though but once committed, hazards a man s estate ; and therefore men find, when they come to repent, the greatest snare, and trouble, and difficulty in such kind of sins, to extricate themselves out of them by a meet and true repentance.

But as concerning the first branch of this distinction, namely, of parti cular acts committed against knowledge, besides this last distinction briefly touched, I will anon give you several aggravations and rules, whereby to measure the sinfulness that is in such acts so committed ; but, in the mean time, the second branch of this former distinction must be insisted upon, and therefore I will bring in these aggravations and rules which con cern particular acts, as distinct heads, after I have briefly spoken to this other, which is, that, (2.) Secondly, Those sin against knowledge who go on in an estate of sin and impenitency which they know to be damnable ; as Pharaoh, Exod. ix. 27, who confessed that he and his people were wicked, and yet har dened himself in sin most dangerously ; and yet three sorts of men may apparently be convinced thus to sin.

First, Those that keep out, and withdraw themselves from professing Christ and his ways, and the fear of his name, out of shame or fear of man, or loss of preferment, or the like worldly ends, when yet they are convinced that they are God s ways, and ought to be professed by them. I do not say that all who do not come in to profess Christ, and that do not join them selves with his people, that they go on against knowledge, for many are ignorant and mistaken about them ; but when men are convinced of the truth, and necessity of professing and confessing of it even unto salvation (as the apostle speaks, Rom. x), and yet out of fear or shame keep still on the other side, drawing in their horns altogether, these go on in an estate of impenitency against knowledge ; for put all these together, and it must needs appear to be so. As, first, when they are convinced that this is the truth, and that salvation and the power of religion is only to be found in such ways and men ; and secondly, that these are to be practised and pro fessed; and yet, thirdly, out of shame, &c., keep still aloof of, and go on a contrary way ; these must needs know that they go on in an estate of im penitency against knowledge. This was the case of many of the Pharisees, who therefore sinned highly ; they believed, and were convinced that Christ was the Messiah ; and so then to be confessed, and followed, and to be cleaved unto, and then also they must needs know that his followers only were the children of God. Yet, John xii. 42, it is said, Though they thus believed on him, yet they durst not confess him for fear of the Jews, and of the Pharisees, and of being put out of the synagogues. At the latter day Christ shall not need to sever such from the rest as he will do the sheep from the goats, for they willingly remain all their days amongst them whom they know to be goats, and refuse the company, and fold, and

176 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING food, and marks of the sheep which they know to be such ; they may apologise, and make fair with the saints, that their hearts are with them, but they will be ranked at the day of judgment as here they ranked them selves, with the workers of iniquity. Of these doth the psalmist speak, Ps. cxxv. 5, * Those that turn aside by their crooked ways, them shall the Lord leave with the workers of iniquity.

Those also thus sin, and are to be joined with these, who know the terms and condition of salvation, and how they must part with all for Christ, and yet will not come to the price ; such do go desperately on against knowledge in a bad estate, and do judge themselves unworthy of eternal life. Thus the young man in the gospel he was told that he was to sell all, and that was the condition, and he knew heaven was worth it, and was convinced of the truth herein, that thus he ought to do, for he went away sorrowful ; now if he had not known that he went away without happiness, he needed not have been sorrowful at all, but he knew the bargain of salvation was not struck up, and likewise what it struck at, and yet still rested in his former condition, and chose rather to enjoy his many posses sions. This man now went on in his state against knowledge.

Secondly, As also those who upon the same or like ground defer their repentance ; these go on in a bad estate, and must needs know they do so ; for in that they promise to repent hereafter, and take up purposes to do it, when they have gone on a little while longer, to add drunkenness to thirst, they do thereby profess that there is a work of grace which they must attain to ere they can be in the state of grace ; for they would not promise so much hereafter, but that they know not how, without such a work, they should be saved. Whilst therefore such shall rest without present en deavouring after it, so long they are judged in themselves to be in a bad estate at present. When men know the curses due to their present estate, and yet say as he, Deut. xxix. 19, I will go on in the way of my heart, and shall have peace afterward; this man sins most highly, and therefore God s wrath

smokes against that man, and he says of him that he

* will not be merciful to him in that place.

Thirdly, Sunk and broken professors, such cannot but go on in a bad estate against knowledge, when either men are fallen from the practice and profession of what is good, which once they thought necessary to salvation, or when they continue to hold forth their profession in hypocrisy. Those that have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, but are returned to their vomit again, some of these are in genious,* and acknowledge themselves fallen, and their present estate mosi miserable, and yet go on in it ; and such are to be pitied, but yet are in a most dangerous condition. Saul when he was fallen away, yet had this ingenuity* a while left, he desired Samuel to pray to his God for him, and told David that he was more righteous than he ; yet still went on in his courses, and in the end, as some have thought, sinned against the Holy Ghost.

But others there are, who, though they be fallen from all the inward, powerful, and secret performance of duties they once did practise, and from all conscience of sinning, yet retain their profession, which they know to be but an outside. These of all others go on against knowledge ; and, Rev. xxii. 15, they are said to make a lie, not only to tell a lie in words, but to make a lie in deeds. Now a lie is a sin of all others most against know ledge, and indeed against a double knowledge, both/acti and juris; and so * That is, ingenuous, and ingenuousness. ED.

is this. [1.] That they profess themselves to be that they know they are not. [2.] That they will not endeavour after that state they know they ought to get into if ever saved. This is the condition of many, who, being convinced of the power of religion, have launched forth into a profession, and hoist up sail, but now the tide is fallen, the Spirit withdrawn, the con science of sin extinguished in them ; yet for their credit s sake still bear their sails up as high as ever, even as many merchants do, who are sunk in their estates, still bear a fair show, yea, will seem richer than ordinary, by purchasing lands, &c. Such a professor was Judas, he began seriously, and thought to have gone to heaven, and was earnest in good duties at first, as they also, 2 Pet. ii. 18, they really, or eVrw;, escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Christ ; but in the end Judas became a gross hypocrite, one that pretended the poor when he loved the bag, and on the sudden betrayed his master, when yet the disciples knew it not, sus pected Judas as little as themselves ; and the end of those also, in that fore-named place, it is said to be worse than their beginning. Now because such sin so highly against knowledge, therefore their punishment is made the regula of all other wicked men s ; as when it is said that other sinners shall have their portion with hypocrites, as the wicked angels punishment is made the measure of men s.

Go, ye cursed, into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So among men, such gross hypo crites, their punishment is made the rule, and so the chief of all kind of torments which sinners of the sons of men shall undergo.

Application. Now let me speak a word to all such as thus go on in a state of impenitency against knowledge. This is a high kind of sinning, and of all the most desperate, and doth argue more hardness of heart, and despising the riches of God s goodness. For if, as in the Romans, ii. 4, to go on in sin when a man knows not, that is, considers not that God s mercy. leads him to repentance, is made the sign and effect of a very hard heart, treasuring up wrath, then much more, when thou knowest and considerest thou art in an impenitent condition, and hast many motions lead ing thee to repentance, is thy heart then to be accounted hard. When a man commits a particular act against knowledge, he haply and usually still thinks his estate may be good, and that he shall not lose God utterly, or hazard the loss of him, only his spirit being at present empty of communion with him, he steals out to some stolen pleasure ; but when a man knows his estate bad, and that he is without God in the world, and yet goes on, he doth hereby cast away the Lord, and professeth he cares not for him, or that communion which is to be had by him, as Esau did his birthright.

David, though he despised the Lord, yet he did not cast away the Lord, as Saul did ; for Saul ventured utterly to lose him, knowing his estate naught. David, when he sinned, thought God s eternal favour would still con tinue, though for the present he might lose the sense of it.

But when a man goes on in a state of sinning, he ventures the loss of God s eternal love, and slights it, and knows he doth so. When a man knows that he is condemned already as being impenitent, and that all his eternal estate lies upon the non-payment of such duties of repentance, &c., and that the guilt of all his sins will come in upon him, and that an execu tion is out, and yet goes on, this is more than to commit one act against knowledge, whereby he thinks he brings upon himself but the guilt of that one sin ; and upon the committing of which, he thinks not the mortgage of ; herein men shew themselves more desperate. 2. In the next place, I come to those rules whereby you may measure VOL. IV. M all lies, though it deserves it

178 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING and estimate sinning against knowledge in any particular act of sinning ; and they are either before the sin, or in sinning ; three of either, which I make a second head, to explain this doctrine by.

(1.) First, Before.

[1.] The first rule is, the more thou knewest and didst consider the issues and consequents of that sin thou didst commit, the more thou sinnest against conscience in it: whenas, in Rom. i. 82, Thou knowing (says the apostle) that those that commit such things are worthy of death ; that is, thou considerest that hell and damnation is the issue and desert of it, and yet committest it, yea, and this when haply hell fire at present flasheth in thy face, and yet thou goest on to do it: in this case men are said to choose death, and to love it, Prov. viii. 36. When a man con siders that the way to the whore-house are the ways to death, as Solomon speaks ; so when thou, a professor, considerest with thyself before, This sin will prove scandalous, and undo me, disable me for service, cast me out of the hearts of good men, and yet dost it. Thus that foolish king was told again and again, Jer. xxxviii. 17-19, that if he would yield to the king of Babel he should save his life, and city, and kingdom, and live there still, but if he would not, he should not escape ; but as Jeremiah

Thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire, yet he would not hearken. This is the word of the Lord, says Jeremiah, and he knew it to be so ; and yet being a weak prince, led bj his nobles, he would not follow his counsel. And thus Judas fully knew the issue ; Christ had said again and again, Woe be to him by whom the Son of man told him, verse 23, is betrayed ; and yet went on to do it.

[2.] The second rule is, the more consultations, debates, and motives against it did run through thee before thou didst it, so much the greater and more heinous. How often did mercy come in and tell thee, that if thou lookest for any hope or part in it, thou"shouldest not do such an evil ! How often came that in, Shall I do this, and sin against God ? Did any scripture come in to testify against thee in the nick ? Did God send in the remembrance of such a mercy past to persuade thee, or some mer cies to come, which thou dependest upon him for ? That which made

Spira s sin so great was such debates as these before ; and this made Darius s sin in casting Daniel into the lion s den so great, he debated it with himself, Dan. vi. 14, he was sore displeased with himself, and laboured to the going down of the sun to deliver him. He considered that he was at his right hand in all the affairs of his kingdom, and a man entrapped merely for his conscience, and that to put him to death was to sacrifice I him to their malice. He knew him to be holy, and wise, worth all the | men that sought after his life had yet yielded ; these considerations troubled him afore, and also after, insomuch as he could not sleep for j them, verse 18. Now, because that every such consultation should set an ! impression upon the heart, and countermand the motions of sin, when therefore thou dost it, maugre all such debates and motives to the contrary, this is much against knowledge, and very heinous. Therefore the Pharisees, Luke vii. 30, are said to have rejected the counsel of God, eis sav Toug, in or against themselves, the words will bear either. In themi selves, because they knew it, and took it into consideration, and yet re-J jected it ; and against themselves, because it was their destruction.

[3.] The third rule is, that the more confirmations any man hath had of the knowledge of that which he sinneth in, and testimonies against it, the greater sin against knowledge it is : when a man hath had a cloud of wit-;

nesses in his observation against a particular sin, and yet doth it, and goes on in it, it is the more fearful. To go on against that one witness, the bare light and grudging of natural conscience only, is not so much ; but when it is further confirmed and backed by the word written, which a man hath read, and with testimonies, out of which a man meets with such places, wherein again and again in reading of it such a practice is condemned, and observes it, and then also hears it reproved in sermons, and of all sins else hears in private conference that sin spoken against also, yea, hath in his eye many examples of others sinning in the like kind, which have been pun ished, yea, haply himself also ; yet to sin against all these is exceeding heinous. Sometimes God orders things so, as a sin is made a great sin by such forewarnings. So he contrived circumstances that Judas sinned a great sin ; for Judas knew before that Christ was the Saviour of the world, he knew it by all the miracles he had seen, as also by his gracious words and converse, and he professed as much in following of him ; and he had the written word against it, Thou shalt not murder the innocent. But yet further, God, to aggravate his sin to the highest, orders it so, that Christ should tell him of it when he was to go about it, pronounceth a woe

it had been good for that man that he had never been born, Mark xiv. 21. And the disciples they were sorrowful at to him, Luke xxii. 22, that Christ s speech when he suspected one of them, and shewed an abomina tion and detestation of such a fact ; there was a jury of eleven men, yea, witnesses against it ; yea, and Judas against himself, he asked if it were he, yea, and Christ gave him a sop, and told him, Thou hast said it, and do what thou dost quickly: which even then might argue to his conscience that he was God, and searched and knew his heart ; and yet he went out and did it immediately. How did he sin against the hair, as we speak, and how did all these circumstances aggravate his sin ! But yet a more clear evidence of this is that instance of Pilate, whom God many ways would have stopped in his sin of condemning Christ, who examining him before the Pharisees, he could find no fault with him as concerning those things whereof they accused him, Luke xxiii. 14, and yet to allay their malice unjustly scourged him, ver. 16. And further, when he sent him to Herod, as being willing to rid his hands of him, Herod also found nothing worthy of death in him, ver. 15, which was another witness might have confirmed him concerning Christ s innocency. Yea, yet fur ther, that the fact might be more aggravated, a most notorious murderer s life must be put into the scale with Christ s, and either the one or the other condemned ; and when the people yet chose Barabbas, why, says

Pilate, what evil hath he done? ver. 22. Then he distinctly knew and con sidered that he was delivered up through envy. Yea, and when he was upon the bench, and ready to pronounce sentence as it were, God admonished him by his own wife, Matt, xxvii. 19, whom God himself had admonished in a dream, she sending him word she had suffered many things by reason of him that night, and therefore have nothing (says she) to do with that just man ; yea, he himself, when he condemns him, washeth his hands. And thus it falls out in many sinful businesses which men are about, that God often and many several ways would knock them off, and stops them in their way, as he did Balaam, reproves them, as he did him by a dumb ass, 2 Pet. ii. 16 ; so these by some silent passage of providence, and not only so, but by his Spirit also standing in their way, with the threatenings ready drawn and brandished against them, as the angel did with a drawn sword against Balaam ; and yet they go on ; this is fearful.

180 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING (2.) There are three rules also, whereby the sinfulness of sin, as it is against knowledge, may be measured, from what may be observed in the act, as, [1.] First, The less passion, or inward violence or temptation to a sin committed against knowledge, the greater sin against knowledge it is argued to be. For then the knowledge is the clearer, passion or temptation being as a mist. But then to sin when a man is not in passion, is to stumble at noon-day. For as drunkenness takes away reason, so doth passion, which is a short drunkenness, cloud and mist a man s knowledge. And so Aris totle compares the knowledge of an incontinent person to the knowledge of one that is drunk. When Peter denied his Master, though he had warning of it before, and so it was against knowledge, and it was by lying, and swearing, and forswearing, which are sins of all others most directly against knowledge, yet he was taken unexpectedly,. and when that which might stir up fear to the utmost in him was in his view ; for he was then in the judg ment-hall, where his Master, just before his face, was arraigned for his life, and he thought he might also have presently been brought to the bar with him, if he had been discovered to have been his disciple ; so as his passion being up, his soul was distempered, reason had little time to recover itself, and therefore, though it was against knowledge, yet the less against know ledge, because knowledge had lasam operationem, it had not its perfect work upon his heart ; but now Judas, in betraying his Master, had not only warning before, but was not tempted to it, but went of himself, and made the offer to the Pharisees, sought how

conveniently to do it, plotted to do it, had his wits about him, had time to think of it, and therefore it was, besides the heinousness of the act, more also against knowledge, and so the greater. So David, when he went to slay Nabal, was in hot blood, in a passion ; but when he plotted to kill Uriah, he was in cold blood ; he was drunk when he lay with Bathsheba, but sober when he made Uriah drunk : he went quietly and sedately on in it. And there we find David blamed only in the matter of Uriah, not so much for that of Bathsheba.

[2.] Secondly, The more sorrow, renisus, or reluctancy, and regretting of mind there is against a sin, it is a sign that the knowledge of it is the stronger and quicker against it, and so the sin the more against knowledge ; for that gainsaying and displeasure of the mind against it ariseth from the strength and violent beating of the pulse of conscience, and opposition of it against the sin ; it springs from the greater and deeper apprehension of the evil of the sin in the action which is then in doing. And though that re luctancy be a better sign of the estate of a person than if there were none at all, as there is not in those who are past feeling, and commit sin with greediness, whose estate is therefore worse, and more incapable of repent ance, yet the fact itself is argued to be the more heinous, for it argues it to be against strong, active, stirring knowledge. This argued Herod s sin to be much against knowledge, as indeed it was, Mark vi. 26 ; the text says

he was exceeding sorrowful : now that he could not have been, unless he had exceedingly apprehended what a great sin it was to behead John, who he knew was a just and holy man, ver. 20, and who was one that had a great place in his estimation, for he observed him, and was wrought much upon by his ministry ; and he knew that he did but sacrifice him to the malice of a wicked woman. And in this case the sin is also hereby made so much the greater, in that conscience doth stir up a contrary violent passion in the heart against the temptation, and therefore yet to do it, when

there is such a bank cast up that might resist it, yet then to break all down, such a sin wastes the conscience much.

[3.] Thirdly, On the contrary, the more hardness of heart there is, and want of tenderness, in committing that sin which a man knows to be a sin, it is argued thereby to be the greater sin against knowledge ; not only the greater sin, but the greater sin against knowledge. For hardness of heart in sinning is an effect of having formerly sinned much against knowledge before. For as the light of the sun hardeneth clay, so the beams of know ledge and conscience, lighting upon men s hearts, use to harden them , and do make them in the end past feeling. And therefore, in 1 Tim. iv. 2, sinning against knowledge is made the cause of a seared conscience, they speak lies in hypocrisy ; and therefore knowingly that they are lies, and such lies as damn others as well as themselves, which who believe are damned, 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12; and if so, no wonder if it follows, having their consciences seared with a hot iron. It is not a cold iron will sear their consciences, and make them insensible, but a hot iron, a burning and a shining light, which once having had place in their consciences, and being rejected, they begin to be hardened and seared ; for knowledge makes sins and the apprehension of them familiar to a man, and so less terrible and frightful in the end, as bears and lions do become to their keepers through custom. Judas had a hard heart when he came to betray his Master ; surely his conscience had smitten him at first more for nimming out of the bag than it did now for this of murder. He could never have had such a hard heart, had he not had much knowledge. Was it not a heart, that when he was challenged to his face, he could set a brazen face on it, and did ask as well as the rest, Is it I ? When also Christ cursed him to his face who should do it, and the disciples all abhorred it, had not Judas lived under such blessed and glorious means, and sinned long against knowledge, all this would have startled him and have staggered him in his purpose ; but he goes on as if it were nothing, though when he had done it his con science was then opened too late. When a man formerly hath been troubled with a small sin, more than now with a gross lie, which he can digest better than once the other, or when before, if he omitted praying, it troubled him, now he can go a week without, and is not sensible of it, it is a sign that his knowledge hath hardened him.

III. Thus having given such rules whereby you may estimate the sinfulness of particular acts, I will now proceed to other ways, aggravations taken from the kind of knowledge a man sins against, to sin against what kind of knowledge is most heinous and dangerous. And these are five, drawn from the several qualifications of that knowledge, and the light which men sin against ; for the greater, or the more strong and efficacious the light and knowledge is, the greater is the sin of knowledge thou committest. And this I make a third general head to explain this doctrine by, all these five rules being applicable and common both to particular acts against knowledge, and also lying in an estate of impenitency against knowledge, and all other particulars which have been mentioned.

1. First, then, to sin against the inbred light of nature \ that is, in such sins, as though thou hadst wanted the light of the word in, thou wouldst have known to be such ; this is a high kind of sinning. Such the apostle speaks of, Jude 10, What things they know naturally, in these they corrupt themselves, as brute beasts ; putting as it were no difference of actions no more than beasts, no, not in what nature teacheth them ; and therefore

182 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING therein are as beasts, for it is the light of nature puts the first difference between men and beasts ; and in such kind of sins the apostle instanceth in this first chapter, as namely, that of unnatural uncleanness, in three

! 24, h savroTg, that is, alone by themselves ; so Beza and Theophilact understand it, which he makes there particulars; as, 1. self-uncleanness, ver. the first degree of unnatural uncleanness, which is therefore unnatural, because thou destroyest that which nature gave thee for propagation, quod perdis liomo est. Then, 2. the unclean love of boys, men burning in lust with men, ver. 27, be it discovered in what dalliance it will, though not arising to an act of sodomy, doing that which is unseemly, ver. 27, which he therefore says, is the perverting the use and intent of nature, and so is a sin against nature, leaving the natural use of women. My brethren, I am ashamed to speak of such things as are done in secret. These kind of sins, by the apostles ranking them, are in a further degree of unnaturamess than any other, because they are made the punishments of other sins, which yet were against the light of nature also, namely, not glorifying God when they knew him ; yet that being a sin, the light of nature was not so clear in comparison of these, therefore these are made the punishments of the other, as being more against nature. So for men to be disobedient to parents, stubborn to them, and without natural affection, as the apostle says, ver. 30, 31, this is against nature, even the instinct of it. So unthankfulness, and requiting evil for good, is against a common principle in men s minds. Do not the Gentiles do good to those that do good to them ? Your hearts use to rise against such an one out of common humanity ; or if you see one cruel and unmerciful, which is another reckoned up, ver. 31, there being usually principles of pity in all men s natures by nature, therefore for one man to prey upon and tyrannize over another, as fishes

do over the small ones, as Habakkuk complaineth, chap. i. 14, this is against nature, which teacheth you to do as you would be done to. So covenantbreakers, and lying, and forswearing, mentioned ver. 30, inventors of evil, and truce-breakers, are sins against nature, and natural light. Lying is against a double light, both moral ; both juris, which tells us such a thing ought not to be done ; and facti, whilst we affirm a thing that is not, the knowledge of the contrary ariseth up in us against it, though there were no law forbade it ; therefore of all sins else, the devil s lusts are expressed by two : lying, which is a sin in the understanding, and malice in the will, John viii. 44.

[2.] Secondly, To sin against that light which thou didst suck in when thou wert young, to sin against the light of thy education, this is an aggrava tion, and a great one. There is a catechism of a blessed mother, Bathsheba, which she taught Solomon when a child, put in among the records of sacred writ, Prov. 31, wherein she counsels him betimes, not to give his strength to women ; she foretold him of that sin ; and because it is incident to kings most, they having all pleasures at command, she tells him particularly, it destroys kings ; and so also not to drink wine was another instruc tion there he was forewarned of. This aggravated Solomon s fault the more ; for, read the second chapter of Ecclesiastes, and we shall find there that he was most guilty in the inordinate love of these two ; but he had not been brought up so, his good mother had not thus instructed him. And thus also when God would aggravate his own people s sin unto them, he recalls them to their education in their youth in the wilderness. So Jer. ii. 2, Go and cry to them, I remember the kindness and towardliness of thy youth ; he puts them in mind of their education by Moses their tutor,

and their forwardness then. And so Hos. xii., when he was a child I loved him ; and then God had their first-fruits, ver. 3, this he brings to aggravate their backsliding, ver. 5. Therefore the apostle urgeth it as a strong argument to Timothy, to go on to persevere in grace and goodness, that he

had known the Scriptures from a child, and therefore for him to fall would be more heinous. The reason is, because the light then infused, it is the first, a virgin light, as I may call it, which God in much mercy vouchsafed to prepossess the mind with, before it should be deflowered and defiled with corrupt principles from the world ; and did put it there to keep the mind chaste and pure ; and this also then, when the mind was most soft and tender, and so fitter to receive the deeper impression from it. And hence ordinarily the light sucked in then seasons men ever after, whether it be for good or for evil ; it forestalls and prejudgeth a man against other principles. And though a man comes to have more acquired knowledge and reasons after put into him when he is come to perfect age, yet the small light of his education, if it were to the contrary, doth bias him, and keep him fixed and bent that way. So we see it is in opinions about religion, the light then entertained can never be disputed out ; so in men s ways and actions, Train up a child in his way, and he will not depart from it, Prov. xxii. 6. To sin therefore against it, and to put out the beams of it, or defile it, and to wear out the impressions of it, how wicked is it, and what a wretch art thou to do so ! Many of you young scholars* have had a good Bathsheba that instructed you, not to pour out your strength to drink or women, but to pray privately, and to fear God, and love him ; and when you come hither, you have good tutors also, who teach you to pray ; ministers who instil blessed truths into you, from which one would think you should never depart ; yet you do.

Think how grievous this is ; for if it is made an excuse for many a man in sinning, that it answers his education, that he never knew or saw better, as you say of many papists, then must it needs, on the contrary, be an aggravation of sinfulness. And as it was Timothy s commendation, that he knew the Scriptures from a child, so it will be thy condemnation, that thou knewest better from a child, and yet rebellest against thy light.

[3.] Thirdly, The more real and experimental the light is men sin against, still the more sin ; as when they have learnt it from examples of godly men whom they have lived amongst, or the observations of God s dealings with themselves or others, and not only from the word notionally. To sin against such light, this adds a further degree ; not only to sin against the bare light of nature, but also further, when nature hath besides lighted her torch at the Scripture, and then when beyond ah

1 this the real examples and observations made of God s dealings with a man s self and others shall confirm all this, this makes a man s sinfulness much more grievous ; for as easempla cfficacius docent quam pracepta, so the knowledge got by experiments of mercies or judgments is of more force and evidence. Knowledge learnt by experience is the most efficacious. Therefore Christ himself, who knew all things already, yet learnt, in the school of experience, by what he suffered. A little of some knowledge distilled out of a man s own obser vation is most precious, every drop of it ; therefore the apostle urgeth it on Timothy, Continue in the things thou hast learned, and been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, 2 Tim. iii. 14. There is a twofold motive, and both emphatical: first, he was assured in himself ; * This was probably preached at Oxford. ED.

184 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING and secondly, that which strengthened that assurance, and was a means to work it, was the example of the holy apostle, and of his own parents, knowing of whom thou hast learned it. And so, verse 10, the apostle

Thou hast fully known my doctrine and manner of life ; and then also brings to his mind the education of those again urgeth his own example, his godly parents who instructed him. Hence also, Isa. xxvi. 10, it is made an aggravation, that in the land of uprightness men deal unjustly. Thus light drawn from the observation of God s judgments upon others, it much aggravates ; it is laid to Belshazzar s charge, * Thou knewest all this, how God dealt with thy father Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. v. 22. So some of you come here, and live in a religious society, and see sometimes one, sometimes another of thy colleagues turn to Christ, yea haply, chamberfellow converted from his evil courses, and yet thou goest on ; this is sinning against a great light.

[4.] Fourthly, The more vigorous, strong, powerful the light is that is in thee, and more stirring in thy heart, and joined with a taste, the greater the sins committed against it are to be accounted. The more thou hast tasted the bitterness of sin, and God s wrath, and hast been stung with it as with a cockatrice, the more thou hast tasted God s goodness in prayer, and in the ordinances, the more of such a knowledge, and yet sinnest, the worse. In John v. 35, Christ aggravates the Jews unbelief in himself, and their present hardness, that John was to them, not only a * shining, but also a burning light ; that is, they had such knowledge engendered by his ministry, as wrought joy and heat as well as light ; therefore it is * they rejoiced therein for a season. And thus their fall, Heb. vi., added, is aggravated that it was such a light as had tasting with it. For to explain this, you must know, that between ordinary national light, or that assenting to spiritual truths which is common with men, from traditional knowledge living in the church, that between it and true saving light, or the light of life, there is a middle kind of light, which is more than the common con viction men have, and less than havinglight. It is a light which leaves also some impression on the affections, makes them feel the powers of heaven and hell, and be affected with them. Now the more of such light against a sin, be it drunkenness, or uncleanness, or oppression, and yet fallest to it again, the worse. For this is a further degree added to know ledge, and not common to all wicked men. And therefore as those Jews who had not only common means of knowledge, but miracles also, and yet believed not, John xi. 47, shall be more condemned ; so those who have such tasting knowledge set on by the Holy Ghost, which is as much as if a miracle were wrought, for it is above nature, a supernatural work of the Spirit. And therefore to sin against such light, and such only, is that which makes a man in the next degree of fitness to sin against the Holy Ghost.

[5.J Fifthly, To sin against professed knowledge is an aggravation also, and an heavy one, to sin against a man s own principles which he teacheth others, or reproves or censureth in others. Titus i. 16, those that pro fess they know God, and yet deny him, these are most abominable of all others, for these are liars, and so sin against knowledge as liars do ; in 1 John ii. 4, such an one is called a liar in a double respect, both in that he says he hath that knowledge he hath not, it not being true, and because, also, he denies that in deed which he affirms in word. This is scandalous sinning. So, Bom. ii. 24, the Jews, boasting of the law, and of having the # Qu. saving ? ED.

form of knowledge in their brains, caused the Gentiles to blaspheme when they saw they lived clean contrary thereunto ; and, therefore, a brother that walks inordinately was to be delivered to Satan, to learn what it was to blaspheme, 1 Tim. i. 20, that is, to learn to know how evil and bitter a thing it is, by the torments of an evil conscience, to live in such a course as made God and his ways evil spoken of, as it befell David when he thus sinned. Yea, 1 Cor. v. 10, 11, though they might keep company with a heathen, because he was ignorant and professed not the knowledge of God, yet if a brother, one that professed, and so was to walk by the same rules, did sin against those principles he professed, then keep him not company. Thus did Saul sin. All the religion he had and pretended to in his latter days was persecuting witches ; yet in the end he went against this his principle, he went to a witch in his great extremity at last. And thus God will deal with all that are hollow, and sin secretly against knowledge, in the end. He suffers them to go on against their most professed principles. These are aggravations in general, applicable both to any act of sinning, or going on in a known state of sinning.

Use. Now, the use of all that hath been spoken, what is it but to move all those that have knowledge to take more heed of sinning than other men, and those of them that remain in their natural estate to turn speedily and effectually unto God ? For if sinning against knowledge be so great an aggravation of sinning, then of all engagements to repentance knowledge is the greatest.

First, Thou who hast knowledge canst not sin so cheap as another who is ignorant. Therefore, if thou wilt be wicked, thy wickedness will cost thee ten times more than it would another. Places of much knowledge, and plentiful in the means of grace, are dear places to live in sin in. To be drunk and unclean after enlightening, and the motions of the Spirit, and powerful sermons, is more than twenty times afore ; thou mightest have committed ten to one, and been damned less. This is condemnation, Bays Christ, that light came into the world. Neither canst thou have so much pleasure in thy sins as an ignorant person, for the conscience puts forth a sting in the act when thou hast knowledge, and does subject thee to bondage and the fear of death. When a man knows how dearly he must pay for it, there is an expectation of judgment embittereth all. Therefore the Gentiles sinned with more pleasure than we. Therefore, Eph. iv.

18, 19, the apostle, speaking of them, says that through their ignorance and darkness and want of feeling they committed sin with greediness, a!hd so with more pleasure, they not having knowledge, or hearts sensible of the evils that attend upon their courses.

Secondly, Thou wilt, in sinning against knowledge, be given up to greater hardness. If the light that is in thee be darkness, says Christ, great is that darkness. Therefore, the more light a man hath, and yet goes on in works of darkness, the more darkness will that man be left unto, even to a reprobate mind in the end.

Thirdly, It will procure thee to be given up to the worst of sins more than another man ; for God, when he leaves men, makes one sin the punishment of another, and reserves the worst for sinners against know ledge. These Gentiles, when they knew God, they worshipped him not, God gave them up to the worst of sins whereof they were capable, as un natural uncleanness, &c. Put these are not sins great enough for thee, that art a sinner of the Christians, to be given up to drunkenness or adultery,

186 AGGKAVATIONS OF SINNING

&c. ; otherwise than to discover thy rottenness, these are too small sins ; but thou slialt be given up to inward profaneness of heart (as Esau was, having been brought up in a good family), so as not to neglect holy duties only, but to despise them, to despise the good word of Go.d and his saints, and to hate godliness and the appearance of it ; thou shalt be given up to contemn God and his judgments, to trample under foot the blood of the covenant, or else unto devilish opinions. Those other are too small to be punishments of thy sin, for still the end of such an one must be seven times worse than the beginning, as Christ says it shall. If thou wert a drunkard, a swearer, or an unclean person before, and thy knowledge wrought some alteration in thee, thou shalt not haply be so now at thy fall, but seven times worse, profane, injurious to saints, a blasphemer, or derider of God s ways and ordinances.

Fourthly, When thou comest to lay hold on mercy at death, thy knowledge will give thee up to more despair than another man. Knowledge, though when it is but newly revealed, it is an help ; yet not made use of, turns against the soul, to wound it, and to work despair ; and this both because we have sinned against the means that should have saved us, as also because such as sin against knowledge, sin with more presumption ; and the more presumption in thy life, the more despair thou art apt to fall into at death.

Therefore, Isa. lix. 11, 12, what brought such trouble and roarings like bears upon these Jews? and that when salvation was looked for, that yet it was so far off from them, in their apprehensions ? Our iniquities testify to our face, and we know them. Now, then, sins testifyto our face when our conscience took notice of them, even to our faces when we were committing them ; and then also the same sins themselves (say they) will again testify to our faces, when we have recourse for the pardon of them. Therefore thou wilt lie roaring on thy deathbed, and that thou knowest them will come as an argument that thou shalt not have mercy. As ignorance is a plea for mercy, * I did it ignorantly, therefore I obtained mercy, so I did it knowingly, will come in as a bar and a plea against thee, therefore I shall not have mercy.

Fifthly, Both here and in hell, it is the greatest executioner and tormentor. In this sense it may be said, Qui auget scientiam, auget dolorem, He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, as Solomon speaks ; for know ledge enlargeth our apprehension of our guilt, and that brings more fear and torment.

Have they no knowledge who eat up my people ? Yes, there is their fear, says David. Therefore, Heb. x. 28, after sinning after knowledge, there remains not only a more fearful punishment, but a more fearful expectation in the parties consciences. And this is the worm in hell that gnaws for ever. Light breeds these worms. But then you will say, It is best for us to be ignorant, and to keep our selves so.

I answer, No. For to refuse knowledge will damn as much as abusing it. This you may see in Prov. i. 23, Ye fools (says Wisdom), you that hate knowledge, turn, and I will pour my spirit upon you, and make known my words to you. Well, ver. 24, they refused, and would none of his reproof; therefore, says God, I will laugh at your calamity, that is, I will have no pity, but instead of pity, God will laugh at you ; and when your fear comes, I will not answer, because ye hated knowledge, ver. 29 ; so as this is as bad, there remains therefore no middle* way of refuge to extricate thyself at, and avoid all this, no remedy but turning unto God ; otherwise thou canst not but be more miserable than other men. Yea, and

this must be done speedily also. For thou having knowledge, God is quicker in denying thee grace, and in giving thee up to a reprobate mind, than another man who is ignorant. He will wait upon another that knows not his will and ways, twenty, thirty, forty years, as he did upon the chil dren of the Israelites that were born in the wilderness, and had not seen his wonders in Egypt, and at the Red Sea ; but those that had, he soon sware against many of them, that they should never enter into his rest.

swift witness against those to whom the gospel is Christ comes as a preached, Mai. iii. 5 ; he makes quick despatch of the treaty of grace with them. Therefore few that have knowledge are converted when they are old, or that lived long under the means. And therefore you that have knowledge are engaged to repent and to turn to God, and to bring your hearts to your knowledge, and that speedily also, or else your damnation will not only be more intolerable than others, but the sentence of it pass out more quickly against you. Therefore as Christ says, John xii. 86, Whilst you have the light, walk in it. For that day of grace which is very clear and bright, is usually a short one. And though men may live many natural days after, and enjoy the common light of the sun, yet the day of grace and of gracious excitements to repent may be but a short one.

AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING AGAINST

MERCY.

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering ; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth tliee to repentance ?

But, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. ROM. II. 4, 5.

THIS is the last and most weighty aggravation which the apostle puts into the measure of the Gentiles sinfulness (which in the former chapter he had, verse 29, pronounced full before), to make it fuller yet. Their sinning against mercies, and despising the riches of God s goodness, patience, and forbearance, the hateful evil and iniquity whereof can be better no way set off and illustrated unto men s consciences, than by a display of the riches of that goodness which men sin against.

My purpose therefore is to unlock and carry you into that more common treasury of outward mercies, and lead you through the several rooms thereof, all which do continually lead you unto repentance ; that then, reflecting upon our ungrateful waste and abuse of so many mercies in sin ning, thereby our sins, every sin, the least, may yet appear more sinful unto us, * who are less than the least of all mercies. Know then, that * unsearchable riches of grace laid up in besides that peculiar treasure of Christ, Eph. ii. 7, the oner of which neglected and despised adds yet to all that sinfulness, a guilt as far exceeding all that which shall be spoken of, as heaven exceeds the earth, there is another untold mine of riches the earth is full of, as the Psalmist tells us, Ps. civ. 24, and the apostle here, which these Gentiles only heard of. and which we partake of all as much as they. As there are riches of grace offered to you which can never be exhausted, so there are riches of patience spent upon you which you will have spent out in the end, the expense of which cast up, will alone amount to an immense treasure, both of guilt in you and of wrath in God, as these words inform us.

To help you in this account, I will,

1. In general, shew what goodness or bounty, patience, and longsuffering are in God.

2. That there are riches of these spent upon all the sons of men.

3. That these all lead men to repentance. And then,

AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING AGAINST MERCY. 189

4. I will expostulate with you and aggravate your sinfulness in going on to despise all these by unrepentance, as the apostle here doth.

1. First, In that God is said here to be (1.) good or bountiful; (2.) patient or forbearing ; (3.) longsuffering ; they seem to note out three de grees of his common mercies unto men.

(1.) First, He is a good or a bountiful God ; for so as goodness is here used, I exegetically expound it. For though it be true that goodness and bounty may differ, yet when riches of goodness are said to be communi cated, it imports the same, and is all one with bounty. And such is God. And all those noble and royal qualifications and properties which concur to make one truly good and bountiful, do meet and abound in him, in all those good things which he doth bestow, and are found truly in none but in him, so that it may be truly said, that there is none good but God, as Christ says of him.

Now bounty in the general, which is in God, may be thus described.

It is a free, willing, and a large giving of what is merely his own, look ing for no recompence again.

To explain this, that you may see that all these conditions are required to true goodness, and all of them to be found in God only.

[1.] He that is bountiful, he must be a giver and bestower of good things ; and all he bestows it must be by way of gift, not by way of recom pence unto, or by desert from the party he bestows all on. Therefore

Christ says, Luke vi. 33, that to do good to those who have done or do good to us, is not thankworthy, nor is it bounty. But God is therefore truly good, because he simply, merely, and absolutely gives away all which he bestows. For he was not, nor can any way become, beholden to any of his creatures, nor had formerly received anything from them which might move him hereunto ; so Rom. xi. 35, Who hath first given him, that he may recompense him again ? Nay, until he gave us a being, we were not capable of so much as receiving any good thing from him.

[2.] He who is truly termed good or bountiful, all that he gives away must be his own ; and so all which God bestows it is his own. So Ps. xxiv. 1, * The earth is the Lord s, the ground we tread on, the place we dwell in ; he is our landlord. But is that all ? For the house may be the landlord s when the furniture is] the tenant s. Therefore he further adds, And the fulness of it is his also ; that is, all the things that fill the world, all the furniture and provision of it both, all the moveables. So Ps. 1. 11, 12, The cattle and the fowls upon a thousand hills are mine, says he ; and * the com and oil which you set and plant, also all the standing goods, 4 are mine, Hos. ii. 9 ; yea, and the Psalmist, in the 24th Psalm, adds further, that they who dwell therein are his also ; not the house and furniture only, but the inhabitants themselves. And this by the most sure and most sovereign title that can be, better than that of purchase or inheri tance of and from another ; for he hath made them. All is thine, because all comes of thee, says the same David, 1 Chron. xxix. 11, 12. And all things are not only of him, but through him, Rom. xi. 36 ; that is, they cannot stand nor subsist without him. Even kings, the greatest and most bountiful of men, their bounty is but as that of the clouds, which though they shower down plentifully, yet they first received all from the earth below them.

[8.] He must give largely, it is not bounty else. Now God is therefore said to be rich in goodness, because he is abundant in it. So we find it, comparing Ps. xxxiii. 5, with Ps. civ. 24, in which it is said, that

190 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING

his riches ; which we may judge of, by what he says in the 27th verse of that 104th Psalm, of what an house he earth is full of his goodness, and keeps, and what multitudes he feeds ; All these, saith the Psalmist, wait on thee, that thou mayest give them meat ; and thou openest thy hand, and they are filled with good. King Ahasuerus, to shew his bounty, made a feast to his chief subjects, but it was but for half a year, and not to all ; some few half years more would well nigh have beggared him ; but IGod doth thus continually. The greatest and most bountiful of men, when they would express the largest of their bounty, speak but of giving half of their kingdoms ; so Herod and he did but talk so too ; but God bestows whole worlds and kingdoms, as Daniel speaks, Dan. iv. 32, and gives them to whom he please.

[4.] He that is bountiful must give all he gives freely, and willingly. Which, though I put together, yet may implytwo distinct things. As, first, that he that gives must be a free agent in it, who is at his choice, whether he would give anything away or no. The sun doth much good to the world, it affords a large light, and even half the world at once is full of its glory, yea, and all this light is its own, not borrowed, as that of the moon and stars is ; yet this sun cannot be called good or bountiful, because it sends forth this light necessarily and naturally, and cannot choose but do so, nor can it draw in its beams. But God is a free giver, he was at his choice whether he would have made the world or no, and can yet when he pleaseth withdraw his Spirit and face, and then they all perish, Ps. civ. 29. Secondly, It must be willingly also ; that is, no way constrained, nor by extraction wrung from him who is to be called bountiful. A willing mind in matter of bounty, is more accepted than the thing, 2 Cor. viii. 12. Now of God it is said, Dan. iv. 32, that he gives the kingdoms of the world to whom he will, and none sways him, or can stay his hand, ver. 35, yea, he gives all away with delight. So Ps. civ. 31, having spoken of feeding every living thing, and of other the like works of his goodness throughout that Psalm, he concludes with this, God rejoiceth in all his works ; r that is, doth al the good he doth to his creatures with delight. It doth him good (as ii were) to see the poor creatures feed.

[5.] Last of all, looking for no recompence for the time to come. This is another requisite in bounty. Says Christ, Luke vi. 34, If you give receive again, as sinners do, this is not thankworthy ; but ver. 25, so doth not your heavenly Father. For, says he, Do good, and hope for nothing again ; so shall you be like your Father, and then you shall shew yourselves true children of the Most High. In which word he insinuates a reason why God gives all thus ; because he is so great and so high a God, as nothing we do can reach him, as David speaks, Ps. xvi. 2, My goodness extends not unto thee ; he is too high to receive any benefit by what we do. And even that thankfulness he exacts, he requires it but as an acknowledgment of our duty, and for our good, Deut. x. 12.

(2.) And so much for the first, namely, what goodness and bounty is ; and how God is truly good, and he only so. But this attribute of his, and the effects of it, he exerciseth towards all our fellowcreatures, and did to Adam in paradise. But now to us ward (as the apostle speaks), namely, the sons of men, now fallen, he extendeth and manifests a further riches, namely, of patience and long-suffering, which the devils partake not of, the good angels and other creatures that sinned not, are incapable of. For as Christ says, Luke vi. 35, in what he bestows on us, he is kind to such as are evil and unthankful. Mercy is more than goodness, for mercy always doth

AGAINST MEECY

respect misery ; and because all the creatures are subject to a misery, Rom.

* bondage and vanity, therefore

his tender mercies are viii. 20-22, of over all his works. But yet patience is a further thing than mercy (as mercy is than goodness), being exercised, not towards miserable creatures only, but towards sinners, and includes in it more three things further towards them.

[1.] Not only that those persons he doth good unto do offend and injure him, but that himself also is exceeding sensible of all those wrongs, and moved by them, and also provoked to wrath thereby ; it is not patience else. So in 2 Peter iii. 9, it is not slackness, says he there, God is not slack, that is, he sits not in heaven as one of the idol gods, that regarded not what acts were kept here below, or took not to heart men s carriages towards him ; but is longsuffering, or patient, that is, he apprehends himself wronged, is fully sensible of it, is angry with the wicked every day, Ps. vii. 11, he hath much ado to forbear ; even when he doth forbear and letteth them alone, he exerciseth an attribute, a virtue towards them, namely, patience, in keeping in of his anger, which is as to keep fire in one s bosom.

[2.] But, secondly, this is not all. He doth not simply forbear and re strain his anger, but vouchsafeth that time he forbears them in, that they might repent in it, and his mercies as means leading to repentance. So it follows in that, 2 Pet. iii. 9, ( But God is longsuffering to us-ward, and his longsuffering hath this in it, not willing that any should perish, but come unto repentance. So also Rev. ii. 21, it is called space to .repent. And all the blessings he vouchsafeth, he gives them as means and guides to * lead them to repentance, as here. And Mat. xviii. 29, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all ; that is, give me a longer day and space to pay the debt in, and be willing to accept it when I bring it, and let me lie out of prison that I may be enabled to pay it.

[3.] Thirdly, There is yet further thing in his patience, namely, a waiting and expectation that men would come in and repent. So Luke xiii. 7, These three years have I come seeking fruit, but have found none. There was an expectation, a longing, a desire it would bring forth fruit.

* Oh, when shall it once be ? says God, Jer. xiii. 27.

(3.) In the last place, that other attribute of longsuffering, which is the third, is but as a further degree of patience, but patience lengthened out farther ; that is, when God hath been thus patient, hath forborne and waited for their coming in, and that not for three years, but haply thirty, forty years, and still they turn not, his patience then begins, as we would think, to be as it were worn out, and his anger begins to arise, as if he could forbear no longer, as it was towards that tree, * Why cumbereth it the ground ? cut it down ; yet he goes on to spare a man another year, and many more years still after that, and endureth with much longsuffering (as Rom. ix. 22) the vessels of wrath, endures to wonderment, above mea sure, beyond all expectation, all patience, as it were ; this is longsuffering. 2. The second general head is, that there are riches of this his goodness, &c., expended on us.

It is rich goodness, patience, and longsuffering: (1.) rich in themselves, in regard of their abundance, as they came from him ; and (2.) rich also in regard of their precious usefulness unto us, as they may be improved by us.

(1.) First, In themselves they are rich. [1.] If we consider what is ex pended all that while he la;^ out, not simply his power to sustain and uphold all things and to maintain us freely, so to do is nothing to him. For whilst

192i AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING he doth but so, nothing goes out of purse, or is detracted from him ; as I may so speak, he feels not the expense either of power, providence, &c.

All this cost him but words. For he upholds all, creates all by the word of his power , Heb. i. 3. And thus to maintain the angels, and to have maintained all mankind before they fell, had been no more. But, my brethren, when now he maintains us sinners, not simply power goes forth from him, but his glory is expended and taken from him, and for the while wasted, detracted from. He loseth at present every day infinitely by us, and he is sensible of it ; every sin takes glory from him, robs him, as he himself complains: that he who made the world upholds it, keeps it to gether as the hoops do the barrel it would fall to pieces else, to nothing in whom all live, as fishes in the sea, yea, upon whom all live ; that he should live unknown, unthought of, unserved, yea, disgraced, dishonoured in the world, and have this world lost to him as it were, and sin, the devil, wicked men, to have all the glory from him, to be exalted, to carry the whole world afore them : this spends upon him, he had need of riches to do tin s.

[2.] Secondly, Consider the multitude of sinners that thus spend and live upon these riches, no less than all the world. He had need of multitudes of patience in him ; he forbears not one, but all and every one. We look upon one man, and seeing him very wicked, we wonder God cuts him not off; we wonder at ourselves that God did not cut us off before this, when once our eyes are opened ; nay, then, cast your eyes over all the world, and stand amazed at God s forbearance towards it. Take the richest man that ever was, to have millions of men in his debt, it would undo him soon. All the world are in God s debt, and run still in debt every day more and more, and yet he breaks not, nay, breaks not them.

[3.J Nay, thirdly, to manifest this abundance yet more, consider not only the multitude he forbears, but the time he hath done it, to forbear much and to forbear it long. He hath forborne and been out of purse from the begin ning of the world, since men were upon the face of the earth, five thousand years and a half already, and how long it is yet to the day of judgment we know not. And yet ye see, he is as patient and as bountiful now in the latter days of the world as he was at the first. Did that greatest convert that ever was, that had not lived past thirty years in his sinful estate (for he was young when he held the stoners clothes that stoned Stephen), and yet was the chiefest of sinners, did he yet, as himself says, think himself a pattern of longsuffering, 1 Tim. i. 16, thought it a great matter God should forbear so long ? What is the whole world then ? If he, being but one small, poor vessel, was so richly laden with the riches of God s patience, how is this great bark of the world then fraught that hath gone over so vast a gulf of time ? How much of these his riches have been laden in it ?

[4.] And then, fourthly, add to this the expensive prodigality of all these sinners in all ages ; every sinner spends something, and how lavish are men of oaths ?

All the thoughts of men s hearts from their youth up, they are evil, and only evil, and continually ; and how much then hath every man spent him ? Every sin is a debt.

(2.) In the second place, this is a rich goodness and patience in regard of the preciousness and usefulness.

[1.] First, Precious, in regard of what all these manifestations of his good ness and forbearance cost, even the blood of his Son, who as a Lord hath bought and purchased all wicked men, their lives and their reprival, all that

AGAINST MERCY

time that here they live ; and all the blessings and dispensations of good ness, which here they do enjoy. Christ s mediation so far prevails with God for all the world, that it puts a stop to the present proceedings of jus tice, which otherwise had said of all, That day thou sinnest, thou diest. So that as Christ may be called the wisdom and the power of God, so also the patience and the long-suffering of God. For, for his sake and through his means it is exercised. God would not shew a drop of mercy but for his Son. Which, I take, strongly and clearly intimated, in that dealing of his with the Jews, Exod. xxiii. 20, compared with Exod. xxxiii. 2, 3, 4, &c. Immediately after God had given the law, by the rules and threatenings whereof God the Father in his government was to proceed, and after they had transgressed it, he there declares that he could not go with them.

For, according to the rules of his government, he should destroy them ; but his angel he would send with them, even Christ, he might shew them mercy, for he was the purchaser of it ; and that he was that angel appears in that God tells them, ver. 21, that his name was in him, who also would destroy them, if they turned not and repented, according to the rules of his law, the gospel.

[2.] And precious, secondly, to us, in regard of the usefulness, this good ness and longsuffering tend and serve unto. This makes this stock of time afforded you, by God s goodness, to be riches indeed, that it is space to repent, Rev. ii. 21 ; not a time of reprival only, but to get a pardon in ; and this makes all the good things we enjoy to be precious indeed, that they are means leading us by the hand to repentance. Eich it is, because if your time be laid out as it ought, you may obtain those far surpassing riches of glory reserved for hereafter ; win and gain Christ by it, and all his unsearchable riches. All things receive their worth and valuation from what they tend to, and from what depends upon them, and the use they might be put to. A bond, a man s will, which in itself, as it is a piece of parchment, is not worth one shilling, yet an estate of many thousands may lie and depend upon them. And so time is not simply precious in itself, but in regard of the opportunities of it. And accordingly, in those ordinary passages of our lives do we more or less estimate and count time precious, as the business allotted to it is of more or less consequence. When a matter falls out that concerns us, and requires despatch, and we are cast into straits of time about it, we count every minute precious ; so this time of ours, which is the chief and principal of that stock put into our hands by God s patience, being space to repent in, to gain and trade for heaven with, in this respect every minute of it is as much as heaven is worth, and one hour of it may be as much as all the time you are to spend for ever, after this life ended, every minute hath an influence into eternity. And however you may account it, yet the balance of the sanctuary thus

Why lay you out your money for what is not, &c., Isa. Iv. ii. ; that is, this precious day of grace, and the thoughts, cares, and endeavours which are brought forth and minted estimates your time, calls it your money : in this time allotted, these are your money you might purchase heaven by. And thus it hath been esteemed by holy and godly men, who yet had less need to value it, having done the main business it was allotted for. David, in the 39th Psalm, ver. 13, being brought very low, Oh spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence, and be seen no more. So Hezekiah, Isa. xxxviii., how did he sue for, and when he had obtained fifteen years, how did he ble,: God ? ver. 20. Or if by this you judge not so, think with thyself, what at the day of death thou wouldst account of an

VOL. IV. N

194 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING hour, of a month, a year ? What others, who have lain gasping, would have given a world for time again, as I have heard one crying day and night, * Call time again ; or if not then, Oh what in hell !

8. The third thing I am to shew is, that all this goodness, patience, and forbearance is afforded towards you as a means, and helps to bring you to repentance. Acts xvii. 28, God (says the apostle there) hath allotted to men both their times to live, and also their places of abode and habitations, all richly furnished with blessings to uphold their lives and beings. And to what end are both these thus afforded ? That they might seek the Lord, * they might haply find him. But men being in the dark, and destitute of guides to bring them unto God, may yet be as far off finding him as ever. Therefore add but the words of my text to what the apostle says there, and we see that this if by groping after him, even as men in the dark, goodness of God takes us by the hand, and leads us to repentance, to turn from sin unto God, and so to find him. And thus led are you unto God by the help of these several guides, which each after other sweetly lead you and point you out to this.

First, All this goodness bears witness to your hearts of a gracious hand that extends itself in all these ; therefore in that 17th of the Acts, he sub

God is not far off any of us. That there is a good God bestows all joins, things on you, is a thought lies at next door of all his blessings not far off.

do bear witness of him, though they went on in their own ways, Yea, they all, says the apostle to the same Gentiles, Acts xiv. 16, * yet, says he there, * God left not himself without witness; that is, an impression on their hearts that his good hand bestowed all on them when he filled their hearts with food and gladness.

Secondly, His goodness having brought thus God to men s thoughts, then your own consciences take you, and lead you down into yourselves, and bear witness that you by walking in your own ways do nothing but provoke and offend this good God. So Bom. ii. 15. And then, thirdly, there is an indelible principle common to all men to love those who love them ; which after the two former have brought you hitherto, point you to repentance as the conclusion. Shall we go on to sin against this good, so good ? return evil for good ? Is not this a natural, necessary consequent out of these, to say as they, Let us therefore fear the Lord, who giveth us the early and the latter rain, as it is, Jer. v. 24. And though men are said not to know this in the text, yet the meaning is, they do not throughly and effectually consider thus much, so as thereby to be brought to repentance ; yet, however, there is such a witness of all this in all men s hearts, and thus are they led on unto repentance, would they see their way and follow their guide.

The use shall be an use of expostulation, as here the apostle carries it, with men sinful and impenitent, for going on to sin against all this mercy, j together with an aggravation of their sinfulness hereby. Men, if young, do usually take the advantage of this their precious time, which of so much longsuffering is vouchsafed them, and of all those precious opportunities; and blessings they enjoy, to improve them only in reaping and gathering in to themselves the pleasures of sins, making the time of youth their j harvest of sinning, and yet think to escape by repenting afterwards ; and ! then when old, after they have already enjoyed a long and a fair sunshine day to turn to God in, and to have sown much seed to the Spirit, the comfort whereof they might now have reaped, yet, as they have altogether neglected so to do all their youth, so they go on to do so still, whilst they see they have.

any day left, be it never so near the setting, and do choose rather despe rately to venture their estate in the world to come upon the riches of his mercy pardoning, though without all care and endeavour to change their hearts or lives, upon the experience they have had of the riches of his mercy forbearing them in this world, thinking to find him the same in both. With all such, let me reason a little, and from the riches of God s goodness, patience, &c., spent upon them, at once expostulate with them, for their impenitency, and aggravate to them their sinfulness, and also, if possible, prevail with them to go on to despise it thus no longer. And if there be any principle of common ingenuity, any spark (I do not say of grace, but of goodness of nature) left unextinguished, methinks it should affect you, and do some good on you ere I have done.

And to that end, consider a little, and compare together God s lovingkindnesses towards you, and your unkind dealings towards him.

To begin at the beginning of thy being. How much riches of goodness were there laid and buried in thy foundation ? when the first corner stone was laid, when thou wert made a man (besides the cost which hath been spent upon this building since), and, cursed as thou art, even that very foundation was laid in bloody iniquities, in which thou wert conceived ; and the very materials of soul and body thou consistest of, being tempered with * like the stone in the wall, and beam out of the timber, Hab. ii. 10, 11, sin, * Haze it, raze it, even to the very ground, Ps. cxxxvii. 7. Consider how but the other day thou wert mere nothing, and when an cry out every moment to God against thee, as Edom did, infinite number that never were nor shall be were in as great a possibility of being as thou ; for when he made this world, he could have laid it aside wholly, and created millions of other worlds, yet he chose thee to have a room in this but one world, for he means to make no more ; and this world could have stood without thee, and did before thou wert, and shall do when thou art gone ; yet he called thee forth out of nothing, and by his almighty power bade thee stand forth when there was no need of thee. I say, he chose thee to have a being ; for as there is an election of things that are to salvation, so out of things that were not unto being. And, wretch that thou art, if thou repentest not, thou destroyest what God hath made, and hadst better have kept nothing still, and never have peeped out, or else to skulk into thy first nothing again, for thou art lost, better never to have been born.

Secondly, Consider yet more goodness. Thou mightest have been ad mitted into the lowest form of creatures, have been a worm, a flea, a fly, which we men filip and crush to death at pleasure ; but to be made a man, created one of the states, barons, lords of the world the first hour, admitted into the highest order, crowned a king in the womb, as David says of man, Ps. viii. 5, made a little lower than the angels, but crowned with glory and honour, made to have dominion over all the works of his hands. The one half of thee is more worth than a whole world, thy soul, as Christ says, that went to the price of souls ; upon which God hath bestowed an eternity of being, and made it the picture of his face, his image, when other creatures do wear but his footsteps. And the body, the other piece, and indeed but the case, the sheath (as Daniel s phrase and the Chaldee hath it, Dan. vii. 15), of thee, what a curious workmanship is it ! wonderfully and fear fully made, as David says, Ps. cxxxix. 15, curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth. So there he calls the womb ; because as curious work men, when they have some choice piece in hand, perfect it in private, and

196 AGGKAVATIONS OF SINNING then bring it forth to light for men to gaze at, so God out of a tear, a drop, he hath limned out the epitome of the whole world, the index of all the crea tures. Sun, moon, stars, are to be found in thee, Eccles. xii. 2. And yet, wretch as thou art, thou art withal the epitome of hell, and broughtest into the world with thee the seeds and principles of all the villanies that have been acted in the world ; and if thou repentest not, thou hadst better have been a toad or serpent, the hatefullest of creatures, and wouldst change thy condition with them one day.

Thirdly, Being a man, hast thou all thy members that belong unto a man ?

he wrote them all in his book, Ps. cxxxix. 16, if he had left out an eye in his commonplace book, thou hadst wanted it ; is not that a It is because mercy ? Ask the blind. If thou hadst wanted those windows to look out ut, thy body would have been a dungeon, the world a prison ; if a tongue, which is thy glory, or an ear, thou hadst lived among men, as a beast among men. And yet when God gave thee all these, what did he but put weapons into an enemy s hand. For hast thou not used all these as weapons of unrighteousness ? Rom. vi. 18, insomuch as the tongue, but one member, * a world of iniquity by the apostle ; and if thou repentest not, thou hadst better, as Christ says, have entered into the world without an is called eye, an ear, a tongue, than with these go for ever into hell.

Fourthly, When thou wert taken out of the womb (where thou didst remain, but whilst thou wert a-framing), what a stately palace hath he brought thee into, the world, which thou findest prepared and ready furnished with all things for thy maintenance, as Canaan was to the children of Israel ; a stately house thou buildedst not, trees thou plantedst not, a rich canopy spangled, spread as a curtain over thy head ; he sets up a taper for thee to work by, the sun, till thou art weary, Ps. civ. 23, and then it

knows its going down, ver. 19 ; then he draws a curtain over half the world, that men may go to rest, goes down without thy bidding, for it causest darkness, and it is night, ver. 20. An house this world is, so curiously contrived, that to every room of it, even to every poor village, springs do come as pipes to find thee water. So Ps. civ. 10, 11. The pavement of which house thou treadest on, brings forth thy food, ver. 14.

Bread for strength, wine to cheer thy heart, oil to make thy face to shine, ver. 15. Which three are there synecdochically put for all things needful to strength, ornament, and delight. The very chambers of that house (as David calls them), drop fatness, and water the earth, ver. 13. He wheels the heavens about, and so spins out time for thee, every moment of which time brings forth some blessing or other, and no one is barren. Therefore, Ps. Ixv. 11, the year is said to be * crowned with goodness, a diadem of goodness encircles it round ; and yet thou hast filled this world thou thus art brought into, with nothing but rebellions, as he hath done with bless ings, and hast piled up sins to heaven, and thou hast pressed all these armies of blessing thou findest the world filled with, to fight against their Maker, under the devil s banner, whom thy wickedness sets up as the god of this world. And as the year is crowned with goodness, so thy years with wickedness, and no moment is barren ; but all thy imaginations are evil continually. Yea, thou hast sinned against heaven and earth, and sub jected the whole creation unto vanity, laden the earth, and filled it so with wickedness, that it groans, the axle-tree of it is even ready to crack under thee, and the ground thou treadest on to spew thee out.

Fifthly, Since thou earnest into the world, what a long time hath God suffered thee to live in it ; he hath not spared thee three years only (as he

did the fig-tree), but thirty, forty. And when thou first madest bold to thrust forth thy traitorous head into the world, death (which thy sin brought into the world with it) might have arrested thee, and told thee this world was no place for thee, for hell is only our own place, Acts i. 25, thou shouldest have been executed the first day. And is not so much time of ease from punishment infinite mercy ? Cast but your thoughts upon the angels that fell, that have been in hell from the moment of their sinning ; do but think with yourselves what they would give to have so much time cut out of that eternity they are to run through, and to have it set apart for ease, and to be void of torment. If the rich man in hell made it such a great suit, and counted it so great a favour to have but one drop of water, which could but for a little while, scarce more than a moment, have cooled and eased, not his whole body, but the tip of his tongue only, how much more would he have thought it mercy, to have lived so many years again as he had done free from torment ! What is it then for thee to live so many years free from the falling of the least drop of that wrath, whereof the full vials should have been poured out many years ago

! The same law was out against us which was out against the angels, That day thou eatest, thou shalt die the death ; what put the difference ? The apostle tells us, his longsuffering to usward, 2 Pet. iii. 9 ; not to them, for in chap. ii. ver. 4, he had told us that he spared not the angels which fell, but posted and threw them into hell as soon as they had sinned.

Sixthly, But further, in the sixth place, is this all? Hath it been barely a time of ease given thee, a time of reprival ? No, it hath been more, space to repent, and so to obtain thy pardon in, Eev. ii. 21. And as it hath been more than ease of torment unto thee, so also consider it hath been more than slackness in him that hath afforded it to thee, as the apostle there doth tell us. It is not that he hath took no notice of thy offending him, but he is sensible of every idle thought, of every oath, vain word, and * he is pained at the very heart, in somuch as he repents that ever he made thee. He is angry with thee as the Scripture tells us, Gen. vi. 6, 7, every day thou risest, every time he looks on thee ; whenever he meets thee going into the tavern to be drunk, the whorehouse to be unclean ; when he meets thee reeling in the streets, he hath much ado to forbear kill ing thee, as he had to forbear Moses when he met him in the inn. He is ready to have a blow at thee, and it should not need be any great stroke or fetching his arm about ; if he did but blow on thee, thou wert consumed. To suffer thee to live, doth therefore cost him much riches of patience, but to cut thee off need cost him nothing ; he can do that with ease. But further, all is joined with a willingness that thou shouldest repent and not perish, as that place tells thee.

It were much mercy for a traitor to be reprived, to have a lease of his life for twenty years, though there were no hope nor means of obtain ing his final pardon after that time spent, and this also, though but for one treason, and though all that time of his reprival he carries and behaves himself never so obediently. But unto thee, this time hath been more than a longer day of life, and putting off the execution, which for the guilt of that first rebellion should have been acted on thee in the womb ; it hath been time to repent in. And yet hath not this time of thy reprival made thee so much the more rebellious ? And hast not thou spent all this time in making up the measure of thine iniquity full ? And hath it been willing ness only in God that thou . "houldst not perish? Yea more, joined with waiting also, when it should once be, thinking the time long, as longing

198 AGGRAVATIONS OP SINNING and desiring that thou wouldst repent, that he might pardon thee. Thus, Jer. xiii. 27, God expresseth himself, * When shall it once be ? Yea, arid consider how many days of payment have been set, arid how many pro mises made and broken all by thee, and yet still he waiteth unto wonder ment. Thou receivedst press-money at thy baptism, when thou didst pro mise to forsake the devil and all his works, and to begin to serve him, when thou shouldst begin to discern between good and evil. But no sooner did the light of knowledge dawn in thy heart, but thou begaunest to fight against him, and thy first thoughts to this day have been only and con tinually evil. And then, haply, in thy younger years, before thou hadst tasted of the pleasures of sin, he gave thee an inkling, by means of thy education, of his goodness towards thee, and of that happiness to be had in him, and thou hadst the first offer of him, ere thy tender years were poisoned by the world, and ho hath dealt with thee again and again, both by his word and spirit, not waited only, but wooed thee, and hath been a suitor to thy heart long ; and I appeal to your hearts how many promises you have made him, of turning from all your rebellions to him, after such a sermon, which was brought powerfully home : in such a sickness, and in such a strait, thy conscience knows full well. And still God hath made trial of thee and given theo longer day; and though thou hast broke with him again and again, yet he hath forborne theo again and again, and hath waited this twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years, when thou shouldst come in and be as good as thy word, and still thou hast failed him. And yet behold and wonder, and stand confounded at the riches of his longsuffering, that after so many years expense and promises broken by thee, expectations failed in him, and many mockeries of him, after all this ho is yet willing to accept of the remainder, if thou wouldst spend the rest of the time left theo in the flesh according to his will, as the apostle speaks, 1 Pet. vi. 2, even to lose principle, use, and all, for what is past, and requires but the same composition was propounded the first day ; yea, and not only so, but with promise to become a debtor unto thee, to bestow further riches on thee than ever yet thou sawest or art able to conceive ; yea, and all this when he could have his pennyworths out of thee another way, and lose not one farthing by thee, but by punishing thee in hell, recover all to the utmost.

Neither, seventhly, hath it been barely and simply an act of patience and forbearance, though joined with this willingness thou shouldst not perish, or merely a permissive act of sullmng theo to live. Uut God shews forth yet more riches of goodness joined with this longsufferingi. In him ye live, and move, and have your being ; and dost thou live in him only ? Nay, thou livest on him also, upon his costs and charges ; * from my mother s womb. And con have hung upon thee, says David, sider what thy life is, that of so small a bottom he should spin out so long a thread ! Had he not drawn it out of his own power, as the spider doth her web out of her own bowels, it had been at an end the second minute ; to maintain that radical moisture, that oil that feeds the lamp and light of thy life, that radicals balsamum, this is UK great a miracle as the maintaining the oil in the cruse of the poor famished widow. And further yet, haiJi he maintained thee only ? Nay more, hath he not defended thee, took thy part, protected theo, took thee under his wing as the hen doth her chickens, to shelter from those many dangers thy life hath been exposed unto ? Otherwise, how many ways, ere this, hadst thou been snatched away out of the land of the living ? Is thy case the case of the fig-tree

Cut it down, another cried, Spare it ? But there have been many have cried, Cut thee only, which before we mentioned, that when God cried, down, and God hath cried, Spare thee : there is never a minute but the devil would have had a blow at thy life, as he longed to have had at Job s. That thou, a poor lump of flesh, shouldst walk through, and in the midst of such an host of fierce and cruel enemies, whose hearts are swelled with malice at thee, and God should say to them all concerning thee, as he did to Laban concerning Jacob, Touch not this man. And yet if thou wert not liable to their malice and power, yet consider how many dangers and casualties, besides, thou hast been kept in and from ; as falls, drowning, killing many ways, how often have the arrows of death come whisking by thee, took away those next thee (haply of thy kindred, brother, sister, yoke fellow, of the same house, family with thyself), and yet have missed thee ? And if we look no farther than these days of mortality we have lived in, two great plagues in this kingdom, how have the most of us all here survived, and now the third is increasing and growing upon us ! To have our lives in such dear years of time, when to have our life for a prey is mercy enough, as Jeremiah told Baruch ! That these arrows should fly round about us, over our heads, and miss us ; that God s arrests should seize upon men, walking, talking with us, and spare us ! How often, many other ways, hath thy neck been upon the block, and the axe held over, and yet hath fallen besides ! To go no farther than thy own body, the humours thereof, if God should not restrain them, would overflow and drown it, as the waters would the earth, if God should not say to them, Stay your proud waves. And when in a sickness they have been let out, yet God hath kept a sluice, that so much should break forth, and no more, which should purge and wash the body, and make it more healthful, as the over flowing of Nilus doth. And when then thy body hath been brought low and weak, and like a crasy, rotten ship in a storm, taking in water on all sides, so that all the physicians in the world could not have stopped those leaks, he hath rebuked wind and sea, hath careened, mended thee, and launched thee into the world again, as whole, as sound, and strong as ever ; and God hath said, as Job xxxiii., that thou shouldst not die. In a word, if thou consider but what thy life is, and the dangers it is subject to, thou wilt acknowledge it is as great a wonder to preserve it, as to see a glass that hath been in continual use, gone through many hands, and hath had many knocks and falls, to be kept for forty, fifty, sixty years whole and unbroken. God hath carried thy life in his hand, as it were a candle in a paper lanthorn in a strong windy night, and kept it from being extinct, whenas we often see in many, that a little cold comes but in at a little cranny, and blows their candle out, as Job speaks. And, eighthly, how have these years and hours of thy time been filled up with goodness ? and with how many comforts ? For a traitor to live, though but upon bread and water all his days, what favour is it ! And so hadst thou lived all this time, never so miserably, though all thy days thou hadst eaten thy bread in darkness, and hadst had much sorrow with thy sickness, as Solomon speaks, Eccles. v. 17. Some there are who, as Job speaks, die in the bitterness of their souls, and never eat with plea sure, Job xxi. 25, scarce seeing a good day ; and if this had been thy case, yet this is infinite mercy. Even whatsoever is on this side hell is mercy. Lam. iii. 22, say they in the worst estate the church was ever on earth, It is thy mercies, not mercy only, but multitude of mercies are shewn us, that we are not consumed, because his mercies are renewed every mom-

200 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING ing. If at the brink of hell, and not in, it is mercy. But hath he not all this while filled thy heart with food and gladness, as the apostle speaks ? Acts xiv. 17. It were infinite to go over the particular kinds of common comforts which God vouchsafes men here ; not half the riches of his good ness is yet told, it would require an age to make an inventory of them. Hast a house in the world to hide thy head in, and keep thee from the injuries of the weather (which was more than Christ had) ? God he is thy landlord (though it may be thou payest him no rent) ; he it is that builds the house, Ps. cxxvii. 1. Hast a bed to lie upon ? He makes it, especially in thy sickness, Ps. xli. 3. Hast thou sleep (which is the nurse of nature the parenthesis of all thy cares and griefs) ? He rocks thee asleep ever} night ; and as he gives thee a house, so he gives thee rest, Ps. cxxvii. 2

It is God keeps off those gnats of distracting cares, and griefs, and thoughts, and terrors of conscience, would buz about a man, and keep one continually waking. And when thou sleepest, is thy sleep pleasant to thee ? Goc makes it so, Jer. xxxi. 26. Hast thou clothes to cover thy nakedness ? Read old Jacob s indentures, Gen. xxviii. 20, and thou shalt see by them whose finding they are at : if * thou wilt give me raiment, that is one o

keep thee warm ? Even his conditions mentioned. Yea, do thy clothes this is attributed to him, Job xxxvii. 17. He fills thee, feeds thee, spreads thy table, serves thee, fills thy cup, as David describes his goodness, Ps xxiii. 5, and gives thee thy meat in due season ; and hath not failed thee a meal s meat, but thou hast had it at thy appointed time, as Job speaks And hast thou health (which is the salt to all these blessings, without which thou wouldst say thou hadst no pleasure in them) ? He is the God of thy health, and keeps off diseases, Exod. xv. 26. I will put none of those diseases on thee ; I am the Lord who healeth thee ; that is, preserve thee from them which else would seize on thee. And these mercies he vouch safeth unto you that are the poorest, and loadeth you with these and the like benefits every day.

But hast thou riches added to these, and abundance ? The blessing of God maketh rich, Prov. x. 22. Though thou hadst them by birth, ye he made those friends and parents of thine but feoffees in trust for thee they were no more, it was God who bequeathed them, Eccles. ii. 26. Or whether thou hast got them since by thine own industry, it is he gives thee power to get wealth, Deut. viii. 18 ; Prov. xii. 24 ; and out of small estate maketh men great, Job viii. 8. It is he by his providence hath stopped the secret issues and drains of expense, at which other men s estates run out ; hath stopped that hole in the bottom of the bag, as the prophet speaks. And with these riches hath he given thee a heart to use them ? This, as it is a farther mercy, Eccles. v. 19, and chap. vi. 2, so also from him, as it is noted there. Or hast thou credit, which is better than riches ? So says Solomon, Prov. xxii. 1. It is God who gives it, not thy wisdom, parts, or worth.

Eccles. ix. 11, Favour is not always to men of skill, that is, not accepta tion of what they do, without a farther blessing from God. Therefore, besides the gift of wisdom, he gave a further promise of honour also unto

Solomon, 2 Chron. i. 11. It is God who fashions men s opinions. The apostle prays to God his service might be accepted of the saints, though no service was like to be more acceptable, for it was the gathering and bringing in of alms and relief to them. It is he rules men s tongues, bids men bless, as well as he bade Shimei curse ; and he hath kept thee from such gross sins, which as flies would have putrefied the ointment of thy good name, who also

conceals those thou hast committed, and hides thee from the strife of tongues, Job v. 21. Hast thou friends, or do any love thee, wherein much of the comfort of our lives consist ? And therefore David says of Jonathan, 2 Sam. i. 26, Thou wert pleasant to me. It is God who gives favour in men s eyes. So he did Joseph, Gen. xxxix. 21. If any man or creature doth thee a kindness, he toucheth their hearts, as it is said of the men who clave to Saul, and visits for thee. He made the Egyptians, beyond all reason, the Israelites friends, gave them favour in their eyes, as the text tells us. And hence, Gen. xxxiii. 10, Jacob says, He saw the face of God in reconciled Esau s face, for God s favour appeared in his look. He put you into your callings, ranks, and stations, gives you all your skill, success in them. The meanest of trades, to sow, and plough, and thresh, they are from the Lord, who is wonderful in working, Isa. xxviii. from the 23d to the end, even as well as the skill of the most curious engraver, limner, or embroiderer ; as of Bezaleel, the Scripture says God was his master, taught him. Hast thou enlarged parts and gifts for higher employments ? It is not thy birth or age hath acquired them unto thee. Job xxxii. 8, 9, Great men are not always wise ; therefore, it goes not by birth. Nor have the aged always understanding. It goes not only by experience, but it is the in spiration of the Almighty. And hast a calling answerable to thy parts, to be a scholar, and have thy mind enriched and ennobled with the best and choicest jewel the world hath, wisdom and knowledge, whereby the mind is elevated as much above other men s as they are above beasts ? God hath been thy great tutor.

The mind of man is God s candle, and he maketh wiser than a man s teachers, as he did Moses in Egyptian learning, Daniel, David.

To conclude, Hast thou comfort in all these, in riches, learning, credit, wife, children, meat, drink, &c. ? He puts in all the sugar, delight, and pleasure ; that especially depends on him, even to fashion the heart to all these. As air lights not without the sun, nor wood heats not without fire, so neither doth thy condition comfort thee without God. And therefore, Acts xiv. 17, it is said, * He filled their hearts, as with food, so with gladness. And besides all these, consider the many peculiar passages and turnings of his providence towards thee for thy good, the working of things together ever and anon to do thee a good turn, the packing and plotting all for thee, better than thou couldst have plotted for thyself, as thy relief in many etraits, success in many businesses. He works all our works in us and or us, as Isaiah speaks, Isa. xxvi. 12. Hath he not taken such special care and providence of thee, as if he had regarded no man else in the world ?

And now, when thou hast considered all, bethink thyself withal a little of thy dealings towards him ; what have been the effects and fruits of all this goodness ? Hold up thy head, man ; look God in the face. It is well yet that shame begins to cover thee. How hath that, his patience and longsuffering, vouchsafing thee space to repent, wrought with thee ? How nigh to repentance hath it brought thee ? Such is the perverseness of man s nature, as Solomon tells us, Eccles. viii. 11, that because sentence against an evil work is not presently executed, therefore the hearts of the eons of men are fully set to do evil. Because God defers punishing, they defer repenting. Thou thinkest to spend the most precious of thy time and strength in sinning, and give God the dregs, the bottom, the last sands, thy dotage, which thy very self and friends are weary of ; and all these blessings and comforts which God hath vouchsafed thee, how hast thou used them

202 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING against him ? This oil, which should have been fuel to thy thankfulness, hath increased the fire of thy lusts, and thy

lusts have consumed them all, James iv. 3. The riches he hath given, thou hast made idols of, and sacrificed thy dearest, morning, daily thoughts and affections unto, as God complains, Ezek. xvi. from the 15th, and so on. His meat, as at the 19th verse he calls it, thou sacrificedst to thy belly, which thou hast made thy God; thy strength to women; the wealth he hath given you, you have made use of but to live at a high rate of sinning, and to procure the sweetest bits, the daintiest and most costly sins. The edge of that sword of power God hath put into thy hand thou hast turned against him and his, haply both his children and ministers ; so that God, by giving thee all these, hath but made thee more able to offend him, and hath strengthened an enemy, and by sparing thee thus long hath but made thee more bold to do it ; all his mercies have but fortified thy heart against him ; * Do ye requite the Lord thus, ye foolish people and unkind ? as Moses expostulates the case, Deut. xxxii. 6. As Christ said to the Jews, For which of all my good works do ye stone me ? So say I to you, For which of all his mercies is it ye sin against him ? What, to fight against him with his own weapons ? to be tray all he gives you into the devils, his enemies hands ? What iniquity did you ever find in him, thus to deal ? God will one day thus expostulate his cause with you, and * heap coals of fire upon all your heads, if that you turn not, because you have rendered him evil for good ; and all these mercies thus abused will be as so many coals to make hell fire the hotter. And to reason this point yet further with you out of the text, and what arguments it will afford to work upon you, Consider, first, what it is thou doest. Whilst thus thou goest on thou art a despiser of the riches of his goodness: that which is opposite to goodness must needs be transcendently evil. What, art thou evil because God is good ? and so much the more evil by how much more he is good ? Surely there must needs be an unexhausted treasure of wickedness in thee, which will also cause in the end a treasure of wrath in him. What ? and sin against mercy, patience, longsuffering, added to goodness ? of all attributes the richest to the most glorious, for it is that he glories in in the abusing of which therefore he thinks himself most debased of all attributes the tenderest. What, kick against his bowels ? So are his mercies called. Canst hit him nowhere else but there ? To despise a man s wisdom, power, learning, is not so much as to despise his love. What canst thou imagine will become of thee when thou comest to die ? What is it thou wilt then come to plead and cry for ? mercy, mercy

! Why, wretch that thou art, it is mercy thou hast sinned against. Eiches of mercy and patience abused turns into fury. I may allude to that speech, 1 Sam. ii. 25, * If a man sin against his brother, the judge shall judge him ; but if against God, who shall plead for him ? So, hadst thou sinned against any other attribute, mercy might have pleaded for thee ; but if against mercy itself, who shall ?

Well, if thou goest on thus to do so still, thou hast a hard heart ; it argues the greatest hardness of all other ; that is the second. You use not, however it comes to pass, to deal thus with the worst of men, sinners like to yourselves ; but to them that love you you tender love again, Luke vi. 32. And will you deal so with God ? Is it a small thing to weary men, but you must weary God also ? says Isaiah, vii. 13. He thought it infinitely less to abuse men than God ; but you carry yourselves as men to men, but as devils towards God : herein ye have not the hearts of men in you, not principles of common humanity, whereby ye differ from beasts.

cords of love are called the cords of a man, Hos. xi. 4. The spirit of man breaks, melts under kindness ; beasts indeed ye use to prick with The goads, but the cords of a man are the cords of love, no principle being more

to do good to those who do deeply engraven in men s hearts than this, good to you, Mat. v. 46. Nay, would ye had herein yet the hearts of beasts, The ox knows his owner, the ass his master s crib, but my people have rebelled against me. A sin so much against nature that he calls upon those creatures who have no more than mere nature in them, viz., the hea vens, to stand astonished at it, Isa. i. 2. But as nature elevated by grace riseth higher than itself, so, being poisoned with sin, it is cast below itself, sins against itself, and the principles which are begotten in and with itself.

If it were not so, how were it possible thou shouldst hate him who never did thee hurt ? and go on to wound him who weepeth over thee ? and de spise that in him most which seeks to save thee ? and load him with sins, Amos. ii. 18, who loads thee daily with his mercies ? Ps. Ixviii. 19. There is a third consideration the text suggests, to shew the fearfulness of thy sin in this respect ; and that is, that thou goest on every minute sinning and in impenitency, by despising his goodness, to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. To sin against mercy, of all other increaseth wrath ; thou must pay treasures for treasures spent. As thou lavishly spendest riches of mercy, so God will recover riches of glory out of thee. God will not lose by thee, but will reckon with thee in wrath for every offer of patience spent ; for every sand of longsuffering that runs out he drops in a drop of wrath into his vials, and it will prove a treasure, such a treasure as shall bring in an eternal revenue of glory unto God, of all his glory lost and riches spent, with advantage ; such a treasure as will ask an eternity of time to be spent upon thee, and yet be never emptied or made less ; and the longer thou goest on, the greater heap it will swell unto. And dost thou know and consider how fast this treasure fills, and how much the longer thou goest on to add to it, still the more thou addest, still the last year more than all the years before ? every minute s impenitency adding to this heap and sum, as new figures added in a sum use to do ; the first is but one, the second makes it ten, the third an hundred, the fourth a thou sand ; and what a sum will this grow to ?

Ay, bat thou wilt say, Tush, I am in prosperity, in health, wealth, and ease, and to-day shall be as to-morrow, and much more abundant, Isa.

Ivi. 12. Well, but fourthly, consider out of the text, that there will come a day at last, the morrow whereof will be a day of wrath. It is treasuring up now, but is not brought forth till the day of wrath, till which day thou mayest go on and prosper, as Job, giving us the reason why wicked men prosper here, says, chap. xxi. 30, they are reserved to the day of wraths, in the plural, because treasures are laid up against them ; thou art yet spared because thy sins are not yet full, and that treasure is not full, as the sins of the Amorites were not, and all this thy present prosperity fits thee but for hell. So Horn. ix. 22, they are said to be vessels fitted for de struction, by longsufiering. And so Nahum tells us, they are but as stubble laid out in the sun a-drying, till it be fully dry, Nahum i. 10, that it may burn the better ; and like grapes that are let to hang in the sun shine till they be ripe, Rev. xix. 15, and so thou for the winepress of God s wrath.

But thy senseless heart may hap to say, I see no such thing, and these are but threats, I think so ; therefore it is said in the text, that it is a trea sure, which, as treasures use to be, is hid till that day comes, and then

204 AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING AGAINST MERCY. revealed, as the words have it. For though thou seest not this day a-coming, yet God, who sits in heaven, sees thy day a-coming, as David says, Ps. xxxvii. 13, who is therefore said to see it, because himself sees it not ; and it is coming faster than thou art aware of it. 2 Pet. ii. 3, Damnation slumbereth not, though thou dreamest not of it, lingereth not : as a hue and cry it is sent out, and is on its course, and will in * as a thief the end overtake thee, and that when thou least thinkest of it, in the night, when thou art asleep, yet dreamest not of it, 2 Thess. v. ; when thou art least prepared for it, as in the old world, when they were eating and drinking. As God watcheth when his child is at the best and ripest, and then takes him ; so he will watch thee to take thee for thy neglect at the worst, and give thee haply no time to prepare ; they go down to hell in a moment, Ps. Ixxiii. 19,

ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH.

[ORIGINAL TITLE.]

Encouragements

TO FAITH.

Drawn from severall Engagements

GODS

J Eeceive

(Pardon f

By THO : GOODWIN, B. D.

Printed by J. G. for R. Dawlman, 1650.

ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH.

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. JOHN VI. 37, 38.

A Preface.

THEEE are two persons whom faith hath to deal withal in seeking of for giveness and laying hold of salvation, God the Father and God the Son ; the Holy Ghost being that person that sets the heart a-work to seek out for -salvation, and reveals the love of them both. And therefore it is that grace and peace (which are the object of faith s inquest) are still wished from God the Father and God the Son ; so generally in all epistles, excepting that of the Revelation, given immediately by word of mouth from Christ himself.

And accordingly when faith comes to treat with these two about the great business of salvation, the first and main thing that it is inquisitive after is, what their heart and mind is, and how they stand inclined towards the receiving and pardoning of sinners. It listens most to hear something of that ; and when a man s heart, through faith, is fully and throughly per suaded of it, then he is fully won.

Hence, because the Scriptures were written for our comfort, and so fitted to and for the workings of faith, therefore they were so written, as especially to bring down and lay before us the heart of God and of Christ ; and so the main thing they hold forth is, the full intent and purpose both of God and of Christ to pardon and receive sinners. This is a faithful saying, says Paul with open mouth, that Christ came into the world to save dinners ; and this Christ himself everywhere indigitates ; and to hold forth this is the scope of these words uttered by Christ himself. And such speeches do contain the very heart, marrow, and pith of the gospel.

And though the heart of a sinner will never be fully satisfied till a per suasion be wrought that God and Christ are purposed and willing to save a man s own self in particular, which persuasion is that which we call assurance, yet when once there is a thorough persuasion settled upon the heart, but of so much indefinitely and in general, that God and Christ are

208 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH> willing and fully resolved to save some sinners, so that the heart does truly believe that God is in earnest, this draws on the heart to come to Christ, and is enough to work faith of adherence, such as upon which Christ will never cast us out, as the text hath it. The great business then for the working faith in men, is to persuade them of God s good will and gracious inclination unto sinners, to beget in them good opinions of God and Christ this way, men naturally having hard and suspicious thoughts of both, as that speech of Christ implies, * God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved, John iii. 17. Christ would never have hinted such a jealousy, nor suggested such thoughts to men s minds, had they not been in them before, and this to prevent and take off such jealousies. Men are apt to think that God had a design upon them as upon enemies, and laid but an ambushment for their further condemna tion, in his treaty of peace tendered to them by his Son. An example o which we have in Luther, who fell into such suspicions as these, for he misunderstanding some words he met with in the epistle to the Romans, as they were rendered by the vulgar translation then in use, namely, these * God sent his Son to declare his righteousness (as they are by us that translated), he thought the meaning of them to have been this, to declare and set forth his judgment on the world (so he interpreted adjustitiam suam, &c.). The truth is, the jealousies of men s thoughts herein were those that have put God to his oath, * As I live, I will not the death of a sinner, &c. So also Heb. vi. 17. Men do not so usually question the power of God, he is able enough to save them they think ; he is able to engraft them in, as the apostle speaks to the Jews, Rom. xi. 23 ; but al their doubts are about his will. God s will was the fountain and spring o: our salvation, in the contriving of which he wrought all things according to the counsel of his own will, as the apostle to the Ephesians speaketh ; and in another place it is said, He will have mercy on whom he will, &c. And therefore the great queries in our hearts are concerning the will of God towards us.

The ivo-rds of the text opened.

Now, these words of my text do hold forth the full willingness of both these two persons, both of God and of Christ.

1. Of Christ, he here professeth himself willing to entertain all that will come to him, He that will come to me, I will in no wise cast out. Which words are not to be understood as if spoken only of casting out them that are already come unto him, as if they were only a promise against being cast off after being received, and so intending against fears of falling away ; but they are chiefly intended as an invitement to all that are not yet come that they would come to him ; and so, to express how ready and willing he is to entertain all comers, as one who sets his doors open, keeps open house, and beats back none that would come in, that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. And though it may seem to be but a slender and sparing expression of his readiness to entertain

I will not cast them out, yet though he speaks with such, to say only, * abundant in goodness and truth, and one that is better than his word in the performance. As when he says, he will not despise a broken heart, is that all the esteem he the least, yet he will do with the most, he being

will manifest to such a heart ? Oh, no ! it is the most welcome thing, and endeared frame of spirit that can be in any creature. His meaning is to shew what he elsewhere says of a meek spirit (which is all one with a broken heart), that with God it is of great price, for so in Isaiah he expresseth himself. I that inhabit eternity, with whom will I dwell ? with a spirit that is broken and contrite. He liseth also this expression of not casting them out, in relation, and for a more direct answer unto the fear which he knew usually possesseth the hearts of poor sinners when they are about to come to him ; they fear he may reject them, they know not their entertain ment, their welcome. To meet with this scruple, he says, I will not cast such out ; choosing rather thus to remove the doubt that is in their hearts, than to express the fulness of his own ; the Scriptures speaking potius ad cor nostrum quam cor suum, rather unto our hearts, than fully what is in his own, which can never be done.

And yet, even in the diminutive expression, there is that inserted, which argues not only a willingness and readiness, but a resolvedness joined with the greatest care and faithfulness that can be, 6v /^, I will in no wise cast out. We may see his heart through this little crevice ; he doth herein as a faithful man, who, to give the more full assurance, puts in some binding word into his promise, as, I will at no hand, or in nowise, fail you. Thus does God also in that known promise, Heb. xiii. 5 (to the horns of which sanctuary many a soul hath fled for refuge), I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, where there are no less than five negatives to bind and assure it, I will not, in no wise (&c.), leave thee. * , Now this willingness of his, on his part, Christ shews by two things.

First, By that great journey he took from heaven to earth, and that to no other purpose but to save sinners. For this (says he) did I come down from heaven. Great actions of one who is wise, must answerably have great ends ; now this was the greatest thing that ever was done, that the Son of God should come from heaven. And when there can be but one end of an action so great, that end must needs be accomplished, or else the action is wholly in vain. Now, in coming down from heaven, he could have no other end but the saving of sinners, he could have no other business to do that he did here, therefore the Scriptures put his coming into the world wholly upon this, to seek and to save that which was lost, and do attribute his taking upon him the likeness of sinful flesh to have been * for sin ; so Rom. viii. 3. Though other ends might be supposed, and were accomplished by the assuming man s nature, yet he had no other end of taking frail flesh, especially there could be no other end of his dying, but merely and only for sin. John xii. 24, he says, If he had not fallen to the ground and died, he had then remained in heaven alone, and no sinners had come thither ; that therefore they might ascend to heaven, he descends from heaven, I came down from heaven, &c.

Secondly, He demonstrates his willingness by this, that his Father had * I come, sayshe to do the will of him who sent me ; and, John viii., he says, I come not of sent him on purpose to receive and to save sinners : myself, but my Father he sent me. And if he were sent by his Father to this end (as he affirms he was, and as by the coherence appears, for he makes it the reason why he will cast none out), then certainly he will faith fully do the work he was sent for. In Heb. iii. 1, he is called the apostle of our profession, apostle, that is, one sent, so the word signifies ; and what follows ? who was fp Hhful to him that appointed him. Now, upon VOL. iv. o

210 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH. these considerations, Christ tells you that you may build upon him, that you shall certainly find him willing.

2. For his Father s willingness, he tells us we may be much more con fident of it, for he puts his own willingness and all upon that : Him (says he) that the Father gives me, shall come to me ; and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me : and this is the Father s will, that he hath sent me, &c. In which words you may observe both wherein he declares his Father to be engaged, and how much.

First, Wherein, and that by two things (1.) That he sent him to that end, and so it is his Father s business more than his own. So also, Luke ii. 49, he expresseth himself, Shall I not do my Father s business ? as elsewhere in Isaiah he is called his Father s servant in it; and John v. 36, he makes it his Father s work.

(2.) Secondly, that he in a solemn manner gave unto him them whom he would have to be saved, with charge to lose none : All that the Father hath given me shall come unto me. And this is his will, that I should lose none, but give him an account of every soul of them at the last day. They are given him as jewels, and as his Benjamins, to look to, and see to bring back and keep from destruction. Now whom he so solemnly gave to Christ to save, he will never cast away, when they shall come unto Christ.

7 deeply, his Father was engaged, and makes it his Father s will rather than his own : Then, 2, he shews how much, and how

I come not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. The meaning whereof is, not to shew that he came unwillingly, or receives sinners unwillingly, but that his Father s will was first in it (as I shall shew anon), and so much in it, that, if you will resolve it into its first principles, Christ s coming was principally to please his Father. It is such a speech as that in John v.

22, The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son, &c. Not that God is not a judge as w rell as Christ, for, Heb. xii. 23, he is termed the judge of all men, but because all judgment is visibly committed unto Christ ; therefore the Father is said to judge no man. So here, because the Father s will is chief and first in it, Christ therefore says, he came not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him.

And so you have the meaning of the words.

The wain observation out of the words. Demonstrations of God s heart herein, from Ids engagements from everlasting. How his heart stood to sinners afore the world was.

The observation which I single out of these words to insist upon, is this, that Both God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son are fully willing and resolved to save sinners.

1. For God the Father. There are many demonstrations of his will herein, that may be taken ah extra from his oath, word, promise, &c., which I shall handle in another method ; but those which I shall first hold forth are more intimate and intiinsical, and homogeneal to the argument which Christ useth here in the text ; which we have seen to be these, that it was God s will first, and Christ s but because it was his I come not to do mine own will ; and that it was he that dealt with Christ about it, and wrought him off to it, and made it his business but the will of him that

sent me. So that the demonstrations which I shall pitch upon shall be drawn from God s engagements, both from his transactions with Christ from everlasting, before he came into the world, and those that now lie upon him from Christ s having fully performed what he sent him into the world for. And from either may be fetched strong consolations and confirmations to our faith, that God s will must needs continue most serious and hearty to save sinners.

Many other sorts of demonstrations of this point might be fetched and drawn from the riches of his mercy, lying by him to bestow on some great purchase ; and on what greater purchase could they be bestowed, to shew forth the glory thereof, than upon the salvation and pardon of sinners ? But these also I shall at the present let lie by untold, having elsewhere counted them up and set them forth, such demonstrations being only proper to this text as argue an engagement of his will ; whereas all those riches of mercy that are in him (although the moving cause of all) might have for ever re mained in him as his nature, without any determination of his will to save any man. When therefore a poor sinner shall hear, besides the merciful disposition of God s nature, that acts and resolutions of his will have passed from him about the pardoning of sinners, so as his will hath engaged all the mercies of his nature to effect it, this brings in strong consolation. Now the deepness of these engagements of his will to pardon sinners may be demonstrated, (1.) From such transactions of his as were held by him with Christ from everlasting ; which hath both put strong obligations upon him, and also argue him fully and firmly resolved to save sinners. Now all the particular passages of those treaties of his with Christ, about the reconciliation of sinners from everlasting, I have elsewhere also at large handled ; and therefore it is not my scope now to enumerate them. I shall now only draw demonstrations from some few of them, by way of corollary, to help our faith in this point in hand, namely, God s resolvedness to pardon sinners.

The first is drawn from this, That God the Father had the first and chief hand in this matter of saving sinners, as I then shewed ; the project was his, and the first motion his.

[l.J The project ; he laid the plot of it, and contrived all about it, for the effecting of it. Therefore, John v. 19, Christ says, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do.

[2.] The first motion was his. I came not to do mine own will, says Christ, * but the will of him that sent me. Both which (project and first motion) are shut up in that one sentence, Eph. i. 11, He worketh all things by the counsel of his own will. Now, for God thus to have the first hand in it, did put a great and deep engagement upon his will in it. We see among men, the projector and first motioner of a business is always most forward in it ; because then it is most peculiarly his own, and the greater will be his honour in the compassing of it. How many great affairs have been spoiled, because some men have not been the chief and first in them, that affect the pre-eminence ? Now this honour God the Father may challenge, that he was the first in reconciling and saving sinners. It is therefore called God s wisdom, Eph. iii. 10, and his purpose, Eph. i. 9, God s righteousness, Rom. i. 17, and the pleasure of the Lord, Isa. liii. 10.

Secondly, this project and motion did rise up in him unto a strong re solution and purpose, and to an unalterable decree to save sinners by Christ ; so Eph. i. 9.

212 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH.

1 And [1.] for his purposes, they are immutable. Would not Paul lightly alter purposes taken up by him, When I therefore was thus minded (says he, 2 Cor. i. 17), did I use lightness ? or the things that I purpose do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay ? Would not Paul, I say, alter his purpose because he preached the gospel, and will God (think you) alter them, who gave the gospel ? No ; it is the * eternal gospel, Rev. xiv. 6, and God is of the same mind still, so it follows in that place to the Corinthians, But as God is true (or varies not), so was our word to you, which yet is his more than Paul s, &c.

[2.J For God s decrees, whereof this was one, they are also immutable. The great monarchs of the earth, the Persians, took to themselves that in fallibility, that they would not alter the decrees which they made : therefore when a thing was unalterable, it was said to be as the laws of the Medes and Persians; which was to shew their greatness and their wisdom, that they could so resolve as no person or power whatever should be strong enough to cause them to change their resolutions ; and yet they were forced, though not to alter a former decree, yet to give countermands unto it, as Ahasuerus did ; and men do alter, because they cannot foresee all events, and so cannot make unalterable decrees without prejudice. Therefore the pope, who takes on him the style of infallible, and so assumes to himself the highest prerogative that ever man did, yet of him it is said, Papa nunquam ligat sibi manus, that he never binds his own hands by any decree he makes, because he cannot foresee all inconveniences, notwithstanding what ever he assumes. But with God it is not thus, He is not a man that he should have cause to repent, for he knows and foresees all that can or will follow.

Now this immutability of his counsel he shews by two oaths ; the first made to Christ, the second to us.

[1.] To Christ, Heb. vii. 21, This priest (Christ) was made with an oath, by him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, &c. And. this was from everlasting; for then it was that Christ was first made priest. Now then God foresaw that he could never have a relenting thought at the pardoning of sinners through him, this his Son would so satisfy and please him ; and thereupon he sware.

God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath : that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to [2.] To us, Heb. vi. 17, 18, lie, we might have a strong consolation, &c. The thing I allege this place for, and which I would have observed, is, that this oath is not mentioned as that now which makes God so immutable, though that be a truth ; but God s oath is here made that whereby God did declare unto us the immu tability of his purpose, formerly and from everlasting taken up, and so that immutability of his counsel was the cause of his oath, and that was to pardon sinners ; for it is the promise made to Abraham and his seed that is there specified.

Yea [3.] God set his seal unto all further to confirm it. He both sealed

Christ to the work, John vi. 27, and likewise sealed up in his decrees the * The founda persons of those sinners that shall be saved. 2 Tim. ii. 19, tion of the Lord remains sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth who are his. And if it were but a king s seal, it could not be reversed ; but this is God s. Yea, he hath sealed up their sins also by and through Christ, Dan. ix. 24, never to be remembered or looked upon more.

Thirdly, God rested not in a decree only, but entered into covenant with Christ to save sinners by him if he would die. This covenant you have dialogue-wise set out, Isa. xlix. First, Christ begins at the first and second verses, and shews his commission, telling God how he had called him, and fitted him for the work of redemption, and he would know what reward he should receive of him for so great an undertaking. God answers him, ver. 3, and at first offers low, only the elect of Israel. Christ who stood now a-making his bargain with him, thought these too few, and not worth so great a labour and work, because few of the Jews would come in, but would refuse him, therefore, ver. 4, he says, he should labour in vain, if this were all his recompence ; and yet withal he tells God, that seeing his heart was so much in saving sinners to satisfy him, he would do it however

work was with the for those few, comforting himself with this, that his Lord. Upon this God comes off more freely, and openeth his heart more largely to him, as meaning more amply to content him for his pains in * that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob ; that is not worth the dying for, I

It is a light thing, says God to him, dying. value thy sufferings more than so, I will give thee for a salvation unto the ends of the earth. Upon this he made a promise to Christ, Titus i. 2, and a promise is more than a purpose. A purpose may be in one s self, as Eph. i. 9, but a promise is made to another. Now God cannot lie in him self, but most of all, not to his Son.

A second sort of demonstrations. The engagements of God s heart to sinners, from and upon Christ s having died at his request.

A second sort of demonstrations are drawn from Christ s having already come and performed all this : for,

1. Christ is now to be satisfied for that his dying, as well as he by his death had satisfied God ; he is now to have his reward. God never set any on work but he gave them wages. Thus unto Nebuchadnezzar he gave Egypt as his hire for his service at Tyre, and to Cyrus he gave hidden treasure. Now it is not Christ s own glory that will satisfy him ; for that he could have had, and never have died ; there remains therefore nothing that can or will satisfy him but to have the end of his death, * to see his seed and be satisfied, and to see of the travail of his soul ; and to justify many, as it is, Isa. liii. 11. He died, as himself speaks, John xii. 24, that he might not be alone in heaven ; his desire is, that those whom he died for might see his glory.

2. If we consider the act itself, of delivering Christ unto death, there was not, nor could there ever be, anything more abhorrent unto God ; no act ever went so much against his heart ; for if he be afflicted in all our afflictions, and doth not willingly punish the sons of men, neither wills the death of a sinner that deserves it, much less would he will the death of his own Son. Now what was there to sweeten the death and sufferings of his Son unto him, except his end in it ? for it is the end that sweetens and facilitates the means tending unto it. Now the end of Christ s death could be no other but to take sins away, and to procure the pardon of sinners ; and so it must needs be infinitely delightful unto him, and his heart strongly set upon it, seeing it did sweeten unto him an act otherwise so abhorrent ; and of this end therefore it is impossible he should ever repent. Now, Eph. v. 2, the very offering of Christ is called a sacrifice

214 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH. of a sweet smelling savour ; and what was it that made it so, but even the end for which it was done, and which is there put upon it, that it was out of love unto us, and out of a mind to have sinners pardoned ? For else in itself it must needs have been abominable unto him.

Again, 3. If at any time he would have repented him of his purpose, it would have been at the time of Christ s being crucified, when he came to bruise him : then his heart would have recoiled, and especially when Christ poured out his soul with such strong cries and tears as he did. At other times, in punishing but his children, we find, that when he comes to do it, his heart as it were fails him, as Hos. xi. 8. How shall I give thee up ? The rod falls out of his hand, and his bowels yearn within him ; yet he relented not when he saw the soul of his Joseph in bitterness, but still made an impossibility of it for him to avoid suffering, because his purpose was thereby to take sins away. Therefore Christ s request was, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass. The necessity lay only in God s will in reference to this end, to forgive sins. If God would ever have relented or repented him of this purpose, it would have been then. We read of his repenting him of other of his works, but his mind is so fully carried to take away sins, that he did not then, or can ever repent of putting his own Son to death for the effecting of it. To pardon sinners is more natural to him than to kill his Son was unnatural. Now his end and purpose being thus fully set to pardon and save sinners, if he should be frustrated of this his end, he would then indeed repent him of using his Son as he had done. Nay, it is not only said that he repented not, but that it pleased him to bruise Christ, in respect to that his end, which was so plea sant to him : so you have it, Isa. liii. 10. And, therefore, surely it pleaseth him much more to pardon sinners, now he hath thus bruised him ; and so indeed it follows there, The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. It is spoken of his saving and justifying of sinners. It troubled God to hear a soul bemoan itself for its sin, Jer. xxxi. 20, but we read not that it did so when Christ bemoaned himself in his sufferings ; and the reason was, because the work that Christ was about to do was a sweet sacri fice to him ; and it would trouble God more to condemn a sinner that Christ died for, than it did to sacrifice Christ for him.

4. Upon that ancient agreement between God and Christ, God par doned millions of men under the Old Testament upon the bare word of Christ, before he came into the world, or had paid one penny of the debt ; he must needs therefore be supposed to be much more willing now to do it, when Christ has done all that was required, and failed not, and that at the due time, as it is said, Eom. v. If Christ had failed to come short but of a little of what he was to do, God might have denied to let the world go upon trust any longer ; but now Jesus Christ hath performed all, and is aforehand with him, and hath put in stock enough to pardon sinners to the end of the world.

Yet, 5. Now even justice itself will call upon him to discharge sinners, will not let him rest in quiet till he has pardoned and shewed mercy unto poor sinners that come to Christ, and hath given in their bond, and this, though we had no promise to shew for it, yea, though Christ himself had nothing to shew for it : God s very justice would trouble him (I may so * troubled for speak with reverence, for he himself says, that he was Ephraim, Jer. xxxi. 20), till he had given out an acquittance, because he knows the debt is paid, and also, that Christ s and his own intent was, that when Christ had once died, sinners should thereby be justified. Even as if

ENCOUKAGEMENTS TO FAITH. 215 an honest man had a bond for a debt that is discharged lying still in his hands, of which payment he whose debt it is knows nothing, although he or they that paid this debt were dead, so that there were no one left that were able to challenge an acquittance from him, and a cancelling of that bond, yet mere honesty would cause him to give it in. Now Jesus Christ died, and God himself put him to death, merely to pay our debts ; and, says Christ at his death, Let sinners require my blood, and the merits of it at thy hands, and have it out in pardon. That was Christ s will that he made at his death, as you have it, Heb. ix.

16, 17, where the apostle calls it a testament confirmed by the death of the testator. Now there is nothing so sacred as the performance of the will of the dead. And now Christ himself is alive again, and is ordained by God to be his own executor, and so lives to claim an acquittance ; there fore certainly God will never withhold it. In justice he cannot, he will not, have a bond lie by him that is discharged. Hence it is said, that God is just to forgive our sins, 1 John i. 9. There are three things which do cry for justice, and all do meet in this.

(1.) The wages of a hireling (if detained) are said to cry. So in James v. 4, it is said, The wages of hirelings detained do cry in the ears of the Lord of Hosts. They cry, wages being due in justice, and because God s justice is thereby provoked, and cannot be quiet till God hath avenged it. And so would Christ s satisfaction having been made for us ; it would restlessly cry to God, and not suffer his justice to be quiet, unless we were pardoned. For he was truly and indeed God s hired servant in this work ; and God covenanted to give him the salvation of those he died for as his wages and reward, as Isaiah often represents it, chap, liii., and elsewhere. So that if God be just, he must give forth salvation, otherwise Christ s obe dience would cry as the work of an hireling doth for wages.

(2.) A second thing that cries for justice, is the will of one that is dead unperformed, who hath bequeathed legacies, and left wherewith to pay and discharge them. And this is yet a louder cry than the former. Now

Christ, before he died, did thus make his will, and bequeathed pardon of sin and justification, and that eternal inheritance in heaven, as legacies to those for whom he died, and to be given out by God after his death, as I observed even now out of Heb. ix. 15, 16, 17, where it is said that Christ was The Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death they who are called might receive the promise (or bequeathed legacy) of eternal life. And thereupon, ver. 16, 17, the apostle calls this a testament con firmed by his death, and which at his death began to be in force, so ver. 17. And of all things injustice that are held due, the performance of the will of the dead hath ever been held most sacred.

(3.) There is yet a third thing which cries for justice, and that is inno cent blood spilt. And this cries louder than the rest. So Gen. iv. 10. And the apostle, Heb. xii. 24, sets forth the cry of Christ s blood for us, by Abel s blood crying against Cain.

It may be notwithstanding th.is, that God may put the bond in suit against a sinner, to make him come to acknowledge the debt, as the apostle there

I have sinned and it profited me not ; God then cannot withhold from throwing down his bond cancelled, saying, Deliver him, I have found a ransom, Job xxxiii. 24, God will not have innocent blood, such as his Son s is, to lie upon him. If he should not pardon sinners, Christ s blood would be upon him, for it was speaks, If we confess our sins. But if any soul doth say, for them only that Christ died, being in himself innocent.

216 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH.

6. God mends not himself by damning those for whom Christ died. Now there were not only an injustice to Christ and us in it, but God himself also would prove a loser. For the end of Christ s death was not simply to satisfy justice, so as without it justice could not have permitted a pardon, that might have been dispensed with, but it was chiefly to declare the glory of God s justice, which required such a satisfaction, as the apostle says, Rom. iii. 25, * To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through God s forbearance. It was, we see, the manifestation or declaration of the glory of his justice that he aimed at in it. So as if any one man s sin satisfied for by Christ should be left unforgiven, God s justice should lose so much glory. And if justice should think to get a greater glory out of the sinners, that could never be ; for the sinner is unable ever to satisfy, and so to glorify God s justice by suffering, as Christ hath done.

Yea, and besides, God would be a further and a greater loser in the glory of his mercy also, which by his pardoning sin is advanced.

The second part of the observation. Demonstration of Christ s willingness to receive sinners that come to him. First, how his heart stood from everlasting. And so now I come to Christ s willingness, which was the second thing propounded in the doctrine to be demonstrated. Now, though his will was not first in it (as was said), yet we shall find him to have been no less willing than his Father. As Christ in subsisting is the second person, and hath his personal subsistence from his Father, so he is second also in order of working, and consequently of willing too, yet he is not second to him in heartiness of willing ; but as his Father and he are equal, so in all that his Father willeth, his will is equal with his Father, and so, is as much in this business as his.

In the demonstrating of this, I will take the same course that I did in the former : First, I will shew how hearty he was in this, to have sinners saved, before he came into the world.

And secondly, how willing he was since he came into the world, and since his death and going out of the world.

And as a general introduction to either, I shall premise this, which shall be as the corner-stone in this building, joining both parts of this discourse together, and is a consequent of what hath formerly been delivered.

The thing to be premised is this : That if God the Father be willing, then Jesus Christ must needs be willing also, and look how much the will of the * the Father and he are all one. And this will serve for our further assurance of the one is in it, so much the will of the other must be in it also, for wills of either ; and we make use of it both ways, either to argue to our iaith, that if the Father be willing, Christ must needs be so also ; and that if Christ be willing, the Father is so also. That whereas some men s thoughts have been more taken up about, and so more taken with, the con sideration of how much the Father s heart was in it, and how active and plotting he was about it ; and again, other men s apprehensions have been carried more unto Christ s heart in the work ; this demonstration which I have in hand shall be a help to the faith of either of these : so that if your hearts have a door of faith, (as the apostle speaks) set open, or a window to see either into God s heart or Christ s, you may raise a confidence of the one from the other, and so come to be sure of both.

And this also I do first mention, because it is the most intrinsical bottom

demonstration that can be made of Christ s willingness, and is the utmost reason of it.

I and my Father are one. That whereas in this my text he shews how his Father s will and his agree in This demonstration I found upon John x. 30, one, he there gives the reason of it, for (says he) we are one ; and the words there, as they stand in their coherence, are proper to the purpose in hand. For Christ there allegeth them as the reason why his heart, and power, and all in him is so engaged for the salvation of his own, that if he have any power in him, and be able to do anything, not one of them shall perish, because his Father and he are one. For, mark the occasion upon which he speaks this, it is the same that here in my text. He had been speaking of saving his sheep, and of his power and will to save them ; and concludes, that * they shall never perish. And he says not only that he will never

neither shall any man pluck them out of cast them out (as here), but that his hand. And in that speech he shews and utters the strength of his will as much as of his power. For otherwise, although his hand of power had been never so potent to have held them against all opposition, yet if his will had not as strongly resolved to hold them in his hand, and so, if they were not as deep in his heart as,they are fast in his hands, this speech of his had not been made good, that they shall never perish. And then he gives the reason both of this resoluteness of his will and this prevalency of his power from his Father s both will and power, engaged as much as

* My Father, says he,

that gave them me is his own, in this fulness.* greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of my Father s hands. He pleads here, first, his Father s will * He gave them me ; and then, secondly, his power, whom these Jews he spake to acknowledged greater than all, though him they did not.

He is greater than all ; none can pluck them out of his hands ; and then argues to himself, My Father and I are one. One in nature, therefore much more in will. Two persons that have distinct essence may yet be one in will, as the ten kings are said to be of one mind when they agreed in one thing, Rev. xvii. 13, 17 ; so Acts iv. 32, it is said that they that believed were of one heart and of one soul, that is, in judgment and consent of mind. But Christ and God the Father are one yet nearer, one in nature, and therefore much more entire in will, for by nature they have but one will between them. And that place speaks at once in relation to both their willingness to save, as to both their powers to save sinners. And this is not only an argument that they did both agree, and were like to agree, in it, but that they can never disagree. Two that essentially have two wills, though for the present agreeing in one, yet it may be supposed that they may come to disagree, and not will the same thing ; but if they essentially have but one will, it. is impossible then but that they must ever agree. This great security, therefore, doth Christ give for the salvation of sinners. You have not only two persons engaged, persons greater than all, but all that is in them engaged, both their power and will ; and what more can be desired ? And if the one holds his purpose, the other must also, for they are one. You have the oneness of God and Christ given you for security ; so that if they can never be made two, and wrought asunder, then sinners must needs be saved. Till these two persons do disagree, you are sure enough ; and they must cease to be ere they can cease to agree, for they are one, and one in being. We have another testimony as full as this, 1 John v. 7 : There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy

* Qu. business ? ED.

218 ENCOUKAGEMENTS TO FAITH.

Ghost (we are yet surer, here is a third person that comes in), and these three are one. Now, what is the thing that these do witness unto ? Ver. 11 it follows, This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Here their truth is pawned, as in that other place their power was, for the apostle allegeth this as such a truth as they all agree and stand in to make good. And to prove this, he says (as in that other place, John x.) that these three are one, that is, one in nature, therefore one in will, and so also one in witness to this truth. He says not only they agree in one, for you shall observe that whereas there are three other witnesses mentioned to be on earth, there is this difference put between their concurrency in their testimonies and that of these, that they agree in one (so ver. 8), but there is more said of these, namely, that they are one, that is, in nature, and so in will and purpose, and so must needs much more agree in one. Now, that thing which their wills and testimonies and all agree in is, as hath been said, that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son, to all that shall come for it. So that for demonstrations of this I need go no further. If there be any will, power, or truth in these persons, sinners shall be saved.

This being premised, as the most bottom ground of Christ s being at first, and his continuing to be for ever, willing to pardon sinners, let us more particularly see, first, how his heart stood to the salvation of them before he came into the world ; and then, secondly, how it stood inclined unto it after he was come ; and what confirmations our faith may have from both. So that the thing I am herein to speak to is not so much his willingness to the work of redemption itself (that I have elsewhere handled apart), but his willingness and readiness to save sinners.

1. Let us see how his heart stood to this before the world was, and before he came into it. And for this we find that his delights were set upon it ; so Prov. viii. 31, < Rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men : which words are more properly spoken of Christ than of God the Father, and therefore I produce them under this head. For they are said to be spoken by Wisdom, that is, Christ himself, he therein shewing how his mind stood towards us before the world began ; for he speaks what he and his Father did * before the mountains were, &c.

4 1 was set up from everlasting, ver. 22. Then I was by him, &c., ver. 80. And how did they pass away that long avwn, as the apostle calls it ? In nothing but rejoicing and delights. He there speaks of nothing else that they did. And what was the matter of delight unto them ?

(1.) He and his Father delighted one in another, ver. 30.

(2.) In the salvation of men, My delights were with the sons of men, so ver. 31. And he speaks of men as fallen, for it is said in the beginning of the same verse that he rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, which is spoken not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles too, and of men all the earth over. Now, first, delights arise out of the strongest and choicest desires. Men are pleased with many things in which they delight not.

Christ s heart and desires must needs have been most on that which his delights are in. Again, secondly, the greater the persons are, and the greater their minds are, the greater are their delights. Things of great concernment are usually the objects which are the delights of kings, and which they take pleasure in. Now, the great God and Jesus Christ singled out the pardon and reconciliation of sinners for their chief delights.

(3.) Their delight herein is mentioned, and in no other work of theirs ; not the angels, nor the world, nor anything in it.

ENCOUEAGEMENTS TO FAITH. 219 (4.) This their delight is mentioned next to their delighting in each other.

(5.) And fifthly, this delight he took aforehand, whilst his heart was only in the expectation of it, and his mind but laying the plot of it. He delights in it ere he doth it. And if all this joy of his be only in the thoughts of it, how much more will it delight him when he comes to do it ? All this argues how great a matter this was in his esteem, and how much his heart was in it, and that from everlasting.

Demonstrations from the disposition of Christ s heart, and his carriage upon earth. As also some engagements since his death.

2. In the second place, when Christ had assumed our nature, and whilst he remained upon earth, how did this disposition of his abound in him ? It were endless to give all the instances that his story and sermons do afford hereof. See but how welcome all sorts of sinners were at all times unto him. He cast out none that acknowledged him for the Messiah ; he turned none away that gave up their souls unto him to be saved his own way. He was indeed most reserved unto that rich young man of any other, yet he used him courteously the text saith, he loved him. Christ turned him not away, but directed him the right way to follow him ; and he went away of himself, undervaluing Christ to his possessions. And another time

Christ indeed seems to discourage the Canaanitish woman, and put her away, calling her dog. But it was only in words ; for underhand he strongly draws her heart to him by his Spirit, and suggests thereby to her heart by way of answer, a consideration of the highest faith towards him, that dogs might partake of the crumbs that fall from their master s table. I instance in these, because I would prevent and remove any exception which might be taken from them. For otherwise Christ s professed entertainment of all sinners was so open and notorious, as it was turned into his disgrace and * a friend to publicans and sinners ; which yet he owns and glories in, professing that he opprobry, that he was * came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And how glad he was when any such came in unto him, he sufficiently expresseth by those parables on purpose taken up, of the joy of the prodigal s father for his return, and of the rejoicing for the finding of the lost groat, and likewise of the lost sheep, more than of the ninety and nine.

We read of Christ s joy but seldom, and when it is at any time recorded, it is at the conversion of souls. He had little else to comfort himself in, being a man of sorrows ; and he had nothing else on earth which he took delight or pleasure in. When he was converting the poor woman of Samaria, which he doth as a pleasure and recreation to him, he forgets his meat, although before he had been very hungry, and tells his disciples that he had meat which they knew not of, which was indeed the saving that poor woman s soul. In Luke x. 21, we read that Jesus rejoiced in his spirit; but observe the occasion. He had sent out his disciples to preach the gospel, and they had in his name and through his power cast out devils. He bids them not rejoice in that, ver. 20, but shews them what they should rejoice in, by his own example, and by what most comforted him. Father (says he) I thank thee that thou hast revealed these things unto babes. This in the next words following recorded to be the matter of his rejoicing, he saw now an handsel, and an experiment of the fruit of his disciples

220 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH. ministry, and comforted himself beforehand, in that as their souls had, so others of the poorer and meaner sort should thus come in unto him.

We find him at another time in like manner rejoicing, namely, in the story of his raising Lazarus, John xi. 15. And what was it for? Not that himself should be glorified by so great a miracle, even the greatest that ever he wrought, but, says he, I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the end that you might believe. He rejoiceth if any of his got a little more or further degree of faith. And on the other side, as sorry was he when men came not in. Witness his tears over Jerusalem, and those * These things I speak, that you might be speeches of his, John v. 34, saved. And thereupon in the ensuing verse he complainingly utters him self, You will not (says he) come to me, that you may have life. He speaks as one greedy of winning souls, and as sorry that any customers or * You will not come to me, &c. And he relieves himself with this, that there were others that would, though they would not. So here in this place, when in the verse before my text he had complained of them, that they would not believe, he comforts himself with this in the words of the text, All that the Father giveth me hearers of his should pass by, and not turn in ; shall come unto me. And the like you have, John x. 25, 26, You believe not ; but my sheep, they hear my voice, &c. And then at his death, when he was upon the cross, he then converts a thief that was crucified with him, and prays for those that crucified him. And ajter his resurrection his last words recorded in Luke xxiv. 47 are, That remission of sins should be preached in his name, beginning at Jeru salem ; that so those whom he had prayed for, though they had crucified him, might be converted and saved. Thus stood his heart all the while he was on earth, both before and after his death.

3. And then, in the third place, now that he hath died and laid down that price which was to purchase the salvation of sinners, he must needs be much more willing, if it were possible he should be, than ever. Many demonstrations there are from those obligations which Christ s sufferings and death do put upon him, which I have already given in a treatise upon this very argument, The Heart of Christ in Heaven, Part II. Only I have reserved one or two for this place. As, (1.) It was the aim and utmost intent of Christ s soul, in his being cru cified, to have sinners saved, and saved effectually. It was that travail which his heart was then big with. And certainly Christ would not that so many and so great sufferings, now that they are past and over, should be in vain. The apostle makes a motive of it unto the Galatians, Are ye so foolish ? . . . . Have ye suffered so many things in vain ? Gal. iii.

3, 4. To be sure Christ s death shall not be in vain ; he will not lose the end of his sufferings (as the same apostle intimates but four verses before, chap. ii. 21). A business that a man hath prayed for much, how doth he long to see it accomplished and fulfilled ! And how glad is he when it

! And why but because it is the fruit of his falls out as he hath prayed prayers ? Now, much more glad is Christ to see the fruit of his death, the travail of his soul, and thereby is satisfied, Isa. liii. 10, a place I often quote to this purpose. I will add but this to it. When a woman hath been in travail, she forgets all her pains for joy that a man-child is born, which is the fruit of that her travail ; and so doth Christ. And then again for that other word, that Christ is said to be satisfied ; satis faction is the accomplishment of desire, or the fulfilling of one s longings. So in that speech of Christ, Blessed are those that hunger, for they shall

be satisfied. So that this doth argue and presuppose the most vehement desires and longings in Christ for the salvation of souls, and his having died must needs increase them.

And (2.) add this engagement unto that former, that his death can be put to no other use than for the pardon of sinners. So as if he should not expend it that way, he should utterly lose the fruit of it, or let it lie useless by him. For divert it to any other use he cannot. And yet if he knew how to improve it to any other purpose, yet his love (he having intended it for the sons of men) would not suffer him to do it. But besides, if it be not employed and bestowed this way, it will be wholly in vain ; for the good angels, though they stand in need of his personal mediation, to con firm them in grace, yet his blood was not requisite thereunto. And for the bad angels, they are utterly excluded the benefit of it. And then Christ himself, he stands in no need of it, nor can he have any benefit by it, all that personal glory which now he hath in heaven being due unto him by that hypostatical union. So that his death serves for no end if not for this. Christ indeed hath an honour in heaven besides the glory of the personal union ; but then it ariseth to him from the salvation of sinners through his death, which salvation is the purchase of his blood ; as you have it, Eph. i., which might afford a third engagement, in that Christ should not only lose the fruit of his death, but that glory that is ordained him by the salvation of men. So that he should be a loser not only of his sufferings by-past, but of all that glory that is to come from the salvation of believers, which is no small thing unto him. As officers in courts of law, or in universities, get the more fees, the more clients and the more commencers there are, so it is the more for Jesus Christ s gain that many sinners get out, and are received to grace and mercy.

Some extrinsical demonstrations of God s and Christ s willingness to pardon sinners.

And unto all these secret engagements both of God and Christ mutually to each other, and to us, we may add all the professed publications of their minds herein unto us, which have been made upon all occasions and by all means possible. As, : first, God

First, This news hath been published by all three persons the Father he began to preach it to Adam in paradise, and hath renewed it again and again, as with his own immediate voice from heaven when Christ was baptized, * This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him ; which the apostle Peter records and confirms, as spoken a second time upon the mount, as a matter of highest moment to be known

which voice he heard (says he), and is no fable, 2 Pet. i. 16, 17. by us, * the faithful and true witness, Rev. i. 5, he came from the bosom of his Father, and preached peace, Eph. ii. 17. Yea, and it was one of his first texts he preached upon, Luke iv. 18, Secondly, Christ who is Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel, to preach deliverance to the captives.

Thirdly, The Holy Ghost he also herewith bearing witness, that God hath exalted Christ to be a Prince and Saviour, to give repentance and for giveness of sins, Acts v. 31, 32. And so Heb. ii. 4. And these are these three witnesses in h naven, 1 John v. 7, whose record as it follows is this, that there is life to be had in his Son Jesus Christ, ver. 11.

222 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH.

Secondly, God hath published this news both % all creatures reasonable, and to all creatures reasonable.

First, The angels they came and preached it, singing, Peace on earth, good will towards men, Luke ii. 13, 14.

Secondly, By men; and to that end he hath given gifts to men, powerful and full of glory, Eph. iv. 8, &c. And a commission with those gifts, a most large and gracious one. And he hath committed to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, 2 Cor. v. 20.

Yea, and thirdly, he hath maintained this ministry in all ages, even to our times, all times have rung of the news hereof, and the world is still full of his ambassadors to treat with men about this peace, and they are to proclaim that he is fully willing ; and upon that ground, to beseech men to be reconciled, and so long as lieger ambassadors reside uncalled home or not sent for away, so long the treaty of peace holds.

Fourthly, He hath proclaimed this by these his ambassadors in all places ; he bade them go and preach it to all the world, * to every creature, Mark xvi. 15. And his disciples did accordingly. Now he would not have had it spoken so openly and generally, if he were not most serious in it.

Fifthly, Add to this, that he hath declared it by all ways arid means that do argue faithfulness and seriousness.

(First.) Not by bare word of mouth, but we have it under his hand, he hath left his mind in writing. This book, which is dropped from heaven, the title of it is, The word of reconciliation, 2 Cor. v. 19, the main argu ment of it being reconciliation. In this book we find proclamation sent forth after proclamation, book after book, line after line, all written to this end, that we sinners might have hope and strong consolation, as the apostle witnesseth.

(Secondly.) He hath added to this writing those seals of the sacraments, and further, an oath to both, and that made advisedly with the greatest earnestness and deliberation that might be, Heb. vi. 17, * God willing (the text says) more abundantly to manifest this his intent, the immutability of his counsel, he confirmed that promise with an oath ; that by two immu table things, his word and oath, we might have strong consolation.

(Thirdly.) If this be not sufficient, he hath pawned heaven and earth, the * covenant of day and night, in mortgage to forgive iniquity and pardon sinners. Thus, Jer. xxxi. 34, 35, 36, * This is my covenant (says God there), that I will forgive their iniquities, and remember their sins no more. So ver. 34, and then it follows, ver. 35, Thus saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and stars for a : if those ordinances depart from before me, then the seed light by night of Israel, &c. The like you have, chap, xxxiii. 25, 26. Day and night we see stand still, and therefore this covenant holds good still. But we have a greater pawn than this, the death of his Son.

And lastly, Let his actions and courses, which he hath taken from the beginning of the world, speak for all the rest ; as Satan hath been a mur derer from the beginning, so God hath been a Saviour from the beginning, and Christ is the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. God began with the first of mankind, even with Adam and Eve, the ringleaders, the heads of this rebellion, who drew all the rest of the world into that enmity, these were yet reconciled. Kings usually hang up the heads and chief in treasons, for examples of their justice, though they pardon others ; yet these did God save and pardon as examples of his mercy, to all that should

come of them ; and it is observable that the first thing he did, after the world was fallen, was this act of mercy, both in preaching this gospel and in pardoning them, he began to do that soon, which he meant to be always a-doing to the end of the world : it argues he delights in it, yea, and accord

be with us to the end ing to Christ s last promise on earth, that he would of the world. God is to this day reconciling the world of men to himself; some that walk in your streets by you, live among you. And he will have thousands when you are gone, and what are these but as flags, and patterns of mercy, hung forth by God to toll and bring others in, as Eph. ii. 7.

Use. What should the consideration of these things work in our hearts, but what the scope of the text itself puts men upon, even that they would come in unto Christ, and believe on him, and give up their souls unto him ? He that believes shall in no wise be cast out. As Christ therefore is will ing, so should we be a willing people. That which keeps men off is, that they know not Christ s mind and heart. Think it not to be an indif ferent thing to him whether you believe or no, as if he came into the world to do this duty of dying for sinners singly in obedience to his Father, so that men might be rendered saveable if they Vill ; and that however, if they will not, he yet hath enough to satisfy and quiet himself with, even this, that he shall be glorified in what he hath done, though few or none of the sons of men be saved. It is a prejudicial doctrine this to the salvation of men, and derogatory to Christ s free love. What, do we think that Jesus Christ is gone to heaven, there to complain unto angels of the unkindness and hardness of men s hearts, that will not turn to him notwithstanding he hath done so much, and to tell what he had done for them, and what they would not be persuaded to do for themselves ; and that so he can suffi ciently please himself with such just complaints ? No, surely ; our effec tual salvation concerns him more than so ; and his heart is more fully bent upon it than thus to leave it. Of what he hath bought he will lose nothing. The truth is, he is more glad of us than we can be of him. The father of the prodigal was the forwarder of the two to that joyful meeting. Hast thou a mind ? He that came down from heaven, as himself saith in the text, to die for thee, will meet thee more than half way, as the prodigal s: he will send him from heaven to thee, and father is said to do, by his Spirit at the latter day himself will come again to fetch thee and receive thee to himself. If among the angels in heaven there be joy at the conversion of a sinner, how much more joy is there in Christ s heart ? If there be joy in the bedchamber-men (as John speaks) what joy is there in the bride groom s heart ? Or if among the standers by, when a man-child is born into the world, how much more doth the mother that was in travail for it, as Christ s soul was, how much more doth she rejoice ? therefore come in unto him. If you knew his heart you would. As they that crucified him knew him not, so neither do those who believe not in him. If you had been on earth with him, or if he were now here, and had this day preached these things unto you, and uttered these his own desires and longings after you ; how would you in troops go all thronging after him when the sermon were done, and each of you come about him, as those that had diseases did, and beseech him to pardon and save you, and not leave him till you have obtained some word of comfort and favour from him ! Let me tell you, he had preached this day, but that he had other business to do for you in heaven, where he is now praying and inter ceding for you, even when you are sinning ; as on earth we see he did for

224 ENCOURAGEMENTS TO FAITH. the Jews when they were acrucifying him. Now because he could not for this other business come himself, he therefore sends us his ambassa dors, and we in Christ s stead do beseech you ; and it is as if Christ by us did beseech you ; and we preach but such things as were * first spoken by the Lord himself, as it is in Heb. ii. 3. And he sends his Spirit, and continues to give gifts unto men to this very day ; and in all these respects, whenever the gospel is preached, he is said to speak from heaven. Refuse not him that speaks from heaven, Heb. xii. 25. And though you have not his bodily presence, as they had who heard himself preach here on earth, yet you may by faith have as free an access unto him, and know as surely that he hears you, as if he were in the same room with you. Retire, therefore, into your closet, and treat with him in private, and there press these things on him ; say them all over again unto himself, and ask him if they be not true ; get the match struck up between thy soul and him, which if once made will never be undone again. Say unto him, Lord, why may it not be made up now ? Only let me add this : see you come not to him without a wedding-garment, and without wedding affections. Take up a resolution to love him. For if thou comest to him, what dost thou come for ? Pardon of sins. And what is it in him that must procure that ? His having died for thee ; that was it. And what was it that moved him to die ? An infinite love ; such a love, as were the thing yet to be done, he would certainly do it, and die to satisfy God for thee. Now then, seeing he hath already done it out of such a love, with what face canst thou ask pardon of him, as the effect of such a love, and not love him again, and obey him in all things ? But to make short with you, know this, that if you will not come in to him, thou wilt be damned. So saith Christ, He that believes shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned. And I could tell you another, and as large a story of Christ s wrath against those that refuse him, as I have told you of his love. The Lamb can be angry, for he is a Lion also. consider this therefore, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you.

THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL.

VOL. IV.

NOTE.

Under the common title, THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL, Goodwin left two works, the one consisting of two sermons, and the other of a treatise divided into eight chapters. Although he probably intended that the one should supersede the other and, if he had published his works himself, would probably have suppressed the former, the greater part of the matter of which is incorporated and more fully treated in the latter, yet,- as they are both included in the folio edition of his works, it has not been considered right to omit either of them in this reprint ; the rather that, as they stand, they differ too wddely to be regarded merely as different editions of the same work. ED.

THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL.

SERMON I.

Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints : to whom, God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles ; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. COL. I. 26, 27.

THE apostle spends this chapter, from the 13th verse to the end, in three things principally.

1. In setting out Jesus Christ in all that fulness of the riches of his glory wherewith he is arrayed and represented in the gospel ; from ver. 13 to 23, from whence to the 4th verse of the second chapter, he falls into a com mendation and elogium of the gospel, * Which is that mystery, as the text hath it, wherein is made known that rich glory of Christ, the glory of the mystery, which riches is Christ. And the apostle doth both these on set purpose (as in the 4th and 8th verses he professeth), to divert and take off these Colossians minds, from these vain deceitful speculations grounded on philosophy, traditions of men, &c., gaudily and speciously set out with enticing words. This, I say, says verse the 4th, lest any, &c. Beware, verse the 8th, lest any spoil you through philosophy, and vain deceit. To dash and put these quite out of countenance at once, he discovers riches and glory. To dis cover the beggarliness of these rudiments as the apostle elsewhere epithetizeth the best of them, Gal. iv. 9 he lays open the riches of the mysteries of Christ, and displays the glory, and the excellency of it, to spoil, and cause to vanish, and come to nothing, the enticing gloss and lustre of all other wisdom (as it is 1 Cor. i. 19), which had well nigh spoiled them. Now, in this place of this first chapter, the words I have read unto you, the current of his commendation of the gospel s excellency swells to the highest, and runs with the deepest and strongest stream, within the limits of which therefore, I will confine myself, as affording matter enough to set forth the glory of it, and that by all that doth commend unto us any know ledge.

For first, it is commended by the original author and revealer of it, with his intent therein ; God himself, who is best able to discern what knowledge is the fullest of riches and glorv, chose to reveal and make known this merely for the worth of it ; namely, because the riches of glory were revealed by it.

228 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON I.

The first * says God would, or was desirous to, make known the riches of glory that were in it ; that moved him to it.

Secondly, If the worth of the subject matter revealed doth ennoble a know ledge, then must this be glorious, for Christ is the subject matter of it, which riches are Christ, the Lord of glory.

Thirdly, If all the properties that are excellent in any knowledge will add worth to it, they centre in this, First, If depth and profoundness, it is a mystery. Secondly, If preciousness and abundance ; it is full of riches and glory.

Thirdly, If profitableness and usefulness, it not only reveals riches of glory to the knowers of it, the saints, out of themselves, but makes them posses sors of all the riches it reveals, and gives them certain hope of all the glory it speaks, which riches are Christ in you, made your Christ, with all his riches, for the present, and to you the hope of glory.

Fourthly, If secrecy commends a knowledge, as it doth, it hath been hid long from the beginning of the world in regard of the clear revealing of it, but now in the end of the world it is revealed.

And lastly, If rareness, now it is revealed, it is not made common, it is revealed only to the saints, who only know it in the riches and glory of it, To whom God would make known, &c. You have the scope and meaning of the apostle ; mine at this time is by enlarging on these particulars to set out the glory of the gospel ; that part of the word which in strict sense reveals the doctrine of God s free grace, the work of Christ s redemption, and the riches of it, justification, and sanctification, and the secrets hereof; for this is the gospel. But you will say, To what end will all this be ? I wish there were no need of it, so I never preached more, and that both in regard of the people and ministers themselves ; for the people of this land, it were well for Eng land if the contempt of this glorious gospel and the ministry of it were not their greatest sin. Happy were we if the measure of our iniquities were made so much lighter by the want of it ! I should then expect to see many more years past ere it were filled than now are like to be. And is there no need to set forth the glory of it ? And for the ministers, they might add more beauty to their own feet, and souls to God, if in their speculations and preachings they did not, as the Pharisees of old did in their practice, (if we may judge what is in the cistern by what ordinarily cometh in and out), neglect the great things of the gospel forementioned, and tithe mint and cummin, pick truths of less moment, bolt and sist them to the bran, but leave the other unsearched into and uninsisted on.

But, my brethren, however we may esteem this doctrine of the gospel, and what other knowledge we may pride ourselves in, and wear out our brains in, yet it is this which is the riches of the Gentiles and saints, as this place shews, and many more : the pearl of the world, Mat. xiii. 45 ; * the glory of the ministry, 1 Cor. ii. 7 ; which God ordained for our glory, namely, apostles and ministers , the preachers of it. The clear revealing of which was the desire and longing of the patriarchs and prophets, who though they knew the legal covenants as fully as we, yet this doctrine of salvation, Christ s sufferings, God s grace, was it they

1 inquired into ; that is, sought to God by prayer, and searched diligently/ that is, searched using all means of reading and meditating, to attain the knowledge of it, and all this diligently ; spent, and thought it worthy of the chiefest of their pains, which, when it came to be revealed, the apostles * Qu. He first ? ED.

jCoL. I. 26 , 27.] THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 229 (counted it their glory, which Paul therefore, who had profited so much in jthe Jews religion, Gal. i. 14, professeth, Phil. iii. 8, that he accounted all jdross and dung for this excellent knowledge of Christ. He might well say, jRom. i. 16, he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for he makes his .knowledge therein his chiefest excellency, Eph. iii. 4, there is a parenthesis (wherein you would think he boasted speaking of his own writings, * Whereby (when you read (saith he) you may understand my knowledge in the mysjtery of Christ.

What do I, speaking of the study and glory of prophets and apostles ? i[t is the study of the angels, which they think worthy of their greatest ittention. Look into both these places, 1 Pet. i. 12, Eph. i. 10, * Which Jiings the angels desire to pry into ; these glorious creatures that know God n his legal covenant and work of creation more fully than ever Adam did, Jiat have the immediate participation of God himself, have his face to read ectures in, day and night, and yet glad if they can get but a peep and glimpse of the way of saving men by Christ, as being a knowledge of greater excellency than otherwise they have any ; yea, and so desirous are hey to learn it, that they are content to go to school to the church, Eph. ii. 9, 10, That to principalities and powers might be made known by the jhurch, &c. But what need I speak of angels, prophets, and apostles ? It is the great tudy (if I may so speak with reverence), the wisdom and "great learning of 3-od himself, who was the first professor of it, called so var sov, 1 Cor. i. 7, speaking of the gospel, says he, We speak the wisdom of God in a nystery, and that a hidden wisdom before the world was, hid in God, Eph. ii. 9 ; God s act, and peculiar to himself; whereas other knowledge men and ingels have in common with ns infused at first creation to attain to, and )ick out of themselves.

But this is his wisdom, which he -alone had studied, and which none mows but those to whom he revealed it, which hath brought me to the jirst part of my text ; setting forth the excellency of the gospel, that it is i mystery which God only makes known, and that to saints, for the riches f glory that are revealed in it.

1. Now, to shew you the original and the intent of framing this mystery, rou have it expressed in this frame following: Our all-wise and infinitely blessed Lord, who had from everlasting riches f glorious perfections of holiness, justice, wisdom, mercy in him, which bough he himself knew and was infinitely blessed in the knowledge of hem, though no saint or angel had ever been, or ever knew them, yet all bese his glorious perfections being crowned with goodness, both made him villing to make known what riches of glory were in him unto some creaures which yet were in Christ, his goodness moved him to it, for bonum st sui communicativum, and it is the nature of perfection also to be maniestativum sui, and that not because any perfection is added to it when nade known (which makes us desire to manifest our imperfections, as >eing perfected when made known), but that they might perfect others.

?his set him upon some ways to make known his riches and his glory to ome that should be made happy by it, and to that end he would have aints his saints, as being beloved of him, unto whom he might as it were inbosom himself and display all the riches of glory which are in him, into rhose laps he might withal pour out all his riches, that they might see his [lory, and be glorified in seeir of it, John xvii. 3, 24. And one way he began to manifest his glorious back-parts to angels and

THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON I. man in the first creation, in the law, covenant of works, and works of crea tion which he had done, as his eternal power, and Godhead, and goodness in the glorious workmanship of heaven and earth, and of such glorious creatures as they themselves were, Rom. i. 20. His wisdom in the order ing, governing, and guiding so great a host and armies of several creatures, to several ends, by several laws ; his justice in his legal covenant, giving them life whilst they should obey ; threatening damnation to the disobeyers of it ; his infinite holiness in that perfect and exact rule of righteousness, the copy of his own will written in their hearts.

Here was one way whereby God made known what glorious riches were in him, which might have made him glorious in their eyes, and themselves happy ; and this the angels and Adam at the first had. But all this con tented him not ; God would make known a further mystery, another larger, deeper way, an act found out of the depths of his wisdom, namely, this doctrine of the gospel, which he kept hid and close in his own breast ; not a creature knew it, no, not the angels, who were his nearest courtiers and dearest favourites ; it lay hid in God, Eph. iii. 9, hid even from them, verse 10.

A mystery which, when it should be revealed, should amaze the world, put the angels to school again, as if they had known nothing in comparison of this, wherein they know over again all those glorious riches which are in God, and that more perfectly and fully than ever yet. And so after they had a little studied the catechism and compendium, there should then come out a large volume, a new system, of the riches of the glory of God, the mystery of Christ in the text, which is the last edition also that ever shall come forth, now set out, enlarged, perfected, wherein the large inventory of God s glorious perfections is more fully set down, and with additions.

The reasons why God did thus intend to manifest himself are : First, Because he would shew his manifold wisdom, which is the reason given of revealing the gospel, Eph. iii. 10. That to the angels might ap pear the manifold wisdom of God.

That his wisdom is so vast and large, that he could vary and take more ways than one ; and as he had two sorts of reasonable creatures to shew himself unto, so a double way, a double sampler, a double method, a systema majus et minus.

And secondly, because indeed it was of itself too obscure and too imper fect.

First, Too obscure ; for in the gospel, and works of redemption, they came to see all that they saw before ; and this more clearly and largely, wherein they see more power in Christ, the power of God, 1 Cor. i. 24. In raising himself up from death to life, declared with power thereby to be the Son of God, Eom. i. 4, and also the exceeding greatness of his power in raising us up also, Eph. i. 19, as might easily be shewed greater than in the creation.

Wherein they likewise see a greater and clearer instance and manifesta tion of his justice, in putting to death his own Son, taking on him to be a surety for sin, than if a world of worlds had been damned for ever. And in that his Son also, they came to see a greater and more transcendent righteousness than ever appeared either in the law or is inherent in the angels ; for if all their righteousness were put into one, it could but justify themselves, it could not satisfy for the least breach of the law in another. But in the gospel, and work of redemption, we see a righteousness of that breadth that is able to cover the sins of millions of worlds ; of that length

COL. I. 26, 27.] THE GLOEY OF THE GOSPEL

that it reacheth to eternity, and no sin in God s people can wear it out or nullify the virtue of it. To instance in no more, Secondly, That other was but an imperfect way in comparison of this, or, (First), Those attributes which God accounts his greatest riches and greatest glory, Eom. ix. 23, even his mercy and free grace, which he intends most to exalt, never saw light till now ; the doctrine of salvation by Christ being the stage, wherein it is only* represented, and elsewhere it is not to be seen, and upon it acts the greatest part, for all passages in it tend to this, to shew, as Eph. ii. 5, that by grace we are saved ; and therefore, 1 Peter ii. 10, the whole work of salvation is called mercy, all God s ways to his people are mercy, Ps. xxv. 10, the whole plot and frame of it is made of mercy, and therefore the doctrine of the gospel is called grace, Titus ii.

10, 11. Mercy manageth the plot, gives all other attributes, as it were, their parts to act ; mercy enters in at the beginning, acts the prologue in election ; and, giving Christ, continues every part of it, sets all a-work, ends the whole in glory.

But (secondly), not only more of his attributes came thus to be dis covered, but, further, the glorious mystery of the Trinity came hereby to be unfolded more clearly, if not the first discovery made of the three persons hereby, there being scarce the footsteps of them distinctly and clearly to be seen in the works of creation or in the law.

But now, when the gospel came to be revealed, and the work of salvation in it, then were there discovered to be three witnesses in heaven, 1 John v. 7, witnesses to our salvation, and their several witnessing came to be known by three several seals and head works set severally to our salvation, bearing the stamp of their three several subsistences, so as by these three seals, of the election of Christ and us, redemption, and sanctification, we may know there are three persons, and how they do subsist. Even as in men s seals, their several arms being engraven, their houses and antiquity is known.

As, first, God the Father hath set to his seal in election, 2 Tim. ii. 19, t The foundation of the Lord remains firm, having this seal, The Lord knows who are his ; and in this seal of election you may read the similitude of his subsistence written, and the order of it. For as his subsisting is the fountain of the other two, so is election attributed to him, which is the foundation, as that place says, both of sanctification and redemption.

Secondly, God the Son hath set to his seal, even his blood, the seal of the new covenant, in the work of redemption, to the sealing up of iniquity,! Dan. ix. 24, which carries in it the resemblance of his subsistence also. For as it flows from election alone, and is next to it, so his subsistence from the Father only.

And lastly, God the Holy Ghost hath his seal also set to it. Eph. iv.

80, Wherewith we are sealed to the day of redemption ; by the work of sanctification, which bears the print and manner of his subsistence, for as it flows both from election and redemption, so doth his person from the Father and from the Son.

2. And so now in the second place let us come to the subject of the gospel, Christ, in whom the riches of glory is alone discovered, which riches is Christ.

Whereas in the law and covenant of works these riches were not only imperfectly and obscurely discovered, but also manifested scatteredly and * That is, wherein or 1 ^ it is. ED. t In the authorised version the finishing of the transgression. ED.

232 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON I. with broken beams, as the sun in water when the water is disturbed, one attribute shining in one work, another in another, and dimly too ; so as a man must have read over all the larger volumes of the world, and picked out here and there a several notion of God out of several works ; as now we are fain to study many tongues, in which knowledge is bound up and hidden as kernels in the shells ; in this second way of manifesting his glory, things are more full, large, and clearer than ever, yet all is contracted into one volume, bound up in Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ; who is the subject of the mystery, in whom we may fully read the glory of the Lord in Christ God-man. And therefore the gospel is called the mystery of Christ, Col. iv. 3, and the gospel of God concern ing Jesus Christ, Rom. i. 3 ; he being the adequate subject of it, whom he hath set up to be * all in all, Col. iii. 11, and therefore we are complete in him, chap. ii. ver. 10, all fulness dwelling in him in such fulness, that we need no other object to represent these riches of glory to us.

For first, did we know God, or would we know him in the creatures, we shall not need now to look on them if we know but him ; who as a creature is the first-begotten of every creature, Col. i. 15 ; and being man, if he were no more, hath the excellencies of them all summed up in him. He is the compendium and model of the world ; whatever they express of God, is to be more fully seen in him.

Secondly, Did we know or should we have known God by his image stamped upon man, and now shining in the law more than in all the creatures else, or than in man himself without it ? Turn your eyes on Christ, for he is such a man as is the head of men, 1 Cor. xi. 3, yea, and of angels also, who are a part of the church, Col. i. 18, and therefore a man of those transcendent perfections, that as he is mere man, that image which Adam lost, the angels yet wear and count their glory, it shines more brightly in him than in them all it should have done. Even as the head contains more of the beauty and image of a man, hath more of man in it, than all the body.

But yet, thirdly, He is the Son of God, and second person, and therefore the express image and brightness of his Father s glory, the essential sub stantial image of his Father, which transcends infinitely more all other draughts of him than the image of a king in his son begotten like him, and in a board or tablet. But this image, you will say, it is too bright for us to behold it shining in his strength, we being as unable to behold it in him, as we were to see his Father himself, who dwells in light inaccessible, which no eye can attain to. Therefore that yet we may see it as nigh and as fully and to the utmost that creatures could ; this Godhead dwells bodily in a human nature, that so shining through the lantern of his flesh we might behold it. His human nature and divine make up one person, and being so, are united together in the highest kind of union that God can be to ;i creature, and the nearest and fullest communications follow always upon the nearest union. To him therefore as man are communicated these riches of glory that are in the Godhead, as nearly and fully as was possible unto a creature ; and being thus communicated, must needs shine forth in him to us to the utmost that they ever could unto creatures ; and there fore more clearly than if millions of several worlds had been created every day on purpose to reveal God to us. God having stamped upon his Son all his glory, that we might see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. iv. 6. But yet, fourthly, this is not all whereby Christ is made the image of the

COL. I. 26, 27.] THE GLOKY OF THE GOSPEL

invisible God to us, for thus we might have seen the fulness of the God head shining in him though he had not come as . a redeemer and mediator, and had acted nothing, done nothing in us or for us, but had been merely set up for us to look on and see God in, as supposing him incarnate, not in relation to redemption. Therefore further also, and besides this, he is made to us the image of the invisible God in all these his works of media tion which flow from his person, and in the execution of all those glorious offices of king, priest, and prophet. The story of which, when it shall be all set and viewed together, makes up yet another kind of image and repre sentation of all God s attributes and glorious riches than shine in his person as alone in itself considered, or than doth shine in the angels, or man at his first creation ; and he himself being a mediator is become a middle person between God and man, so the story of those his works of mediation shews forth and presents us with a double picture and image of God, between them both there being a new and another edition of all God s attributes in the story of what he hath done, which infinitely transcends and comes nearer to the life than all those images which were or should have been stamped upon the hearts, or appeared in] the works of men or angels ; a brighter, clearer impression of all in God than such tablets are capable of ; and indeed comes so near the life, that not only in regard of his person, but also of those his works of mediation, &c., he is called those attributes in the abstract which appear shining in them. Men and angels, in regard of God s image stamped on them, might have been called wise, but not 1 the wisdom of God, but Christ, 1 Cor. i. 24, is called The wisdom of God, and the power of God, which yet is not spoken of him in regard of his person, as he is substantially and essentially both these, as all the rest ; but as in his works he is manifestative, by way of manifestation to us, all these ; by reason that in the story of his incarnation, life, and death, and mediation, &c., all these are manifested. In all these, when told and set together, there appears the greatest depths of wisdom that to the creatures could be discovered, which the knowledge of him discovers. So the power of God also in the same sense, in regard of the transcendent work of his rising again, wrestling with and overcoming hell, subduing sin, &c., in which the power of God appears. And there is the like reason of all the rest of God s attributes ; as because he is the foundation of all God s great and precious promises by his blood, that they are all yea and amen in him, therefore he may likewise be called the * truth and faithfulness of God. So as through his mediation, at his cost, the world subsists, which else would fall in pieces, Col. i. 17, Heb. i. 3, and that he governs it, and prays his Father for his forbearance of it, he may be called the patience and longsuffering of God. That upon him God s justice had its fullcourse, and by his judging the wicked at the latter day, with the transcendency of knowledge, wisdom, righteousness, &c., which will be required to so vast a work, that he may be termed the justice of God ; for in what he hath done, doth daily, and shall do, all these attributes appear. Now, as Christ is thus in regard of his person and works the liveliest image and representation of God s glorious riches, which is otherwise invisible ; so is the gospel the image of Christ, who otherwise should be invisible to us in this life. When he dwelt with men, the apostles and believers who saw and heard him and his works, saw his glory then, * as of the only begotten Son of God, John i. 14. But Christ was to be taken up to glory, John xvi. 7, It is necessary that T go away. And though we shall see him when we are taken up also ; see his glory which he had before the world was,

234 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON I.

John xvii. 24, yet how should believers do in the mean time to see him, and the riches of God s glory in him ? Therefore hath God framed and revealed the doctrine of the gospel, in the preaching of which, Gal. iii. 1, Christ is said to be evidently set forth or pictured, rgoiyepj, before our eyes. And as he is the liveliest image of God, so the gospel is the liveliest representation of Christ that could possibly be made, for it is a glass, 2 Cor. iii. 18, and a glass is the liveliest way of representing things absent that ever could be invented, not in dead and lifeless colours only, which pictures only do. And indeed it is a middle way of representing a man, from that either when we see his person directly before our eyes, or when we see his picture drawn in colours ; for though it be less clear and perfect than seeing the man himself, yet is more lively than all the pictures in the world ; for quod videtur in specula non est imago, it is more than a bare image which is seen in a glass, even the person himself, though by a reflex and reverberated species, that is his likeness beaten back again to the eyes, which otherwise when we behold him face to face is received more directly ; and therefore is a more obscure and imperfect way of seeing a man than to see him face to face, as the apostle says, 1 Cor. xiii. 12, as in heaven we shall do Christ, yet in the mean time this puts down all the pictures in the world. And such is the knowledge of Christ under and by the gospel, in comparison of that knowledge which was had of him under and by the ceremonial law, Heb. x. 1, which he calls the shadow, those representations under the * the image of good things to come ; which the apostle calls but a shadow of him, Col. ii. 17, drawn in wan and lifeless colours, and of that gospel, sight and knowledge we shall have of him in heaven, when we shall see him as he is ; this knowledge of him in the glass of the gospel is as a middle way of seeing him between both, less lively than the one, yet infinitely more bright and real than the other, even as I said before, that the image of God in Christ which shineth in his works of mediation is a middle image or representation between that which shone in Adam and that which is sub stantial in his person.

For as it comes short of the one, it being substantial, so it exceeds the other, as I then shewed.

So that (to keep to the scope of the apostle in this Epistle), take all the knowledge of God and Christ discovered in the most choice and curious pieces of Grecian learning, or of the ceremonial law, which far exceeded their philosophy ; both which, as it should seem by the second chapter, these Colossians so garishly doted upon : and let a believer with the eye of faith look upon Christ, as discovered in the glass of the gospel, and then with the other eye look upon the other, and what will all those other appear ? At best but wan, dead, and lifeless pictures, shadows, as he calls them, ver.

* the rudiments of

17, whose rudiments and graved colours are said to be this world, traditions of men, ver. 8, whose varnish also is but the en ticing words of men s wisdom, ver. 4. But this is lively, real, the colours

riches of glory being bestowed upon it ; whereby as in a glass we see the glory of the Lord, which cannot be painted, 2 Cor. rich, the varnish glory, iii. 18.

But you will say, what is the gospel but a verbal story told us when preached, or read, or meditated on ? It represents Christ to us but as words use to do, and words are but umbrcv rerum, shadows, pictures, and indeed less lively. How comes it then to represent Christ so really ? And to be as a glass representing Christ to us so truly ? I answer, That as a glass in itself is but an empty thing, unless the objects to be seen in it be

COL. I. 26, 27.] THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

directly placed before it, and by light discovered in it, a glass represents nothing to us ; and such I confess the gospel is in itself, a mere verbal re presentation ; but to believers, the saints in the text, the Spirit of the Lord joins with these words, presents Christ by a secret, hidden, and unheard of act to the eye of faith in the preaching or reading of it, opens heaven, and causes the glory of Christ to shine as present in it in a lively, real manner. And so it follows in that 2 Cor. iii. 18, * We all behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, even as by the Spirit of the Lord ; and lastly, which is the strangest of all the rest, are changed into the same image. That whereas a man may look long enough upon other pictures, though never so rich and glorious, and go away as he comes, his countenance no whit altered ; but this is such a representation as, by beholding of it, we are changed into the same image, and the riches of Christ are made ours ; which riches are Christ in you, says the text ; the strangest glass and picture that ever yet was seen in the world.

3. The next thing that commends it is that it is a mystery ; and indeed how can it be otherwise, if God s wisdom hath been employed for the in venting of it, and that as the utmost way of manifesting himself? And therefore, 1 Cor. ii. 7, it is called the wisdom of God in a mystery. And if the doctrine of popery, which in imitation of God the devil invented, to * mystery of ini set up his eldest son antichrist, deserveth to be called a quity, another gospel, and yet not another ; and if the false doctrine of these in Thyatira be called depths, though of Satan, Eev. ii. 24 : and in deed popery is the greatest mystery that ever created understanding hatched, if all the frame, and policies, and mysteries of it be considered : then surely this, which is God s gospel, made for Christ, as that for antichrist, which is the master-piece of his wisdom.

And secondly, if Christ be the subject of it, it must needs be a mystery, called therefore, Col. iv. 3, The mystery of Christ ; and in that regard it is a mystery, and a great mystery too, 1 Tim. iii. 16, Without contro versy, great is the mystery of godliness ; God manifest in the flesh being the subject of it, coming therein to reconcile the world. Which plot, con sidering how things stood betwixt God and us, and laying these conclusions, that God will not put up the least wrong at men s hands, now fallen, with out full satisfaction, which they nor any creature is able to make, and yet that nature that did offend must satisfy ; had it been referred to a con sultation of all intelligible* natures, angels and men, that ever were or shall be, it would have wildered and plunged their thoughts to eternity how it might be done, and after millions of years consultation they would have returned answer, they could not think of nor find out any.

Great, therefore, is the mystery of godliness, God to this end manifested in the flesh, and that so great as, now it is revealed, all the world that hears and sees into the plot must needs acknowledge it so ; without controversy, generally, without mouth,f as the word signifies, opo Xoyouftsvug. And in the incarnation of his Son, and the satisfaction of his justice, so many more also meet in this one mystery, things of such a seeming con tradiction, as the wits of men know not how to reconcile. And this in every part of it, as in election, that God at once loves the sinner with an everlasting, unchangeable love, and yet a child of wrath ; which the Remon strants I therefore quarrel. In the work of redemption, that free grace, and * That is, intelligent. ED. f Probably a misprint for with one mouth. ED.

The Remonstrants. Te Arminians were so called because of the remon strances which they addressed to the States of Holland in 1610. ED.

236 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON I. richest mercy, and fullest satisfaction, should meet together ; which the Socinians therefore are blinded in. In the work of justification, that one in whom God works inherent righteousness, should not stand righteous before God s tribunal, but be justified by the righteousness of another, which the papists stumble at, as did the Jews, to their destruction. In sanctification, how effectual calling, infallible conversion, should stand with man s free will, is a riddle to the Arminians and papists, who therefore cut the knot, not being able to untie it. All these are mysteries which God hath revealed and made up in this, on purpose to shew his wisdom, and to make wise his own, and to befool the world.

A mystery

! Then it is of such depths of wisdom, as take all the poor petty plots of accommodating great difficulties, wherein the princes and wise men of the world spend their thoughts away to vanity, and yet mag nify and pride themselves in ; and this plot, and any one mystery in it, when once discovered, * confoundeth and brings to nothing all theirs, 1 Cor. i. 19 ; ii. 8. It all vanisheth as mere folly ; nothing. And there are not only depths of wisdom, but depths of love in it also, Eph. iii. 18. It reveals a breadth, height, depth of love in Christ dying for enemies, and God giving his Son for enemies, as passeth knowledge. Sin is a great depth, therefore the apostle saith, * it doth abound, Rom. v. 20, and is above measure sinful, Rom. vii. 13, and so you will find it when you guage it to the bottom. And so the devils and damned spirits in hell shall find it, whilst they are a-studying their sinfulness in hell to all eternity (that being their business), and can never fathom it.

But yet this of God s free grace and Christ s love is a depth, which swal lows up this of sin, more than the heavens do the earth. That place seems to compare it to a mighty sea, so deep, as it wants a bottom ; so as though the thoughts of men and angels shall be diving into it to all eternity, they shall not come to ground. Of the length and breadth also, that it knows no shore, that though they shall be sailing over it with that small compass of their capacities for ever, yet they shall never come to land, it passeth knowledge. And indeed, my brethren, these are great incitements, espe cially to large understandings, to search into them. For men of large understandings seek after depths, as good swimmers do after deep waters, and refuse to go into the shallows, because they cannot have scope enough to exercise their skill, and presently strike aground.

And besides, this having such depths in it, may still further be searched into with pleasure, for still it passeth knowledge. The most hidden things in other knowledge, and the causes of them, as the cause of the eclipse of the sun and moon, they are like riddles, which though admired, before revealed, yet then become trivial, and as it were below the understanding, and when you see the furthest of them they grow stale. But there are depths in this knowledge, which for ever may be dived into with pleasure ; and loj reason of their depth, the knowledge of them to a * renewed under standing will be always fresh and new ; every new degree makes all s*eem new, as if not known before, 1 Cor. xiii. 10. Still as knowledge grows more perfect, that which was before is done away and swallowed up, as if you had not yet known it ; and so still it is new. And to study and hear news all the day, the minds of men are led along with pleasure.

And withal this bids men be sure they come with reverence and fear, to hear and read them.

Thirdly, It was a mystery hid and kept long secret in regard of clear revealing of it. The prophets, 1 Pet. i. 11, had inquired into it, and

searched diligently, unto whom it was revealed, not unto them but us ; which therefore is said to be our glory, 1 Cor. ii. 7, being the privilege we have above the patriarchs, who yet had knowledge of the legal covenant as clearly as we ; yet in regard of this, the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John the Baptist, though in regard of clearer insight into the gospel he was greater than any before him.

And this both adds to the excellency of it, so far as to commend it to us the more. Were any of these secrets which philosophers and wise men in all ages had beat their brains about, as quadratum circuli, &c., and the philosopher s stone, found out and revealed to us in these ages ; how would we therefore prize it the more, as we do printing, the mystery of which lay hid from the beginning. Nay, this mystery and the doctrine of it, is that which the saints for four thousand years studied, and sought to God to know, all of them one after another ; and still they could get no other an swer but this, that not unto them, but us.

Again, Where lay it hid all this while ? In God s breast ; axb ruv

OLIWM, the secula seculorum, before the world was, generations since. So Eph. iii. 9, lay hid in God, and in* his master-piece, the chiefest of his works.

If one bit of the choice books of Solomon, which had lain hid till now, were yet found, a book about the nature of trees, birds, and beasts, how would we prize it ! Much more this of God s. But you will say, When was it first revealed, it had this to commend it ; yet now it is sixteen hun dred years since it sprang forth. It is not therefore so new to us. I an swer, It is true ; only consider that as the law, which though delivered in Moses time, yet before Josiah s time lay hid long, like some rivers that run some leagues under ground, and then discover themselves again ; so did the doctrine of the gospel, after the first discovery of it, lie hid many ages and generations, as the church herself did in the wilderness, when school divinity and popery, both wanting the light of the gospel, did cover the world with darkness ; when it might truly be said, that the world was * spoiled through philosophy and vain deceit, traditions of men, rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Whereas, but within the compass of this age we now live in, it hath been that the kingdoms of the world have become again the kingdoms of * ark of the testa

Christ, Eev. xi. 15, and the temple opened, and the ment, as it is in the last verse, that is Christ ; and all his riches have been broken up and searched into, and discovered to the eyes of all. That as to the popish partf there hath been a new Indies discovered, full of earthly treasure, that had not been known before, which had so enriched them ; so a new Indies of heavenly treasure, a new world of divinity hath been found out, that was but privately known before, which hath enriched us ; and happy were we, if we prized and defended ours, as they do theirs. And though much of the heavenly treasure was digged up at first, yet more hath since and may be, for God will find his church digging and work of discovery to the end of the world. And, my brethren, these are the times.

And lastly, Now it is revealed, it is but to the saints. If the secrets of it were known to all, they were no secrets, and less to be regarded ; but God is dainty of this knowledge, tells it but to few.

Father, I thank thee/ saith Christ, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto bnbes. The doctrines of God s free grace, are the * Qu. is ? ED. t That is, the Spaniards. ED.

288 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON I. the most inward, practical, and experimental secrets, and the deep things of God, as the things of the gospel are called, 1 Cor. ii. 10. Which secrets are only with them that fear him (Ps. xxv. 14) and he will shew them his covenant. The things of the law may be known by natural men as fully as by others, they have a copy of them in their consciences.

And this shews the excellency of this knowledge. For if there be any knowledge better than other, God will be sure to impart it to his friends and favourites ; John xv. 15, * You are my friends, and all I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you. This he will not tell to those who are barely servants, they know not his mind, as it is there. Be lievers only have the mind of Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 16. But you will object, This is not so, for this knowledge is made common

preached to every creature ; and so to all. God would have the gospel it was, Col. i. 23., I answer, as when Alexander objected to Aristotle, that he would make his knowledge common, and so debase it when he published his books. He answered, they were edita et non edita, for none would understand them but his scholars, and therefore entitled them Ktgi axgoaaar&i/. So this, though published to all the world, yet it is entitled a mystery, and a mys tery hid, for none know it but the saints who are taught of God, and are his scholars, John vi. 45. That place shews that there must be a secret teaching by God, and a secret learning, If they have heard, and been taught of God. Now God teacheth none but saints, for all that are so * Every one who hath heard, and learned of the taught come unto him ; Father, cometh unto me.

Ay, but you will say, Do not many carnal men know the gospel, and discourse of things in it, through strength of learning ? &c.

I answer out of the text, that though they may know the things which the gospel reveals, yet not the riches and glory of them ; that same rich knowledge spoken of in the word, they want, and therefore know them not; as a child and a jeweller looking upon a pearl, both look upon it, and call it by the same name ; but the child yet knows it not as a pearl in the worth and riches of it, as the jeweller doth, and therefore cannot be said to know it. Now Mat. xiii. 45, a Christian only is likened to a merchantman, that finds a pearl of great price, that is, discovered to be so, * and sold all he had for it, for he knew the worth of it.

But you will say, Do not carnal men know the worth of the things in the gospel, and can discourse of the rich grace of Christ, and worth of him?

I answer, Yes, as a man who hath gotten an inventory by heart, and the prices also, and so may know it ; yet never was he led into the exchequer and treasury, to see all the jewels themselves, the wardrobe of grace, and Christ s righteousness,. to see the glory of them; for these are all spirit ually discerned, as the apostle says expressly, 1 Cor. ii. 14.

Uses.

Use 1. If it be a mystery, which God only makes known, as you see it is, then go to him for it ; you know how to deal with him. James i. 5, If any lack wisdom, let him ask it, whose promise is in the new covenant, to teach all his to know him. As you cannot see the sun without the light of itself, so nor the riches of the glory of Christ without his Spirit, who is called the Spirit of wisdom and revelation; who only knows the deep

COL. I. 26, 27.] THE GLOBY OF THE GOSPEL. 239 things of God, 1 Cor. ii. 10, as the mysteries of the gospel are, as the con text shews, that lie all at the bottom of his breast. The well is deep, we have nothing to draw.

But you will say, God hath revealed himself in the Scriptures, and it is but reading them, and I have wit enough to understand them.

I answer, It was the Spirit that wrote the word, which is not therefore (says Peter) of any private interpretation ; that is, no man s nor men s pri vate understanding, without the assistance of that public secretary of heaven, can understand them.

He only hid the treasures of knowledge in the field, and he only knows where they lie. What an advantage is it then by prayer to unlock God s

key of knowledge there, that unlocks God s study, and can direct to all his notes and papers. breast, and obtain the Secondly, get to be a saint, to whom God will make known the riches, &c., otherwise you cannot receive them, you will count them foolishness, as hath been shewed ; if you do, you will but take them upon trust, by the wholesale, as we use to say, and in the bundle, will not be able to see the particular secrets that are in the truths revealed in the gospel, and opened, and riches laid out.

Or if you could do all this without grace, yet a saint hath advantage, First, In the comfort you will have in studying the mysteries of the gospel, Col. ii. 2, to go no further. He wisheth them the knowledge of the mystery, that they might be comforted ; for, indeed, a saint, the more he sees into it, the more he knows his own riches. He tells them but over, and gets more evidence of his title to them, whereas another is but as a lawyer, that studies other men s evidences, without any great comfort to himself. The choicest flowers of gospel truths to an unregenerate man are of the stalk and yield no scent, but grow up in a saint s heart fresh and comfortable.

Secondly, In that place, Col. ii. 2, you shall find riches of assurance joined with a saint s knowledge, which, 1 Thes. i. 4, 5, is made a note of election, and not in another. Scotus says that to get a true and perfect knowledge in divine things, fides infusa et acquisita, both faith infused and acquired, are necessary.

First, A principle of faith infused, which may be an evidence, as it is defined, Heb. xi. 1, of all the principles and fundamental truths which are revealed in the gospel and not proved ; for otherwise all our know ledge acquired built thereon will want assurance, will hang upon uncer tainties. Things hanging upon a pin are no firmer than the pin they hang on. Unless faith rivets the principles of divine knowledge into the heart, all the conclusions hang on uncertainties, and fall down in the end.

And, thirdly, grace will help you to get the start of another. As for a natural man, he brings only natural parts ; a regenerate man is supposed to have as good, and moreover hath a further power of discerning given him. 1 Cor. ii. 15, The spiritual man discerneth all things. It is his own art. And as wicked men are often wiser in their art and generation * than the children of light ; yea, by your leave, the reason will more strongly hold that a child of light may easilier be wiser in his, and there

The knowledge of the holy is understanding. And, lastly, if they be saints, God makes known the saving truths of the fore Solomon says, gospel by the writings and judgments of holy men. The angels learn these mysteries of the church, and why should not we ? Ps. xxix. 9, In the church every one speaks ot God s glory, or, as others read it, In the

240 THE GLOEY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON I. church God utters all his glory. The saints, especially, that are or have been of the church, they speak of the glory of his kingdom and of his power, and make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. The ways of grace and mysteries of the kingdom are seldom made known but unto them.

And if God reveals the mysteries of grace to his saints only, trust not the judgments of natural men in the matters of grace ; this is a godly man s art, and not a wicked man s, though never so learned, and a man would * The knowledge of the holy is understanding, says Solomon, Prov. ix. 10, especially in ways of holiness. trust an artist in his own trade rather than another.

Take the controversies which are now on foot. Shall they judge of election who are reprobate to every good work themselves ? or they of the universality of God s free grace who turn the grace of God into wantonness? or they of the power of God in conversion that deny the power of godliness ? or those of the perseverance of faith who care not to make voluntary ship wreck of it, men of corrupt minds, whose God is their belly, gain their godliness, preferment their religion, and who will cut their own opinions accordingly ?

I will end all with one place, Isa. xxxv. 8. In the former verses he evi dently speaks of the kingdom of Christ coming to preach the gospel, by which he shews there should be a way revealed, an highway, which is the common road to heaven, there being but one way which Christ and all his go in, which shall be called, The way of holiness. Take heed you miscall it not, and call it a way of schism, faction, &c., as the Jews did call it heresy. But yet this way the unclean shall not pass over ; but wayfaring men, who desire to know the way to heaven (though fools) shall not err therein ; but the unclean (as the opposition shews) shall err therein, though never so learned.

THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

SERMON II.

Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made maniftest to Im saints : to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles ; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. COL. I. 26, 27.

WE have done with the subject and author of it, let us come to the pro perties of it.

1. It is rich ; 2. Glorious.

1. First, Rich ; so chap. ii. ver. 3, he tells us that in it or him, that is, the gospel or Christ, of both which he speaketh, are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now the riches of this knowledge appear in three things.

(1.) In abundance; (2.) Preciousness ; (3.) Gainfulness. And such is the knowledge of Christ.

(1.) First, Abundant. For that place tells us that it is all knowledge, via cminentifc ; as the metaphysic is said to be all knowledge, because of the fulness, largeness of the subject of it, all truths and axioms in other sciences being swallowed up in its principles. Such is this knowledge also, the subject of it being Christ ; and therefore, as Christ contains in him, via eminentire, all the treasures of perfection that are in any creature, and is full of grace and truth, John i. 14, so doth the knowledge of Christ con tain in it all the treasures of wisdom, and all that is worth knowing ; treasures which can never be drawn dry or exhausted, which the mind of man can never waste ; but bringing in new revenues of new notions daily, so as the more is spent, the more may be. Other knowledges being but of the creature, are but imperfect ; for the things known are such, and cannot fill the mind with abundance of knowledge, for the things have not where withal to do it, though they be known to the utmost. But in him all fulness dwells, verse 19 : fulness of truth to fill the mind, as well as fulness of grace to fill the will, John i. 14. And indeed, for abundance, unsearch able riches, Eph. iii. 8.

(2.) Secondly, It is a rich mystery for the preciousness of it. The pro mises of it are exceeding precious, 2 Pet. i. 4. Every truth in it is precious, so Paul tells us, 1 Cor. iii. 12. All truths of the gospel built VOL. iv. Q

242 THE GLOKY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON II. upon the foundation, Christ, he calls pearls, and gold, and silver; and all the enticing words of man s wisdom, hay and stubble. Yea, Prov. iii. 15, 16, Solomon says, wisdom and understanding is better than gold and silver, which yet commands all in the world. And if rubies and precious stones be more worth than gold, she is more precious than rubies. And what is it that makes things precious, that is not found in the saving truths and promises of the gospel ?

[1.] Antiquity makes things precious ; so small pieces of coin and medals, if ancient, are precious. And this was coined in heaven, and in God before all ages and generations, and bears the image of the great King. It is the everlasting gospel, Eev. xiv. 6.

[2.] Things far fetched are precious. Not a word of this but fell from heaven. Christ came from heaven, where he heard and saw all the truths revealed in it, and so delivered them to us, John iii. 31, 32. And this difference is put between the law and the gospel, Heb. xii. 25. The law was spoken from the earth, the gospel from heaven.

[3.] Things dearly bought are precious. Every truth of the gospel cost

Christ his blood to make it so ; the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. As grace cost his blood, so truth also ; for both cost the same price.

All the promises are yea and amen in him ; they had all been blanks if he had not set his blood as a seal to them.

[4.] Things charily laid up are precious. The gospel hath had the richest cabinet in the world, God s breast ; there is the original of it, Eph. iii. 9. The original copy lies there, the counterpart in the heart of God s elect, 2 Cor. iii. 3. Ye are the epistle of Christ, written by the Spirit of the living God. In whom therefore it is said to abide for ever, 1 Pet. i. 25, locked up in the church, the pillar and ground of truth.

[5.] Things which perish not are precious, especially if still they preserve themselves from what attempts to corrupt them, 1 Pet. i. 7. Faith is therefore said to be precious, because it perisheth not, though tried in the fire. Such are the truths of the gospel, which though men have en deavoured to corrupt it by a world of the dross of human errors and inven tions, yet God hath still come with fire and tried it. And still the more men labour to mingle dross with God s truth, still it endures the fire, and comes out clearer and clearer in every age. Ps. xii. 6, * The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. There is no truth of God but hath been tried in one age or other. Heresies have been brought in, yet it remains pure, maintains itself. The truth \\as mingled with dross in Pelagius s time, and then purified. So in Bradwardine s* time, and then also it came out purer; and so now with fine dross,f but God will purify it.

(3.) A third thing in riches is profitableness ; and in that respect the gospel to the saints is a rich gospel. It talks not only of riches as stories do, as that of Solomon s time, when silver was as stones of the streets ; nor doth it open heaven s treasury gates, and shew them the riches of it only, as Hezekiah did the ambassadors that came to visit him a man

Bradwardine (Thomas), Archbishop of Canterbury about the middle of the fourteenth century, noted as a mathematician, and a defender of Christianity. Samuel Ward (Works, p. 142) calls him as thankful an English heart as ever wrote. ED. f The nature of the dross with which Goodwin considered the truth to be mixed in his time may be gathered from his Exposition of the Revelation. Works, vol.

III. ED.

I COL. I. 26, 27.] THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 243

may thus hear and see the riches of another, and be a poor man still but * Christ in you, saith the text. When he hears and receives the I riches is I gospel aright, it fills his lap full, he carries Christ and all his riches home iwith him.

Well might Solomon say, as Prov. iii. 14, 15, Happy is the man that jfindeth wisdom, and that gets understanding; for her merchandise is better than | silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. And if anything in the world be better than these, which yet the world hath, as rubies and precious stones seem to be, She is more precious (saith he) than rubies. And if I still the heart of man should enlarge its vast desires and wide gapings to [some more conceived precious things than these, though unknown ; do, I says Solomon, stretch the compass of your desires to as great a wideness as you can ; desire what you can, and all you can desire is not to be com pared to her. It is not only exceeded, but there is no comparison. And this he speaks not of the preciousness, as in itself, but of the gain and [profit it brings to the possessors. Their gain, says he, &c. But you will say, Wherein consists these riches of the gospel ?

* Which (riches) is Christ in you. And can you make an inven

Answer, tory, and ever value and prize his goods ? Surely, No.

First, Christ is worth all God is worth, as he is the Son of God ; for he is the only Son, the well-beloved Son, in whom God is so well pleased, that he will not give a penny away from him ; he is the heir, and shall have all. And the gospel makes him yours, with all his riches, which riches is Christ in you. Thus the apostle argues and pleads the evidence of the right a Christian hath to all things, 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23, All things are yours, for you are Christ s, and Christ is God s.

God himself can be worth but all things, Christ is worth what God is, for all things that are God s are Christ s. And you have as much as Christ hath. What riches are here ! All things are given to be inherited, Rev. xxi. 7, by the same. And as sure a title as Christ, Rom. viii. 17, we are put into God s will, joint heirs with Christ, though not joint purchasers, for he purchased all, and all these gives freely; no debts are to be paid, nor legacies or portions out of them. Rom. viii. 32, If he hath given us

Christ, shall not he with him give us all things freely ? Christ is not only worth all things as the heir, and we are worth so much because Christ is given to us, but he paid for all things dearly. And look what the revenues of Christ s blood come to ; that and so much is a Christian worth. For Christ paid ready down, at his death, an invaluable sum of merit into his Father s hands (as feoffee in trust), as a common stock or bank, to be employed for the good and use of all his saints, who are to have the full worth of them out to eternity.

You know, says the apostle, 2 Cor. viii. 9, 1 the grace of Christ ; how, when he was rich, he became poor (mark it), for your sakes, to enrich you. Now what must these riches come to, think you, which are laid up for you; whenas Christ was as rich as God him self, thought it no robbery to be equal with God, Phil. ii. 6, as good in estate every whit ? Now of all these riches he emptied himself, ver. 8, left himself not worth one farthing, and became poor, had not a hole left to hide himself in, made himself of no reputation, of no account or reckoning, making over all for you. And what must this come to ? The riches of God put out to use, to be received with advantage again, if possible, and put into sure hands, even God the Father s, who hath bid us owe no man anything but love. And surely he loves his own too well to owe them anything. t If they should doubt, he Lath entered into bond, and the gospel is that

244 THE GLOEY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON II. bond, which is therefore called a rich gospel, because it is the promise of * partakers of the promise of the gospel. It is the gospel that makes us partakers of the promise, that is, the things promised ; and they are, ver. 8, all these riches ; Eph. iii. 6, * the unsearchable riches of Christ. So as if you desire particularly to have the value of them, or in gross, the total sum, they are unsearchable riches which cannot be told over to eternity, much less be spent. Eiches in justification, to have all debts paid the first day, and that would enhance unsearchable riches. Set a price on all angels, all creatures, it would not -pay one note, the least bill. All other things are not worth so much ; it cost more to redeem souls than so. And besides, to have still left so rich righteousness as purchased

riches of grace, to have the Spirit poured out richly, as Tit. iii. 6. The word in the original is riches of glory, Eph. i. 18. In respect of which all riches in the world are but as crumbs of the rich man s table, or relics given to the poor. The kingdom of Turkey (as one called it), but a crust thrown to a dog. And is it not a rich knowledge then, that enriches the knowers of it, which should invite men to learn it ? For if men think other knowledge in itself so rich, as to be content to spend their estates, to attain but notions to fill their brains, not purses ; then how much more for this, which as it is pre cious, so it brings in all these riches as the gain of it ?

Angels are invited to search it for the preciousness of it, and yet these * Christ in you. But then do but know and study your own riches and evidences for them ; therefore in Eph. riches are not Christ in them, but iii., where the end of revealing these riches is laid open, ver. 8, there are two sorts of creatures, says he, to whom God intended to reveal them, first, men, ver. 9 ; secondly, angels, ver. 10 ; but with this differing intent, that the angels might know the wisdom which was in the gospel, ver. 10. The harmony in the plot is what the angels are taken with ; and this, though men may also see in the gospel, yet further the end was, that they might know the fellowship of the mystery, that is, that they might be made par takers of it.

2. Secondly, glorious ; as it is a rich mystery, so also glorious, What is the riches of the glory, &c., which words, as other Hebraisms, are con vertible ; rich glory, or glorious riches, so as no man can say whether the riches or the glory of it be greater.

Now this glorious title the apostle gives often unto the gospel, as 1 Tim. i. 11. And 2 Cor. iv. 4, * lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine into them. And in the third chapter of that epistle throughout, he fully displays the glory of it, which the apostle doth by comparing it with the law, or covenant of works, because there was no question of any other knowledge never so excellent, yet revealed, that could stand on terms of comparison with it.

The law indeed, says he, it was a glorious law, though written but in * glory of God appeared on the mount, Exod. xxiv. 16, 17, to note out, that that stones and dead letters ; and therefore, when it was ministered, the law was the glorious image of his will. And therefore also even the of Moses, says that 7th verse,* by whose hands it was administered, shining, so as the people could not behold it for the glory of his counte

so terrible was the sight, saith the author to the Hebrews, nance. And * that Moses said, I quake and tremble, Heb. xii. 21. But yet says Paul, ver. 8, 9, The gospel, it

exceeds in glory, yea, and so far exceeds, as ver. 10, as the law which was thus made glorious, had * That is, 2 Cor. iii. 7. ED.

no glory in respect of this glory which excelleth ; but like as the sun, when it ariseth, puts out the lesser eyes of heaven, dims, yea clean obscures these otherwise glorious tapers, so as they have no glory in this respect, so the gospel exceeds the law. And if you ask wherein it exceeds in glory, the answer is, Because it is the ministration and discoverer of far more glorious things to the saints than ever the law could do.

If you ask, What glorious things are communicated and revealed therein ?

I answer out of the 3d and 4th chapters, which explain the glorious work of the gospel on men s hearts, when they are brought to God. For when any man is converted at the preaching of the gospel, first, before the word works, the Holy Ghost falls on a man ; as when Christ was baptized, hea ven opened, and the Holy Ghost descended and rested on him: so in Acts x. 44, when the gospel was preached by Peter, the Holy Ghost fell on them ; and of the Spirit the gospel is the ministration, and not the law. Gal. iii. 2, I would ask of you, received you the Spirit by the works of the law, or of the hearing of faith ? that is, the gospel, for so faith is taken for the doctrine of faith. And this ministration of the Spirit is by virtue of a covenant made (Isa. lix. 21) with Christ ; that Spirit that was in him, and word that was in his mouth, to wit, the gospel, should not depart out of the mouth of his seed s seed for ever, but it should accompany his elect.

And is not then the gospel a glorious gospel, that makes men partakers of the Holy Ghost, and that for ever ? which Spirit is a Spirit of glory, 1 Pet. iv. 14, which rests on his ; the Spirit of glory, because it fills the man it dwells in with glory. For look, as when God descended into the visible temple, it was filled with glory, 2 Chron. vii. 1 ; and by reason of that presence the ark itself was called the glory, Rom. ix. 4 : so when God fills the preaching of the gospel (whereof the ark was a type) with his glorious Spirit, and by it fills the heart of a man with that Spirit also, as Eph. v. 18, there is a new glory put upon that man.

But Secondly, This gospel is by the power of this Spirit the ministration of righteousness to the man God means to call, and therefore also glorious, as the apostle there argues ; that is, this gospel, by the help of the Spirit working faith in his heart, reveals the righteousness of Christ to be made

righteousness which in the his, and that exceeds in glory ; for it is this last verse of that third chapter is called the glory of the Lord, viz., Christ; who being the Lord of glory, the King of glory, 1 Cor. ii. 8, what a glorious righteousness must this be which the gospel thus discovers ? And it discovers it not by engraving or dead colours, as the law did ; but as in a glass. And as that glass is glorious wherein the sun shines, the very image there puts down all the stars, so this glass, the gospel, must needs be glorious, wherein the Sun of righteousness shines, as he is called, Mai. iv. 2. Neither doth it reveal it only, but dispenseth it, it is the minis tration of righteousness ; Christ s righteousness, which is the glory of the Sun, the King of glory, made ours to justify us. And therefore, Rev. xii. 1, the church appears clothed with the sun, even with Christ himself and his glory, who is therefore said to be our righteousness, Jer. xxiii. 6.

Hereby, as Christ said of the lilies, Mat. vi. 29, that Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these ; so may I say of all the angels who yet are the bright morning-stars, that sang when the world was made, Job xxxviii. 7 that the/ are not clothed with such a glory as the gospel dispenseth to us ; such a robe never came on their backs, nor never shall. And is not this a glorious gospel then ?

246 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON II.

Thirdly, In the sight and dispensation of the glorious righteousness of Christ, we come yet to see a further glory shining on us, and still in the gospel ; so in the 4th and 6th verses of the next chapter, 2 Cor. iv. For the gospel gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ ; that is, through the righteousness of Christ we come to see the glorious sunshine of the favour of God, the light of his countenance lift up upon us. For when Moses would see his glory, the Lord proclaimed only this, Exod. xxxiv. 6, The Lord merciful and gracious. And as he

the Father of glory, Eph. i. 17, so his mercy is * the riches of his glory, Rom. ix. 23, and Ps. xc. 14, 15, 16. The church, praying for mercy and favour, says, Let thy glory be on thy servants ; and therefore is not this a glorious gospel, that reveals this to a man also, that God gra ciously accepteth us in the beloved ?

Fourthly, The beholding thus the glory of Christ, viz., his righteousness in the gospel, it changeth us into the same image, from glory to glory, verse the last of the third chapter ; that is, makes grace in us, which is truly glorious, and therefore, Ps. xlv., the church is said to be all glorious within, Eph. v. 26, 27, He sanctifies his church, that he might present it a glori ous church. Justification not only makes us glorious, but sanctification also, and this is dispensed by the gospel, for that sanctifies us to the end of the world, John xvii. 17, and is the glass we are changed by.

Nay, fifthly, The very light itself whereby we do behold these things in the gospel, and are thus changed, is glorious, 1 Pet. ii. 9, We are called of darkness to a marvellous light. And the joy that ariseth out of behold ing Christ s righteousness as ours, and God s favour, it is joy unspeakable and glorious, 1 Pet. i. 8. And last of all, It gives us certain hope of a further glory yet to be re vealed, as the text hath it, and verse 17 of the 4th chapter, an eternal weight of glory. All the glory of this world it bears no weight, x&vq doa, empty, frothy glory, as the apostle calls it, but this is an exceeding weight of glory, which if all that glorious lustre men doat on so, were weighed, it would be but as a dust balanced against it ; so weighty as flesh and blood, that is, the infirmity of man s nature, if not changed and made capable, could not subsist under it, 1 Cor. xv. 50.

And all the glory here is a fading glory, but that is eternal, 1 Pet. i. 24, All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass ; the grass withers, and the flower falleth away, but the glory of this estate fades not, ver. 4, but is a flower always green. And the reason is, because the glory of things is one thing, and the things another, the grass one thing, and the flower another, and therefore the glory fades and is clean gone, when yet the things remain. But glory is de essentid to the things above, the very essence of them is glory itself, and so called ; and therefore, whilst the things remain (as they do for ever), their glory doth. And is not this a glorious gospel ?

Vses.

Use First, If the gospel and the riches of it be thus great, then buy it, Prov. xxiii. 23, Buy the truth, and sell it not ; he names no price, for you are not like to lose by it, cost what it will. This place* hath been the greatest mart of truth, and of the mystery of the gospel, that I know under heaven. Wisdom hath as it were cried all her wares at this great cross. This truth has been purchased for 3^011, and that dearly; it cost the blood * Cambridge, as appears afterwards. ED.

of many martyrs to derive it to you, the sweat of many preachers, the prayers of many saints, and cost G-od the riches of his patience to see it contemned. Buy it therefore at any rate.

Especially you who are scholars, you come hither and live under those, read those who are wholesale men,* and you should, whilst you are here, treasure up as much and as many precious truths as you can, and grace withal to vent by retail in the country, when you are sent abroad.

First, Inquire and learn where these treasures are to be had, even in the Scriptures. The merchant who knew the pearl, was fain to buy the field ; Timothy, from a child had known the Scriptures, and so should you do, * they are able to make a man wise unto salvation, and make the man of God perfect. As the books of nature, when thoroughly known, make a perfect physician for the body, so doth this a perfect divine. Search the Scriptures, says Christ, for they speak of me. As Christ is the treasury of all knowledge, so the Scriptures are of Christ. These treasures lie scattered in all the veins of the prophets and apostles ; dig for them as for silver, take pains and travel to understand them, as Dan. xii. 4, when he was bidden to seal up his prophecy in the letter, Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. That is, by doing as merchants do, travelling from place to place, comparing one with another, knowledge will be increased.

Secondly, Go to the markets and warehouses of those who have laid in or discovered much of this treasure ; that is, use the help of godly men s writings and conferences. The angels do learn of the church, and why not we ? Even Paul desires to see them at Rome, that he might be comforted by their mutual faith.

Therefore exchange, and truck one with another to that end. Christ hath given several gifts to perfect his body in knowledge, Eph. iv. 12. The knowledge of any one man is imperfect, some have more skill in one point, and some in another, and so in several ages several truths have been delivered and revealed, Heb. i. 1, -TTOX-J/ASOWC, by fragments and by pieces, and therefore use the help of all. None of us are as Paul, to whom nothing can be added.f

Thirdly, Go to him above all who hath the key of knowledge, Jesus

Christ, Rev. iii. 7, pray to him. In 1 Peter i. 10, they searched and in quired, that is, they studied and prayed; use both. Aiid so the apostles did spend the time in both, Acts i.

Fourthly, Highly prize and esteem every truth. If a fool hath a price in his hand, he hath no heart to use it, Prov. xvii. 16, because he esteems it not. Count all dross and dung for the excellent knowledge of Christ, doat not on human learning too much, lest it spoil and rob you of this.

Fifthly, Exchange all for it, sell all for it, sell all that you have for it, your sins ; no saving truths can be yours whilst sin is yours, John xvii. 17 ; 1 Peter i. 22, they purified their souls by obeying the truth ; for if you receive the truth as you ought, it will cast out all. Especially lay down pride of parts, Ps. xxv. 12, he will teach the humble his secrets, he will not teach proud scholars. God will not deal nor trade with a wicked man, 1 Tim. vi. 4 ; men being corrupt of dispositions, are destitute therefore of the truth.

Sixthly, Carry all home, and make them your own. It is not your own

That is, who supply n ie students with that stock of truth, which they are after wards to dispense to their congregations. ED. t Gal. ii. 6. ED.

248 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON II. whilst it is in your brains, as no more meat is your own but what you eat ; Let it be the ingrafted word, James i. 21. Be you evangelised. Use Second, If the gospel be so precious, sell it not, for you can never get the full worth of it; Buy the truth, saith Solomon, Prov. xxiii. 23, sell it not, that is, part not with it at any hand. And this know for your encouragement, that God takes it not away from any man or nation, until they willingly part with it or put it away ; for why else doth he bid them not sell it ? His meaning is, if you do not, I will never deprive you of it. To this purpose is the example of Esau brought, Heb. xii. 16. For, speaking of this rich grace offered in the gospel, he bids them take heed that there be no profane person, as Esau was, that sold his birthright. That look, as God would not have deprived Esau of the blessing unless he had freely sold it, Jonah ii. 8, Job xxxiii. 26, so nor them of the precious gospel.

And he adds this, to enforce this exhortation the more, that a man must not think to receive it when he will ; afterwards he would have inherited the blessing, sought it with tears, but could not, ver. 17. And as he takes it not from a particular man, so neither from a nation.

In Acts xiii. 46, the church of the Jews had been the ancient pillar of truth, and market for the gospel ; God had new precious wares to be vented, which had lain hid from all eternity, as this text shews. See what Paul and Barnabas say, who were his factors to trade for him ; * it is necessary they should first be spoken to you. It is strange, it was necessary, for God s custom is not to offer his precious wares to new customers till the old had refused them. But now, says he, you shew yourselves unworthy ; Lo, now we turn to the Gentiles ; we will go seek chapmen all the world over, rather than you shall have the offer of them any more. And as in an estate of land wherein three have a right, until all give over, it is riot sold, so in this kingdom there are three, there are magistrates, ministers, people. If either of these do what they can to keep it, it is not sold. Therefore to these three doth God look, Jer. v. 1 : to the magistrates, to see if that there were a man that sought truth ; secondly, to the com mon people, who know not the law ; and last of all, to the prophets and priests ; and when all conspired, then what shall you do in the end thereof ? And if the truth be thus rich and precious, let me speak freely to you. Let the market stand open, take heed how you prohibit any truth to be sold in your markets ; but let the word run and bo glorified, and let wisdom cry all her wares. If every truth be thus precious, is it not an impoverish ing of the kingdom to hinder the traffic of any ? Nay, is it not a hindering the king s custom ? Revenues of God s glory ariseth out of the custom of these wares. Those times are in a great degreeof selling away these truths, that cannot endure (as Paul speaks, 2 Tim. iv. 3, 4) wholesome doctrine.

Secondly, Take heed of suffering falsehood to be sold for truth. Rev. ii. 20, one of the churches is blamed for suffering Jezebel to teach and to seduce

Christ s servants. If we do so, we shall have popery bought for truth, Arminianism for truth, and so by degrees sell away that blessed inheritance which our forefathers left us ; as heirs do sell away their lands, first one lordship and then another, piece by piece, till all be gone ; and so our silver by little and little becomes dross, as Isaiah speaks, chap. i. 22. This will provoke God (if anything) to sell you into your enemies hands for nought, Ps. xliv. 12. * Qu. danger? ED.

COL. I. 26, 27. J THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 249

But, thirdly, if it be thus precious, hold it fast, as Paul speaks to Titus, * hold fast the faithful word. The word signifies to hold against chap. i. 9, contrary pulling it away, dvrofsvoi. If a man would not sell the inherit ance left him, much less would he suffer it to be taken from him. Suppose it be but a trine, yet men in a case of right will spend their estates to hold their own, though the suit will not bear its own charges. But when you contend for the truth once given, as the apostle Jude exhorts, you labour to preserve not your own only, but God s right. It is not about a trifle, but for that which Christ once spent his blood ; and it is the * faithful word, as the apostle calls it, a cause that will stick to you, and maintain itself, be sure to overcome ; and not bear its own charges only, but brings a crown with it, 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8, I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, henceforth a crown is laid up for me. Christ did witness so be fore Pontius Pilate, 1 Tim vi. 13.

And, last of all, if it be thus rich as well as precious, let it dwell richly in you, cr Xou<r/wr, as the word is, Col. iii. 16. Give it not poor but rich entertainment, as you would do a rich kinsman who means to make you his heir, and estate you in all his riches.

And to that end, labour to grow rich in the knowledge of it, and speech of it, as Paul speaks, 1 Cor. i. 5, * that you may be enriched in all know ledge, and in all utterance, or speech about it, as men labour to know what they are worth, and love to talk of it.

Bestow riches of assurance on it, as Col. ii. 2, that you may have the riches of full assurance of understanding ; and James ii. 5, to be rich in faith. Trust in him, as men that are rich use to do in their riches, Prov. x. 15. And though their riches be uncertain, and not able to do what they expect, yet this is profitable for all things, having so many rich promises made for you to rely upon.

Bestow riches of obedience on it, endeavouring to grow rich in good works, as the apostle speaks, 1 Tim. vi. 18. Spend the most precious of your time and thoughts upon it.

Uses of that doctrine, the glory of the gospel.

First, For trial ; whether a man hath savingly received it or no. For if it be thus glorious, then they are still blinded to destruction that see it not in the glorv of it. This is the direct consequence of the apostle himself in 2 Cor. iv. 4. For he having discoursed of that rich and excellent glory which it reveals, then, says he, those that have lived so long under the preaching of it are lost, into whose hearts the light of this glorious gospel hath not shined. And certainly, saith he, the god of this world hath blinded their eyes, that is, the devil, by varnishing over the vain glitter ing scheme and gloss of the things of this world, as he did to Christ, Mat. iv. 8, dazzles them so, that they see no more glory in the things which the gospel reveals, than blind men do. The fault must certainly be in men s eyes ; for this glorious gospel, wherever it shines, is as the sun in itself, it is primurn visibilc. Blind men are never the better for the sun. Though they may have eyes to see the things the gospel propounds, yet not the glor}, the worth, and excellency of them, so as to be intimately and deeply affected with them ; as to be content to leave house, lands, father, and wife, for the gospel s sake, as Christ speaks, Mark x. 29, that is, to enjoy those things you hear spoken of in the gospel.

250 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SfiEMON II.

And this is that which Christ expressly, out of Isaiah, speaks of the blind pharisees, to whom the glory of Christ was preached in the gospel, John xii. 40, 41. For, says he, Isaiah seeing that his glory spoke this of them, that God had blinded their eyes, &c., that they should not see ; that is, not see that glory of Christ as preached to them, so as Isaiah saw it, and all saints, to be humbled and converted by it. Examine yourselves therefore. You go up and down in the world here, and you view daily the riches of it, and the pleasures of it, the beauty, the credit, the glory of it. And from viewing these things, you often come here to the word, which as a glass that the sun shines in reveals Christ to you, the necessity, the worth of his Spirit, righteousness, and graces, which are laid open to your view daily. Now seriously tell me, or rather thy own heart, in which of these dost thou see most glory, by which art thou most imtimately allured ? Shall I tell thee ? If ever thou hadst savingly seen the glory of the things of the gospel, all the excellencies of the world would seem no excellencies. When thou goest from the church again into the world, the devil s varnish would melt off, as women s paint doth against the sun ; and as candles burn dim and wan when set against the sun, so these. The things thou didst account most glorious before thy eyes were opened, would seem to have no glory in comparison of this glory, as the apostle speaks of the law, 2 Cor. iii. 10, of this glory that so excelleth, excellens senslbile destruit sensum. It would put out the carnal eye quite and clean. This you may see, Isa. xl. 5, 6, where the Holy Ghost speaks expressly of the preaching the gospel by John the Baptist, whom in the third verse he calls the voice of a crier ; and Peter applies the place to the preaching of the gospel, 1 Pet. i. 25. Now (says he, ver. 5) the glory of the Lord Christ should thereby be revealed, and so revealed, that all flesh should see it, that is, many believers both of Jews and Gentiles, for so all flesh is taken also, Ps. Ixv. 2. See it namely in this mirror and glass, 2 Cor. iii. 18, and what is the effect of it ? Why, * all flesh is grass, and the goodliness or glory thereof, as Peter calls it, as the flower of the field. And in their eyes now, that have seen the superexcellent glory, it withers and fades ; all the glory of the world appears like withered flowers, for the Spirit of the Lord, which reveals this glory in the gospel, blasts, blows upon them all, so as they lose their gloss and esteem in men s hearts ; they can never doat on them again as before.

What is learning, thinks the poor soul, in comparison of grace ? What is all the world to the righteousness of Christ ? And then all the glow worm righteousness of a man s self, which civil men glory in, so vanisheth, which once shined in the dark, so when this sun ariseth. So it did with Paul, Philip, iii. Then, however a man thought of himself before, as thinking he had many excellencies in him, yet having seen this glory, he falls down, as Isaiah did in like case, Isa. vi. 5, I am undone, I am un clean, a vile wretch, that deserves undoing and destruction.

Secondly, If it be thus glorious, see if thou art able to behold the glory of it, comfortably and joyfully, without winking. This is another consectary* may be had out of this 2 Cor. iii. 18, where the apostle brings all believers to the same trial that the eagle doth her young ones ; for as she brings them to the sun, and if they be able to behold it without dazzling or winking, then she accounts them of a right breed ; now, so doth the apostle bring all believers to the glory of the Lord, shining in the mirror of the gospel ( and we all, says he, with open face behold the glory of * That is, conclusion or consequence. ED.

the Lord ) to look full upon it. And so indeed unto eagles are they com pared in Matthew ; for why, their hearts are changed into the same image, so as there is a suitableness between them and it. The strictest preaching, that reveals the glory and beauty of grace in its strictest and most spiritual hue, a good heart can look full upon it and love it. That ministry that darts in the clearest and hottest beams is the most welcome, and hath the most comfortable influence into their hearts.

In the 4th of Malachi, where the prophet speaks of the preaching of the gospel by Jesus Christ, as appears by the 5th verse, where he speaks of John Baptist before the day of Christ s appearing, , Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, and ye shall go forth as calves of the stall ; that is, Jesus Christ, who then ariseth in men s hearts, when by the gospel God gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus, as 2 Cor. iv. 6, 2 Pet. i. 19. Now those precious truths, and the beams thereof, he com pares to wings, because the beams of the sun are spread forth, even as the wings of the eagle, brooding over all the earth, and the things in it, and by them flying into all the corners of it.

So doth Jesus Christ spread forth beams of truth into believers hearts, and by them comes into their hearts, as the sun is said to do ; when the beams of it come into a house, you say the sun comes in. Now these beams, if they should not heal and change our hearts into the same image, they would dazzle and confound men s consciences ; therefore it is added, they have healing goes with them, and therefore now, like calves, they can go forth, and rejoice and leap for joy in the light of it. Whereas sore eyes, that are not healed, are amazed and terrified at the sight of it ; and there fore in the first verse he says, They shall be burnt up, as they in Rev. xvi. 8, 9, that are scorched with the heat of the sun, and so blasphemed and opposed the word. And as in hot countries some have cursed the sun when it ariseth, so they the gospel and the light of it. They hate it, rejoice when any of the witnesses are dead, as they, Rev. xi. 10, because they tormented them that dwelt on the earth. Like swine laid on their backs against the sun, they cease not crying till they be on their feet again ; or if they cannot avoid it, yet they wink with their eyes, as they, Mat. xiii. 15. For if men be unholy and profane, whoremongers, liars, &c., then the glorious gospel is contrary unto them, as 1 Tim. i. 10, 11, compared.

But if thou beest not able to behold the glory of the gospel, how wilt thou behold Christ coming in his glory, to render vengeance with flaming fire to them that obey not this gospel ?

Thirdly, If it be thus glorious, then see if thou endeavourest to glorify and admire this gospel, and bring honour to it, which is a third consectary whereby you may know whether you receive it in the glory of it or no ; for all things we apprehend glorious, we labour to glorify and set forth as much as we may ; and this I ground on 2 Thess. iii. 1. Pray, says the apostle, that the word may run and be glorified, &c., that is, that it mav have not only free progress in the world, run upon wheels, as the word signifies, but when it is entertained according to the glory and worth of it, as it was amongst these Thessalonians, who received it as the word of God, and not of man, 1 Thess. ii. 13. Turning from idols, to serve the living God, chap. i. 9 ; parting with all their sins, and setting up God in their hearts; receiving it in much affliction, ver. 6, yet rejoicing in it

with joy unspeakable and glorious ; being content to part with lands and all for the gospel s sake, as Mark viii. 35 ; having a care of their conversa-

252 THE GLOSY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON II. tion in all things, that it may be as becomes the gospel, as he exhorts, Phil. i. 27 ; when men contend for every truth of it, as Paul in the next words, ver. 28, striving together for the faith of the gospel, continuing immoveable, not removing from the hope of the gospel, as Col. i. 2, 8 ; leaving all for the hopes of what it reveals, accounting this the greatest blessing and privilege they can enjoy in this life to enjoy it ; rejoicing in it more than in wisdom, learning, strength, riches ; glorying that a man knows God merciful and gracious, which is the message of the gospel, as Jer. ix. 23, as the Galatians did, Gal. iv. 14, 15, when they first received

Where was then the blessedness you spoke of ? They so magnified this mercy, that they counted it the great est blessing of all other, that though a people be blessed, when their gar ners are full, &c., yet, as if nothing were to be accounted of, he says, Paul, they received him as an angel

Happy is that people whose God is the Lord, &c., Ps. cxiiv. 15.

Use 2. If the gospel be thus glorious, then see and acknowledge what is truly the glory of any people, and the want whereof leaves them in the most miserable and inglorious condition ; even the gospel. The law, which as this 2 Cor. chap. iii. tells us, had not any glory in this respect, yet made the people of the Jews a great nation in the eyes of all round about them, Deut. iv. 6-9. The nation that should hear of all these statutes should say, This is a great nation, that hath God so nigh them ; and what nation so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law ?

That which anciently made one commonwealth excel another, to nourish more and continue longer, was the excellency and righteousness of the laws and form of government among them. This made Lacedemonia great, kept the Venetian state standing these 1300 years, and hath made them accounted a great, and a wise, and an understanding people. But all the nations had not such a law as this in all parts ; all this law, so just, so holy, it being that law by which man in his holy state was governed, which the angels in heaven live by, which set not up men as their kings and rulers, but sets God up as their protector, makes him nigh them, ver. 7. Therefore, Ps. Ixxvi. 1-4, in that God was known in Judah, this made it

more excellent than the mountains of prey. He compares all the kingdoms of the world besides to wild waste places, where outlaws dwell, savage and cruel wild beasts, that prey upon one another, wanting the knowledge of this law to civilise and tame them.

And, therefore, though the Israelites were famous for deliverances above all the nations of the world, fuller of inhabitants than any nation, as the sands of the sea (which is the glory of a kingdom, Solomon says, Prov. xiv. 28), flowing more with outward blessings than any nation else ; in a word, though their privileges were much every way above the Gentiles, Rom. iii. 2, yet chiefly (says he) that to them were committed the oracles of God. This you see is made the top and height of all. Now, if the law made them thus glorious, and the obscure revealing of the gospel, and indeed but the shadow, as Heb. x. 1, the shine and glimmering as it were of the glory of the gospel, how much more must that make a people glorious (whenas it comes to be fulfilled) which Habakkuk foretold, Hab. ii. 14, that all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And if in any age or in any coast it is or hath been full tide, it is now in England. In 1 Sam. iv. 22, when the ark was taken, it was said, * the glory of

Israel is departed. Now, the ark, which was covered with the mercyseat and the cherubims, was the place where God appeared, sitting between the cherubims, and shining bright, as Ps. Ixxx. 1, and met the people, Exod. xxv. 22, whence he spake and gave oracles, Num. vii. 89 ; and therefore is * speaking-place, debir, 1 Kings vi. 28. And therefore the ark was called the glory, Kom. ix. 4 ; and cherubims of glory, Heb. ix. 5. Now, what was this ark a type of, which was thus the glory of Israel ? Of the gospel. For, Heb. ix. 23, they were all patterns of things in heaven. called the Now, as the temple was the type of the church under the gospel, Eev. xi. 1, so the ark was of Christ, revealed in the preaching of the gospel, in the last verse of that chapter. There was seen in his temple the ark of his testament, wherein Jesus Christ comes and meets his people, and speaks from heaven, and wherein believers behold his glory, 2 Cor. iii. 18; and therefore they are called the oracles of God, 1 Pet. iv. 11. So as when we prophesy, men fall down convinced and say, God is amongst you, 1 Cor. xiv. 25. And the cherubims, between which God sits and speaks, are ministers of the gospel, as you shall hear anon.

the glory, as the ark was of old. So, I take it, that place is to be understood, 1 Pet. i.

So as indeed the manifestation of the gospel is called

10-12, where, speaking of our privilege who enjoy it, he says, the patri archs did foretell the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that followed ; namely, that spreading of the gospel, shedding forth of the Spirit, and gifts, which made those times glorious times after Christ s ascension.

Yea, in this respect, the congregations assembled to hear this gospel, God manifesting his presence, are called the glory ; I say the assemblies are, Isa. iv. 5, which place is to be understood of the times of the gospel, and the calling of the Jews ; God will create upon her assemblies a cloud by day, and a shining fire by night, to guide them as in the wilderness, for upon all the glory shall be a defence ; that is, upon all those assemblies, which, for the presence of God thus gloriously amongst them, he calls

the glory. And this gospel hath made this kingdom and this town as a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord; and the glory of the whole earth, as Jerusalem is called, Isa. Ixii. 7 ; the glorious diamond in the ring of the world. #

And this it is which did raise that great opinion in the hearts of other nations, that we were accounted a great people, as Deut. iv. G, 7, a wise and an understanding people, and full of humanity and amiableness of car riage ; whereas others are accounted rude and barbarous, that want it in the power that we have it. For when the earth, or any land, is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, it takes fierceness and wildness away from the inhabitants of it. Not from these only whom it converts, but whom it

It is not easy to ascertain whether the town referred to here is Cambridge or Lon don. There is no doubt that the sermons were originally preached in Cambridge ; but it is possible that they might be afterwards delivered in London, and that some sentences might then be added, whilst those having special reference to Cambridge might be allowed to remain by the editors of the Works. Still, it ought to be ob served that he represents the glory of the kingdom and town, as consisting in wis dom and understanding, and that may be thought more applicable to Cambridge than to London. It is not unworthy of notice that the comparison of the world to a ring, and London to the diamond set in it, is employed, in almost the same words, by Thomas Adams (Practical Works, vol. II. p. 332), What was once said of Ormus is true of this city, " Turn the world into a ring, and this is the diamond of it." ED

254 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON II. convinceth, Isa. xi. ; from the wolves and the lions, so as not to hurt, verse 9.

Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros.

It makes men more noble and ingenuous, as those of Berea were, having received the gospel, Acts xvii. 11. That is it which hath struck much terror in former times into the hearts of our enemies, as in Jehoshaphat s days ; when he was careful to send Levites to teach in every city, fear fell upon all the kingdoms round about, so as they made no war, 2 Chron. xvii. 10. And God being known for a refuge in our palaces, fear took hold of the kings of the earth, Ps. xlviii. 3 and 6 compared. That. is it which hath been our defence; for, Isa. iv. 5, where the glory of God is, there is a defence upon all the glory ; that when they combined together to make an attempt, as in Eighty-eight,* as it is in the same Psalm, xlviii. 47. Kings were assembled, a great many, as appears by the 7th verse, and they passed by all along our coasts, but they were troubled, and they hasted away ; and God broke the ships of Tarshish with the east wind, God being known for a refuge, verse 3. And where the gospel runs without rub, and is glorified, there, when enemies come in like a mighty flood, thinking to bear all before them, Isa. lix. 19, when they fear the name of Jehovah from the west (which is thought to be meant of these western churches, as they have been always called), and his glory from the rising of the sun : when the enemy comes in as a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. Ps. Ixxvi.

In Judah is God known, and his dwelling-place is in Zion : there brake he the arrows, and the bow, and the shield, and the sword, and the 1-3, battle. And so, on the contrary, when we go against others, on just quarrels, if the gospel be glorified amongst us, the promise is, Isa. Iviii. 8, * the glory of God shall be thy rearward ; shall make an army for us, to fight for us. This defended this town from the plague. This is that which, when sought and embraced above all things, makes other blessings be cast into the bargain, as Christ promiseth, and to which also we owe all the peace, plenty, and abundance of all things, which since the day we had the gospel we have enjoyed, which, if we had not, yet it is blessing enough. Rom. xv. 29, I shall come to you in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel, which whoso enjoys they want no blessing. It is full of blessing when it comes to a place, and it carries all away when itself removes. Look upon a town where once the king s court was kept, and then it flourished and abounded with blessings, which haply before was poor as Newmarket ; f but when that is once removed to come no more, look on it then again, and how poor, how desolate, doth such a town grow

! And Christ, where he comes in, enricheth the place he keeps court in. He did good to men s bodies, and souls also, when on earth, and so now in heaven, where his tabernacle is pitched. But when he removes, Mat. xxiii. 38, Behold your houses are left unto you desolate. Why

I say, Ye shall not henceforth see me, till ye say, Blessed is he, &c.

Judea, that once did flow with milk and honey, is now barren

Insula dives opum Priami dum legna manebant.

Great must the misery of that place be, then, from which the glory is de parting, for then their defence is gone, and they are left naked, exposed to * That is, 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada. ED. f Charles I. kept his court at Newmarket in 1642. Goodwin had before this left

Cambridge, but would naturally take an interest in the neighbourhood. ED.

the fury of their enemies, as the people were in the sight of their enemies, Exod. xxxii. 25, stripped of all their ornaments and armour, and there

the people mourned, chap, xxxiii., and then destruction doth cer fore tainly and inevitably follow.

Ezek. ix. 3. Before the executioners of vengeance came with their slaughterweapons, the glory of the Lord went away from the cherub, and then the wrath of God falls upon men to the utmost, as upon the Jews, 1 Thes. ii. 16, that is, in greater extremities than upon any other. Neither is the tenure of us Gentiles so sure as was theirs ; it was as their freehold, Bom.

To them appertained the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the ix. 4.

If God spared not the natural branches, take heed how he spare not thee : be not high-minded, but fear. promises. Bom. xi. 21, * Towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness ; otherwise thou shalt be cut off, ver. 22. And yet they are cut off, and have been these sixteen hundred years, and that glory which belonged to them is departed from them, and not yet returned ; and have we not cause to fear ? To that end, let us consider some signs of the departure of this glory from a people, and this in those degrees wherein usually it departs.

First, When those outward privileges, which I mentioned before, which have been pawns of its presence, are a-going, and a people is bereft of them ; for when you see the train departing and the followers sent away, you

turneth the glory of a expect the court removes shortly. When God kingdom into shame, as Hosea iv. 7, he threateneth, makes it base in the eyes of its neighbours, as, Ezek. xvii. 14, he did that of Judah before captivity, so as they are made a derision to those to whom they were a terror. When we see blessings ebb, attempts blasted, armies blown away and dissolved as dust-heaps in a nation that was once honourable, victorious, terrible, prosperous. Winter is nigh when leaves fall off. And so God did with the Jews, before that final taking of the gospel from them, by taking first away their beauty, their honour and glory, and out ward liberties and privileges of a nation, which once they had enjoyed, broke

of bands, Zech xi. 10, 14, then disuniting and scattering them over the face of the earth. the staff of beauty, and then The second thing that departs before the gospel departs is the inward, glorious presence of God s Spirit which once did shine in his ordinances, that though men enjoy the outward, visible signs of his presence, have the ark and preaching of the gospel and cherubims among them, yet the Spirit is gone. Ezek. ix. 3, it is said that the glory went up from the cherubims before the destruction that followed, that though the cheru bims and temple and ark still remained, yet the glory was gone. Now, the cherubims signified the ministers of the gospel, as you shall hear anon.

Now, when God withdraws his Spirit from us, then the glory goes hence, for in this 2 Cor. iii. this is that which makes the gospel glorious, the ministration of the Spirit ; so that, as the glory of the body is gone when the soul is out, so the glory of the gospel is gone when the Spirit is de parted, for without it it is but a dead letter. For the kingdom of God (Paul speaks it of preaching of the gospel, 1 Cor. iv. 20) consists not in word, but in power ; so that when that power is gone, the kingdom is gone. Now, whilst that power goes forth, so long God hath elect to call, 1 Thes. i. 4, 5, Knowing your election to be of God, because our gospel was not in word only, but la power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. And when the elect is gone, God takes away the gospel.

256 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SfiEMON II.

But when you shall hear sermons, and lay open the excellent things of the law, and discover the secrets of the gospel, which the angels pry into, and yet the Holy Ghost withdraw himself, that neither wicked are convinced to fall down and say, God is amongst them, the high fortresses of carnal opinion, corrupt practices, are not cast down in the congregations that hear them, nor are they reformed at all, but they that were filthy are filthy still; when the best are dead, and dull, and cold under it, their hearts are not warmed as they were wont to burn with them, as the disciples hearts were when they went to Emmaus ; when God ceaseth to shew him self terrible to the wicked in his holy place, Ps. Ixviii. 35, but then when the sentence of damnation is clearly pronounced against men, yet they all hear it as the song of one can sing well ; when God creates not a cloud and a pillar of fire upon our assemblies, as Isa. iv. 5, to guide, enlighten, and clear our hearts in the ways of godliness ; when few are added to the church and none to God, it is a sign God hath his elect out, and that the glory is going.

The second temple was more glorious than the former, Hag. ii. 9, yet the former was outwardly more glorious. If Christ be present, he makes the glory with less learned teaching. And it is for your sakes God assists, 1 Thes. i. 5, What manner of men for your sakes.

Thirdly, Then the Spirit is withdrawing, when wicked hearts grow weary of it even the wicked a while rejoiced in John s light and godly men are indifferent whether they enjoy it or no, this is a further sign of its departure, and an effect of the former. Amos viii. 5, men cried there, * When will the Sabbath be gone, and sermon over, that we may to our calling again, and not lose too much time ?

And what follows on this ? He upon this threateneth, ver. 9, that their sun shall go down at noon ; that glorious light God had set up amongst them, should set in the very noon, and height, when it might have run a course many years after ; an eclipse, a total one came on the sudden, even at noonday. And if the place should not be meant of the light of the word, as I think it is, yet ver. 11 expressly threateneth upon this, a famine of the word, &c. That word which before had rained down as manna, and they were weary of it and would scarce go out of doors to hear it, now they should run from sea to sea, and not find it. Or suppose they be not weary of it, as the godly are not, yet if they be not earnest with God by prayers for it, and continuance of it, when they do not strive together, as Paul exhorts them, Rom. xv. 30, but they sit still and let all go, and strive not ; and if God will provide for them, and send forth labourers, so it is ; whereas Christ tells them they must pray, Mat. ix. 38. You are bidden pray for daily bread, and it must cost you sweat besides ; and do you think to enjoy bread of heaven without praying daily for it, yea, and that sweating in prayer also ? Jesus Christ looks to be constrained to stay with a people, as with those disciples, Luke xxiv. 28, 29. Whereas otherwise he would have gone further, and certainly would. When the keys are laid aside that should unlock the cupboard, whence the children should have bread, they are like to lose their suppers. Now these keys are prayers. If Paul be given them, it must be by prayer, Philem. 22.

A fourth sign of the departure of this glory is when men begin to let error and idolatry creep in, which is an effect of the former ; for (2 Thes. ii. 10) men having no pleasure in truth, but in unrighteousness, God gave them up to lies, and they provoke the Lord to departure. Gal. ii. 5,

In case of circumcision, says Paul, I would not yield, or give way, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. As if he had said, If I had given way to a small error, it had endangered the con tinuance of the gospel with you ; how much more, when gross errors, con trary to our points of catechism, and principles of religion, are admitted in a church and suffered to be taught, and grow upon us ; but much more must this glory depart when idolatry gets footing. Then God s glory departs amain. Ezek. ix., When did the glory go from the cherub to the threshold of the door? When, chap, viii., idolatry was committed in the secret chambers, yea and in the temple, in worshipping towards the east ; then there was no room left for God, he withdrew himself to the threshold, shewing he would fain have had a room amongst them, but he was justled out, glad to stand at the threshold, one foot in, another out, for what fellow ship hath God with idols ? 2 Cor. vi. 16. God will not walk among you where idols are.

And then, Fifthly and lastly, the glory wholly departs when the cherubims do ascend or are removed, Ezek. xi. 22. When the cherubims lift up their wings, then the glory went from the city quite. Now cherubims are angels, both celestial, and these on earth, namely, ministers of the gospel. For if you would see what these cherubims were, see Ezek. i. 5, 6. They were four beasts, who had faces of a lion, a man, an ox, an eagle, and wings full of eyes. Now in the 10th chapter, verses 1, 14, and 20, these are called cherubims. Now, if you would see what these beasts are, see Rev. iv. 6, where the same living creatures are in the same manner described with the same faces, wings, and eyes; Rev. v. 11. And there they are made distinct from the twenty-four elders, that is, the saints and angels ; and therefore by them are meant the ministers and magistrates, especially ministers, whereof some are lions for zeal and courage, and terror in preaching ; others oxen, for their pains, and diligence, and constancy, and plainness ; others are men, preach more rationally to convince the gainsayers ; others eagles, that have more deep insight into heavenly mysteries, and soar high and aloft.

Now, when error is let in, and idolatry is admitted, then look for the cherubim to ascend, to be removed. And in any state, or in the mean time, when a cherub ascends up to heaven, that had the face of a man and an eagle, from a particular place, the glory of God sometimes goes with him ; as when old Eli died, the wife of Phinehas said, 1 Sam. iv. 20, The glory was gone, not only because of the ark, but also because of her father-in-law. And now let me exhort you, of this place and kingdom, seriously to con sider the state and condition of the gospel, standing amongst you, and whether many of these signs are not fulfilled before your eyes. For the present, to let the kingdom go, look homeward to yourselves. Is not the glory of this place exceedingly vanished of late years in men s opinions abroad ? Do they not suspect unsoundness in doctrine, and otherwise ? Doth God fill his ordinances as sails with the wind he had wont to do. Your hearts know best, who have had experience of former times. Remember the breathings and warnings of former times. It may be our faults, yet sure I am, we are assisted

for your sakes especially, 1 Thes. i. 5. And accordingly do our tongues cleave to the roof of our mouths. Do not your hands, which should be lift up to God for supply, even then when your losses and fears are greatest, grow slack and flag, and your hearts faint ? Do you seek God with mourning and weeping, and stir up one another to do so ? Do not error: bordering on popery creep in upon us apace, and begin to overgrow us, and our silver to become dross ? Is not one of the VOL. iv. B

258 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [SERMON II. cherubs ascended, others removed, your sun set at noon, a total eclipse threatened ?

Yet at length, brethren, bestir yourselves. Would you have the word dwell with you ? Let the word dwell in you, Col. iii. 15. Get acquaintance with it, be familiar to it, keep it company in your thoughts, converse with it, meditate in it day and night, let it lie, sleep, wake, walk, sit, ride with you. Also be valiant for truth, Hold fast the things jon have been taught, Rev. ii. 24, 25. However other opinions may be thrust upon you under pretence of depths, as there are, yet hold fast till I come ; so you may enjoy it till Christ come. Take heed of having pleasure in unrighteousness, 2 Thes. ii. 10. It will give you up to lies to be damned. Turn from folly, and return to it no more, but fear the Lord, Ps. Ixxxv. 8, 9, compared. Let them not return to folly. Salvation is nigh to them that fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.

Bless God for, and prize the meanest that bring the glad tidings of salva tion in power and faithfulness, Mat. xxiii. 39. I will go hence, says Christ, till they say, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord, and then will I return again.

You young ones, get you grace into your hearts, and the word rooted there, that when it dies in old men, there may be a succession of it in you.

Above all, be earnest with God, pray that he thrust forth labourers into his harvest. God feeds the ravens that cry to him, Job xxxviii. 41, that wander up and down, know not where to have a meal s meat next ; and as Christ argues, Doth God take care for lilies and birds, Matt. vi. 26, and are not you better than they ? Are not you children ? And is not the word children s bread ? That is, it is theirs, appointed for them, Mat. xv. 26. No prayers of children pierce their parents ear more than when * Sea monsters give their breasts to their young ones, much more God. they cry for bread, for those that are born must be kept. Lam. vi. 3, God is loath to remove from an ancient dwelling-place, as you may see by his lingering in Ezek. ix. 3. To the threshold, thence to the midst of the city, &c.

His promise is to give them pastors according to his own heart, if there be but one or two in a city, Jer. iii. 14, 15 ; and there are more in this town.

And Ps. cxxxii. 11, God swore to David, that if his children keep my covenant, &c., they should sit upon his throne, and God would make it his rest, ver. 14. It is a trouble to him to remove, and therefore at the 17th verse he says, He will ordain a lamp, that is, when one candle is out he will give another ; so 1 Kings xv. 4 it is interpreted. Now, the same promises are to you all for the sure mercies of David ; I say, are promised to be established to all that are in covenant. As one light is out, God will set up another ; as of magistrates, so of ministers, Jer. xxxiii. 17, 18. I say as Samuel, 1 Sam. xii. 22-24, For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name s sake : because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people. Moreover, as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart : for consider how great things he hath done for you. But if you shall still do wickedly, you shall be consumed, &c.

A DISCOURSE OF THE GLORY OF THE

GOSPEL,*

CHAPTER I.

The words of the text (Col. i. 26. 27) explained. Though God had before by various ways discovered the glorious mysteries of his grace, yet the revela tion of them by the gospel excels all the other.

Even the mystery which hath been hid from ayes and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints : to whom God would make knoivn what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles ; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. COL. I. 26, 27.

THE apostle, in this chapter, from the 13th verse to the end, draws a lively character of Christ and his gospel.

1. He describes Jesus Christ in all that fulness of tlie riches of his glory wherewith he is arrayed and represented in the gospel, from the 13th verse to the 23d.

2. He falls into a commendation of the gospel, which is that mystery wherein is made known the rich glory of Christ, who is the glory of this mystery. And if the story that makes Christ known be so full of riches and glory, what then is Christ himself, the subject of it ?

The apostle doth both these on set purpose (as in the 4th and 8th verses of chap. ii. he professeth), to divert and take off these Colossians mind from those vain, deceitful speculations of philosophy, and the ceremonial law, and traditions of men, gaudily and speciously set out with enticing words, * philosophy and vain deceit. He exposeth the beggarly condition of those rudiments (as he names the best of them, Gal. iv. 9) ; and to dis play the glory and riches of the mystery of Christ in all its brightness, he makes the enticing lustre of all other wisdom, which had almost spoiled that glory of Christ (Col. ii. 8), to vanish. In the words of my text, Col. i. 26, 27, the current of his praise of the gospel s glory swells highest, and runs with the deepest and strongest stream ; within the limits of which, therefore, I will confine myself (though much might be added from other Scriptures) as affording matter abundant to set forth the glory of the gospel, by all that doth commend unto us any other knowledge.

* See note, p. 226.

260 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. I.

1. You have here the rise and original of it, as withal of man s salva tion ; how, and for what ends God contrived it and revealed it, and to whom. The great God (says he) took up a mind and purpose to reveal unto his saints infinite riches of his glory in it, and by it : and to that end framed this wisdom on purpose for them, and them alone. It is made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known his riches and glory by it.

2. You have the subject of it, and common treasury of all that riches and glory discovered in it, which is Christ, God s Son. Which riches

7s the apostle by way of explanation. Now Christ s riches is Christ, sa} are unsearchable (Eph. iii. 8), and this doctrine of the gospel is the field this treasure is hid in ; and Christ being also the Lord of glory (1 Cor. ii. 8), hath filled it with a glory answerable, with riches of glory.

3. You have the gain and benefit of it. For it reveals God and Christ, and all his riches and glory ; so being received and entertained by spiritual knowledge and manifestation in the hearts of men, it makes those saints possessors thereof, by giving them a possession of Christ. And for your further security, you have them in you, by having him in you (who is the treasury of all those riches) at the present. But then, the glorious know ledge of this Christ, as he is in you, is yet a future pledge of a greater and more transcendent glory to come, greater than this gospel can reveal, or can be made known to you.

Christ is in you the hope of glory. 4. You have added hereunto all sorts of excelling properties and royal ties to commend the glory of the gospel, above all that are or can be sup posed to be in any other knowledge. (1.) If depth and profoundness sets a value, this is a mystery in every line of it. (2.) If preciousness and abundance makes any knowledge estimable, this is full of riches and glory.

(3.) If secrecy puts an esteem on any science, this hath been hid from ages and generations, but now made manifest. (4.) If it recommend any know ledge, that when the secret is revealed, yet still it be not made common to the ordinary sort of men, then the gospel is most excellent ; for though God hath revealed it, yet he retaineth and useth that art in revealing of it, that he makes known the riches and glory of it only to his saints ; others know it but in the outward letter of it.

1. I shall take a view of the rise and original of the revelation of this glorious mystery. I cast the brief story thereof into this frame.

(1.) Our allwise and infinitely blessed God, possessing in himself infi nite riches of glory, he thinks of ways to make them known, and that to some reasonable intelligent creatures, which by knowing of them might be made partakers thereof, and have their bosoms filled with all his riches ; for both to make them known, and withal to make them possessors thereof, are in the text : the one in these words, make known ; the other in those, Christ in you the hope of glory. The text says, j$0e7.9jv, he would, he had a mind and a will, a longing desire to do it, and com municate it to us, to make us blessed. That is the first thing. He would make known, &c.

(2.) The second thing to be considered is the persons, to whom. The * to his saints. His, that is, his elect, whom he hath chosen text says, to be holy, his saints, who are first his own by election, and then made saints.

[l.j They are his, singled out from all the rest to be his peculiar, his * Thine they were, (says Christ, elect. The Lord knows who are his.

CHAP. I.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

John xvii. 6), and thou gavest them to me ; and they have kept thy word. And Father (says Christ, Mat. xi. 25), I thank thee thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes ; even so it pleased thee. Yet [2.] he makes them saints, to whom he communicates himself: yea, he makes them saints by making himself known to them. Judas (not Iscariot) asked Christ, John xiv. 22, this bold question, How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world. Christ there mentions not the first part of this account here, namely, that they were his peculiarly, and not the world (which yet being alone with his Father in his prayer, he then takes occasion to mention, to move him) but he gives them this other part of the account here. Because (says he) I manifest myself to saints, which you are, and I will cause you to be. His words afore (in which Judas interrupted him) were these, at ver. 21, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. And his words in answer to Judas fully import

Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will it, ver. 23. keep my words : and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. This answer was needful for their quick ening to obedience.

(3.) The third thing I add to this head is, that God had afore the dis covery of this gospel, taken other ways to make known something of the riches of this glory by them ; but yet had all that while kept and retained this knowledge of the gospel as the last, to excel, and exceed, and to put down all the former ; which yet is but a preparation to that other discovery in the heavens, as all those former were to this.

Both these assertions are clear. The first is evident from those words, he now hath made manifest, that which was hidden from all ages, &c. And yet we know that former ages had much of the wisdom of God among them, both Jew and Gentiles.

The other assertion is evident from this, that the utmost discovery of this mystery, and of Christ now, is but the hope ; and so not the posses sion of that glory which is to come. We are led therefore to consider a little those other ways God had already taken to manifest the riches of his glory b} , as an ante-masque to this that followed.

[1.] One way by which he began to manifest his glorious back-parts (Exod. xxxiii. 23), both to angels and men, was by the first creation and the works thereof, and in the law and covenant of works. Whereof the first holds forth his eternal power and Godhead, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse, Rom. i. 19, 20. The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament sheweth his handywork, Ps. xix. 1. And the angels, that were spectators of every day s

Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? or who laid the corner-stone thereof; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ? Job xxxviii. work, were infinitely taken with it : 6, 7. They shouted for joy to see him finish every day s work. Then his wisdom also is displayed in governing so great a host, an army of several creatures, to several ends, by perpetual laws. I instance but in one, the placing of the sun in the heavens and the motion of it, so disposed

262 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. I. and ordered as it could nowhere else be placed therein without an apparent inconvenience to some parts of the habitable world. But he hath made a tabernacle for it, and set out the course thereof to visit all the earth. It goes to its tropics, and misseth not a hair s breadth. There is infinite justice also apparent in his righteous law, and withal infinite holiness in so exact a rule of righteousness, which was the Jews wisdom and glory in the sight of all nations. For the delivery of which law God come down, and made a heaven upon a dirty mole-hill, Mount Sinai, and constituted Moses a mediator, and put a glory upon his face, and then dressed up a high priest gloriously for his worship, and erected a tabernacle, and after that a temple admirably magnificent. How did the Jews boast of all these ! Eom. ii. things

[2.] But all this contented not our God, who would make known a fur ther mystery, viz., of the redemption of fallen man by Christ, which he kept hid and close in his own breast, and not a creature knew it, no, not his angels (not as we now know it in the gospel), which were his nearest courtiers and dearest favourites. It lay hid in God, Eph. iii. 9, hid even from them, ver. 10. It was a mystery which, when revealed, should amaze the world, and put the angels to school again ; as if they had known no thing in comparison of this, wherein they know over again all those glorious riches which are in God, and that more perfectly and fully than ever before. Such is the mystery of Christ revealed in the gospel, which is the last edition also that ever shall come forth in this world, and is now set out, enlarged, and perfected ; wherein that large inventory of God s glorious perfections is more fully set down, with addition.

The reasons why God did by two ways intend to manifest himself thus variously are : First ; Because he would shew forth his manifold wisdom, which is the reason given of revealing the gospel, Eph. iii. 10, that to the angels might appear the manifold wisdom of God. His wisdom is so vast and large, that he could vary, and take more ways than one to display it. And as he had two sorts of reasonable creatures to shew himself unto, so he had a, double way, a double sample, and double method.

Secondly ; God did so, because indeed that other way was of itself too obscure and too imperfect.

First, It was too obscure ; for in the gospel and works of redemption, the angels came to see all that they saw before, and that more clearly and largely. They see more power in Christ, the power of God, 1 Cor. i. 24, * declared with power thereby to be in raising himself up from death to life, the Son of God, Eom. i. 4. And they see also the exceeding greatness of his power in raising us up also, Eph. i. 19, more than they did in the creation. They likewise see a greater and clearer instance and manifesto of his justice in putting to death his own Son, taking on him to be a surety for sinners, than if a world of worlds should have been damned for ever. And in Christ his Son also they came to see a greater and far more tran scendent righteousness than ever appeared either in the law or inherent in themselves.

Secondly, That other way was but imperfect. For those attributes which God accounts his greatest riches and greatest glory, Rom. ix. 23, even his mercy and free grace, which he intends most to exalt, never saw light till now. But not only more of his attributes come thus to be discovered, but fur ther, the glorious mystery of the Trinity come thereby to be more clearly

CHAP. I.j GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

unfolded, if not the first discovery made of the three persons ; there being scarce the footsteps of them distinctly to be seen in the works of creation or in the law. But now, when the gospel comes to be revealed, and the work of salvation in it, then they were discovered to be * three witnesses in heaven, 1 John v. 7, witnesses to our salvation. And their several wit nessing conies to be known by their several seals and hand-works, set severally to our salvation, bearing the stamp and similitude of their three several subsistences ; so as by those three seals of the election of Christ and us, of our redemption and of our sanctincation, we may know there are three persons, and how they do subsist ; even as in men s seals their several arms being engraven, their houses and antiquity are known.

(4.) The fourth thing is, what new model or means it was which God singled forth to print and publish his whole and utmost counsel to us by, after all those other ; the edition of which should thus excel all the former, and alone be full and adequate, and commensurable to his whole design ; even to manifest and communicate the whole, the full of all those riches of glory in himself, but once for all, and no more, that he shall not need to superadd any other, until himself immediately communicates himself face to face. The text tells us that this excellent way of discovery is Christ com municated to us, it is Christ in us, the hope of glory. Which notes out, not only Christ to be the revealer, the prophet (as Moses styles him) who by word of mouth or way of doctrine should discover the glory of God (which the apostle fully renders to the scope I have driven at, Heb. i. 1, * God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son ). Whereas aforetimes God by degrees and by piecemeal, KoXuftsfig, uttered himself, one truth at one time, another at another, by drops ; so it was for the matter ; and cro Xurg<Mra)&, after sundry fashions and forms and shapes, such as were dreams, visions, types, &c. ; so for the manner. This God hath now (as the opposition imports) once for all, in the last days and by wholesale, uttered his whole counsel, and this uniformly after one only plain and clear manner and way, by word of mouth from his Son, spoken by his Son, as the revealer. So it follows, chap. ii. ver. 3, Which at first began to be spoken by the Lord (namely, Christ), but not only so, but that which the text here holds forth is, that Christ, as the argument, subject, matter, is the thing revealed. That alone takes up and fills up the whole of this new doctrine ; which mystery (says he) is Christ, namely, subjective. It is Christ known and communicated ; and in him all God s riches and glory.

1 . In him all the riches of God and the knowledge of him are laid up, as the treasury and subject of them ; and so discovered and communicated to us objectively in the knowledge of him. Thus, chap. ii. ver. 2, 3, the apostle further explains it. For having termed the gospel (as here) the mystery of God and of Christ, he adds, In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ; not only to be revealed by him, or subjectively known in and by himself; but (which is the proper scope of the apostle) objectively set forth, and contained in him alone, and in the knowledge of him made known to us.

2. In him shines the glory of God (2 Cor. iv. 6, The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ ), as the lively image of all his features and perfections, and evidences of his inward coun sels and affections. That therefore which I here insist upon is, that Jesus

Christ in all his glories is the great and eminent subject of the gospel, Ilev. i. 1.

264 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. I.

3. It is the gospel of God (namely, as the author of it), but it is con cerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. God had but one Son, and he made this gospel on purpose to honour him, and set him forth. It is all, and every word of it, some way or other concerning him, or about him. God made it purposely to set his Son Christ forth to us ; and in setting forth his Son, himself also. It is therefore termed (chap. ii. of this epistle, ver. 2) the mystery of God the Father, and of Christ. Christ, in that series of truths about him held forth in the whole New Testament, is the sum of this newly revealed wisdom of God, 1 Cor. i. 24. So then, God s Son, first made our Christ, and that by being made man, is thereby further made a complete body and system of a new wisdom or knowledge of the glory of God. And correspondently is that speech of the apostle, chap. ii. ver. 2, to be understood, that their hearts might be com forted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ. This was that subject which terminated the apostle s thoughts, as the horizon doth the eye ; he regarded not to look beyond it to anything else. And surely, if unto God himself his Christ is an aboundary, a sum of that wisdom manifestative, whereby he would make himself known to us, and rest contented therein, as the last and fullest till we come to glory, then he may well be so to us, and may we reckon our selves complete in him, as Col. ii. 10. How complete and lively a repre sentation Christ, as revealed in the gospel, is of the riches of the glory of God to be manifested to us, in comparison with all other, I shall shew by and by, when,

4. In the fourth place, I have added this, how real and lively a demon stration or setting forth of Christ this our gospel, the mystery here is. The story of that is this : the apostles that lived and conversed with Jesus Christ saw with their own eyes. He dwelt amongst us (says the apostle), John i. 14 : God wearing flesh and blood about him and appearing in it, was God manifest in the flesh personally, 1 Tim. iii. 16. And so they had the * And we beheld his glory privilege in his person to behold his glory.

(says he), kthe glory as of the only begotten of the Father ; so lively repre senting the glory of the Father, that if they knew him, they must needs know the Father ; John xiv. 9, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? They beheld it also in his doctrine, in his works and words, and gracious converse, full of grace in his converse, and truth in his doctrine, as it

That which we (says John) have seen with our eyes follows there.

(1 John i. 1), which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life. Yer. 2, * For Christ our life was manifested, &c. And when he was gone to heaven, the Holy Ghost came down and caused them to understand the end and intent, the use to us, the benefits and the full meaning of all he did and said. He turned and translated to them the dark mystery of his sufferings written in blood, which they understood not, his resurrection, &c., into a familiar language to be understood and learned by lost sinners, of remissions of sins ; redemption through his blood ; dying, rising for them, in their stead; and a thousand such glories redound ing to us, arid in us, that are the fruits and results, and reverberations of all he did and acted. The Holy Ghost came and took of his, even all that he had done, and unciphered and unriddled it, shewed it to them (as Christ says, John xvi. 14) ; and so glorified Christ afresh in that comment of

gospel light lie caused to shine in their hearts. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. And by them were all these things in their sermons reported ; as Peter speaks, 1 Pet. i. 12, These things which are now reported by them (said he) that have preached the gospel to you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. And whilst they thus preached him, God gave forth by their ministry the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor.

* the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of iv. 6, even

God, ver. 4.

But, alas ! as Christ himself was gone to heaven, and had taken up his glory with him ; and those that were eye-witnesses of it, and should report: the Holy Ghost therefore caused them to leave a frame and doctrine of the gospel in their writings, both the it unto us, are likewise gone off the stage story of his life and death by the evangelists, which is but Christ written in ciphers ; and in their epistles, which give that story forth in plainer letters, opening the use, and end, and intent of all. And these writings opened by the Holy Ghost, and the ministers of the gospel hold forth all pieces of it, and being set all together, make an express picture and image of Christ, and all his glories, who is the express image of the glory of God ; and is therefore called the glorious gospel of Christ, the subject of it, who is the image of God, and whose glory this holds forth. Thus (as Paul preached to the Galatians, Gal. iii. 1), before our eyes Jesus Christ hath been pictured, Tgosgap?), depictus fitit ; and that so really and lively, that he is bold to affirm, he was crucified among them, even as well as at Jerusalem. The Holy Ghost did set them down (as it were) at Jerusalem by the cross, and brought him forth crucified before the very eyes of their faith, as really and expressly as if they had seen it done with their bodily eyes. Let any other tragic story be told by the quickest and most poetic fancy, and it cannot be said that it was done or perpetrated among them to whom it was told. But the story of Christ and his truths, and all that is told, is said to be done among them, whilst it is a-telling. Yea, further, the glorious gospel, accompanied with the Spirit, is not only compared to a picturing or paint ing by colours, the most lively and artificial that can be supposed, as in that Gal. iii. 1 ; but further, it is compared to the real image of a person in a glass, in which you see his soul shines out in all the casts of his eyes, in all the postures of his demeanour, and all this in that sparkling manner, as if all the angels would limn or draw a picture, they could not come near it. This you havre in 2 Cor. iii. 18, compared with 2 Cor. iv. 4, 6. In the one he says, We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, in and by the glorious gospel. In the other he compareth the other to a glass, We all behold as in a glass, the glory of the Lord. That look, how far more lovely

the representation of a person is seen in a glass, above what in a picture ; so is Christ in this gospel. Let all the curious artists in the world conspire to paint the sun, and bring all their orient brightest colours, and let a child but come and bring a looking-glass ; and what a wan, pale thing is the one, to the glory, splendour, and reality of the other. The riches of the glory of the sun, no painting or colours can ever render ; but a looking-glass doth. And such is the revelation in the gospel made to * We therein behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord ; and believers. therefore he calls it the glorious gospel of Christ, even as in the text. If you ask how this comes to pass ? I answer, By the Spirit that accom

< Even as by the Spirit of the Lord,

panies it. So in that 2 Cor. iii. 18,

Qu. lively ? ED.

266 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. I. it is added. If the Spirit of revelation, as it is called, Eph. i. 17, accom pany not this ministry and descriptions of Christ, they are but as pictures, or as dead words used to set forth any other narration. But the gospel being the ministration of the Spirit, he hath a peculiar act to bring down the real subsistence, (as Heb. xi. 1), of the things themselves uttered about Christ, which put together make up this image of Christ, in the understanding and spirit of the soul and mind. Can Satan make a lively shadow of a person long since dead, by condensation of colours, and his light shining therein, appear to the eye ? The Spirit can do this much more of Christ, so as though you see him not in that glory as he is (1 John iii. 2), in heaven, yet the spiritual glory of Christ you see in every truth the gospel utters of him ; and have real communion with him thereby, 1 John i. 2, 3, even as by laying your eye to the least beam of light that comes in at a cranny in a dark room, you see the glory of the whole sun. And as you cannot see the sun, but by its own light, so, nor Christ, but by a light let down from himself, which the Spirit that is in his heart, and in ours, gives.

If you will ask how ? I answer, By creation. So in that 2 Cor. iv. 6. God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. The words we speak and utter of his glory are but words, and would be no more, though we were able to set them out with the tongues of angels. But if that Spirit that is in Christ s heart, and lies hid

My Spirit and my word shall not depart out of thy mouth ), if he accompanies it to our hearts, he presents the in this word (as the promise is, things, and the real images thereof to our souls in and through those words. He turns verba in res, as that philosopher when converted acknowledged. Which he doth to no other men but to his saints, to whom he would make known, &c. So then to shut up this ; suppose you had an absent friend alive, whom loving, you desire at times to behold in his converse and behaviour, and loving aspect to you ; and a picture of him did not content you, but you had a glass, into which at times the lively image came, and in which he appeared to you really in such and such deportments: such is the gospel when the Spirit accompanies it, and conveys Christ spiritually, and with the sight of faith to the soul. And this will help us to understand why he is called Christ in us ; of which hereafter. How should we prize and value such a glass as this, preserve it from ! You reject such as are false and misrepresent ; you affect pure and clear ones ; oh then, soiling, spots, or breaking, and suffer it not to be perverted keep to and preserve the gospel in its purity. You see your husband in it, and his beauty, every day.

5. How completely doth this gospel hold forth the riches of the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ, as a redeemer and crucified, 2 Cor. iv. 4, and 6, compared with 1 Cor. i. 28, 24. The word is %v crgotfworw, 2 Cor. iv. 6. John i. 18, No man hath seen God at anytime (John i. 18), the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath de clared him, sfyyqgaTo, which word (as your late critics* observe) Enarrationem notat, non tarn sermone aut prcedictione, qudm expressione et reprasentatione fact-am. It expressed him to the life, and brought God forth out of his invisibility, Christ being (Col. i. 15) The image of the invisible God. There is indeed a full and complete image of the glory of God, which shineth in his person, as he appears in heaven, whereof John, James, and * Ludovicus de Dieu.

Peter had a glimpse, which transcends infinitely all that which the gospel can, or the Spirit of the gospel doth reveal of him. And by rthis glory (John xvii., That they may be where I am, and see my glory ) we shall see and understand by converse with him in heaven more, infinitely more, of the glory of God in and by him. But this glory the gospel treats not of, but only hints ; we discern it but by collecting what glory must needs be due to that man in whom the fulness of the Godhead personally dwells. But that image of God which in Christ this gospel holds forth, is but the hopes of that other glory, and is a lower thing than that which his person wears in heaven.

And yet this discovery of God in Christ transcends whatever any way was or could otherwise have been made. The back-parts of God, which we call his attributes, his power, wisdom, truth, justice, which God calls his glory to Moses, Exod. xxxvi., and which we cannot see and live : these are infinitely more really and substantially, and to the life, set forth to us, by what we know of Christ as a redeemer in the gospel ; and do infinitely transcend whatever of them either was, or could have been expressed in millions of several worlds, filled all of them with several sorts of intel ligent creatures, such as angels and men, to never so great a variety, as the 7roXuTo/x/Ao <rop/a of God could have diversified the natures of them into.

There is a threefold image of God in Christ.

1. As he is his Son, without the consideration of his dwelling in an human nature ; and so he is unto God the Father that image of himself by whom he understands himself. And were he not equal with himself, he should not understand or behold himself by him fully and perfectly. And Christ thus is in that respect as invisible, as incomprehensible as God him self. For, so considered, he is God, and dwells in light inaccessible.

2. There is an image of the glory of God shining in his person in heaven, such as all that shall see it shall say (as they did, Mat. xvii., upon a glimpse of it) that it is proper only to the only begotten Son of God.

But, 3. There is a glorious image of all God s attributes, which shines in the person of Christ (as he conversed here), and in the works which Christ hath done for us, and in the fruits and benefits that redound thereby to us : or in the works of Christ (which are the beams whereof this sun is the body) in us, now he is in heaven, leading us into communion with him self. And they all make a complete image, and that more perfect, of the riches of God s glory: and this the gospel treats of. The first of these is the foundation of the second, the second of this third : and do each exceed the other. There is a new and complete edition of all the attributes of God, which results out of the story of what he is, hath done, and is made to us.

the power of God, and the wisdom of God. He calls him by terms of the attributes of God in abstracto. And In the 1 Cor. i. 24, Christ is termed if the question be, Ho\v we are to understand it ? Not of what Christ is essentially merely as God, or simply as the Son of God, which was the first, nor yet as in his person as God-man, he hath an infinite wisdom and power inherent in him, which was the second ; but as he is made to us by his works of mediation for us, and the like, and in respect of what his person is made to us. Which is clear by the context : for he speaks of Christ as he is crucified, and of the power of God shewn, and put forth in calling and converting our souls bythe foolishness of preaching. It pleased God, through the foolishness of preaching, to save them that be-

268 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. I. lieve, ver. 21. And so it follows, ver. 23, We preach Christ crucified, unto them which are called, the power of God.

The like is as clear to be understood of Christ s being the wisdom 01 God, which is attributed to him in respect of what he is made to us ; so, ver. 30, who is made unto us wisdom, &c. And both these, the power and wisdom of God, appeared in Christ, in what he did and suffered. And therefore Paul subjoins, chap. ii. 2, As to know nothing but Christ

as crucified. So then Christ as (of which I spake afore), so he adds, crucified, and by the like reason made flesh, and walking holily, dying, overcoming sin, wrath, Satan, hell, rising, ascending, and then converting, justifying, glorifying us. In all and each of these works performed by him he is the power of God, the wisdom of God ; and so even in these a perfect edition of all those attributes. And for the same, and by the like reason, he may be entitled the truth, the life, the love of God, as he is in other scriptures. The truth of God, because he ratified all the promises, and confirmed them true. The faithful witness, God s Amen. So he is to* the love of God, 1 John iv. 16, where God is said to be love, not in respect of what he is in * God so loved the himself, but in what he is to us in giving his Son ; world, that he gave his only begotten Son. And not only so, but he who himself was God laid down his life for us (chap. iii. 16), sinners, enemies, which all commend that love, Rom. v. And thus is the love of God made manifest to the utmost, 1 John iv. 9, that whereas none could see the infinite love of God as it is in himself; thus John in that very place, no man hath seen God at any time, ver. 18, nor can, nor could ever have come to have fathomed the infinite sweetnesses of love and kindnesses that lie at the bottom of that heart ; therefore God, to express the utmost of it, gave Christ, that in the love of Christ we might comprehend the height, the breadth, the depth of that love that yet passeth knowledge, as Eph. iii. 19. Then to instance again in power ; Adam and the angels saw God s power in the creation of the world, Rom. i. 20. But in Christ s, and his work of redemption, he came to see infinitely far greater works than these, as Christ speaks. Look upon him in the womb, and see God and man s nature united into one person, the power of the most High overshadowing his mother, Luke i. 35. Which word was sought out to shew how great and incomprehensible a power, mysteriously and secretly wrought within that vail, in the framing and then uniting that human nature to the Son of God. As great artists, as curious limners, &c., work within doors, conceal their work whilst a-doing, so the Spirit doth his power. And if the fram ing the body of man, and the union of the body and soul, is wondered at by David, as so curious a piece of workmanship, and therefore wrought, as it were, underground I am wonderfully made, says he, in the lower parts of the earth how much more wonderful was the framing of an habitation for the fulness of the Godhead to dwell in, and uniting God personally there unto ! Look again upon him on the cross, a weak and sorry man. For, as 2 Cor. xiii. 4, * he was crucified in weakness, and yet left and found in that weakness, but on purpose to make an infinite power of God appear ; his power was perfected in that weakness ; look on him as a poor man made up of flesh and blood, bearing the wrath of God and all the sins of the world. He bore that wrath that brake the back of men and angels, and crushed the strongest creatures to hell, and brake their bones without reco very. But this weak drop of flesh and blood is backed and steeled with so great and infinite a power, as he elnctates and overcomes it. Yea, and it * Qu. too ? ED.

CHAP. I.] GLOKY OF THE GOSPEL. 269 is impossible that he should be held under it, Acts ii. 24. Then see him rising and flinging open the gates of death, the grave, and hell, declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, Eom. i. 4, like another Sampson taking these gates of brass off their hinges, and carrying them on his back to the top of the hill he ascended from into heaven. Measure but the distance between the low estate of his body in the grave, and of his soul on the cross, and that superexalted estate of glory in the highest heavens ; and what compasses our * mathematic instru ments can the most enlarged understandings frame within their own thoughts to take this elevation ? So transcendent a power appears in raising up this Christ from death to glory, which the apostle doth greaten accordingly, Eph. i. 19, and makes it the highest pattern of power that God ever put

According to the working of his "mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, whom he raised from the dead (so low), and set him at his own forth, right hand in the heavenly places (so high), far above all principalities and powers, &c. View the like in holiness. The glory of God s holiness is so great, and his eyes so pure, that when he beheld the holiness of his best creatures, the angels (and in any other that had been mere creatures, if supposed greater than they, it had been all one), his critical curious eyes reckon it but folly. The angels, the inhabitants of heaven, are not clean in his sight. But here is a holiness of a man in whom God dwells, satis fies his curiosity, and though indeed it cannot profit him (as Ps. xvi. 1, Christ confesseth), yet he can find no fault with it. It cannot but fully please him, for it is the righteousness of God. See the difference of the strength, the efficacy of these two holinesses, and by that guess at the transcendent excellency and virtue of the one above the other. Sin, the least sin, is stronger than all the holiness in men or angels. For the guilt of one sin no sooner arrested an angel, but it instantly expelled all holiness out of his heart, and wiped out the memory of all his righteous works. And no sooner seized it on Adam, but it drave out of his heart, as his person out of paradise, all that stock of holiness was laid up in him for all mankind, forced it forth of his and all our hearts, being but imputed to us. And yet, lo ! the holiness of Christ is such, that when the guilt of sin of all the elect were thrown upon him, and reckoned by God and himself as his own, yet his holiness is of such a sovereignty that it preserves him from the infection thereof, overcometh sin, death, hell, the law ; and triumphing, cries out, Oh death, where is thy sting ? The sting of death is sin ; the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be unto God, who hath not only given Christ, but this Christ the victory. For the strength of his holiness is such, that though it preserved not him from being hurt by the imputa tion of our sins, but laid hold on by us, and imputed by God unto us, it expels all the virulent poison and venom of the deadliest sins out of our hearts. Yet, oh ! f what a demonstration of an infinite holiness is here ?

4. There is the greatest of justice and wrath against sin. That God should put to death his own Son for sin, when he became but a surety for it, was a clearer manifestation of his anger, and a higher piece of justice against sin, than if he had made and there sacrificed millions of worlds.

5. There is the clearest brightness of his righteousness, such as is not found shining in the law or in their hearts ; I mean of Adam or the angels. For this, at the utmost, serves but to justify themselves, and there is little enough of it too ; the weight of the least dust in their balance would cause a rejection of them as too light. And if the righteousness of them all by a * Qu. or ? ED. t Qu. Yes! oh ? ED.

270 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. I. general contribution were contracted into any one of them, it could not serve to free one sinner from one sin. Yea, only one sinful act in themselves would make a forfeiture of all the good in them, or that had come from them. But here is a righteousness of that efficacy as serves for millions of sinners ; of that breadth, as is able to cover worlds of sins and millions of worlds ; of that length, that it reacheth to eternity, an everlasting righteous ness ; and no sin in God s people can wear it out, or evacuate and lessen the virtue of it. All the divine perfections mentioned before ; and, 6. Not only all before are more gloriously and perspicuously set forth in a new edition of them, but with addition also of the discovery of some perfections in God, which no way else had come forth unto our compre hensions. Yea, those attributes which God accounts his greatest riches and highest glory, as, Eom. ix. 23, his mercy and free grace, which he de sired most of all to exalt in the manifestation of himself, never saw light till now. That great love wherewith he loved us, hidden in his heart, now brake forth, as Joseph s to his brethren. His love to Adam, and mankind in him, was but providential, founded on the law of creation, whereby he loveth the works of his hands as such ; and whilst they should love God, God would love them. But here is a love issuing from what is in his own heart as the fountain of it, and a spring, yea, a sea, to feed it, a love in Christ founded on him, and in nothing in the creature, the same where with he loves him to everlasting, peremptory, unchangeable. Mercy and free grace, which are the richest jewels in his crown, had never else appeared ; the doctrine of salvation through Christ being the stage set up on purpose whereon only it is represented, and off from which it is nowhere else seen, upon which it acts itself the greatest part and gives all the other their parts, and manageth, ordereth the whole scenes. All passages begin and end with * by grace we are saved. The saints title is, it, and tend to this, that c vessels of mercy, Rom. ix. 23. The whole plot and frame is made up of mercy, and is so called, 1 Pet. ii. 10. The doctrine itself that brings this salvation is termed grace, Titus ii. 10, 11. It begins, sets all a-work, and ends all in glory.

Use. Let us, then, both ministers and people, be exhorted to study and search into this gospel. My brethren, whatever other knowledge we may pride ourselves in, and wear out our brains about the searching into, yet this is that which is the riches of the Gentiles and saints, as this text hath it, the pearls of the world, Mat. xiii. 45, the glory of the ministry, 1 Cor. ii. 7, which God ordained for our glory, namely, apostles and ministers , the preachers of it, the clear revealing of which was the desire and longing of the patriarchs and prophets, who, though they knew the legal covenant as well as we, yet this doctrine of salvation, Christ s sufferings, God s grace, was it they inquired into, 1 Pet. i. 10-12, that is, sought to God by prayer and searched diligently, searched, using all the means of reading, medi tating to attain to the knowledge of it, and all this diligently spent, and thought it worthy of the chiefest of their pains. And all the answer they could get was this, that they delivered these things for us, it being ordained for our glory ; which Paul, therefore, that had profited so much in the knowledge of the Jews religion, Gal. i. 14, professeth, Phil. iii. 8, that he accounted all dross and dung, for this excellent knowledge of Christ. For he makes his knowledge therein his chiefest excellency, Eph. iii. 4. There is a parenthesis, wherein you would think he boasted, speaking of his own writings, whereby, * when ye read, saith he, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. The first obscure dawning made

CHAP. II.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

John the Baptist, who did but point at Christ, greater than all the pro phets that were afore him.

What do I speak of the study and glory of prophets and apostles ? It is the study of the angels, and which they think worth their greatest in tention. Look into those two places, 1 Pet. i. 10, Eph. iii. 10, Which things the angels desire to pry into. Those glorious creatures that knew God in his legal covenant and work of creation (and those in heaven saw it more glorious than this visible world) more fully than ever Adam did, that have the immediate participation of God himself, have his face to read lectures in day and night, are yet glad if they can get but a peep and glimpse of the way of saving men by Jesus Christ, as being a knowledge of a greater excellency than otherwise they have any. Yea, and so desirous are they to learn it, that they are content to go to school to the church, Eph. iii. 9, 10, that to principalities and powers might be made known by the church, the manifold wisdom of God.

But what need I speak of angels, prophets, or apostles ? It is the great study (I may so speak with reverence), the wisdom and great learning of God himself, who was the first professor of it, called so, /car Ifov. 1 Cor.

We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, and that a hidden wisdom before the world was, hid in God, Eph. iii. 9. It is God s art, and peculiar to himself, whereas of other ii. 7, speaking of the gospel, says he, knowledge men and angels have common notions infused at first creation, to attain to and pick out of themselves. But this is his wisdom, which he alone had studied, and which none knows but those to whom he reveals it.

CHAPTER II.

The excellency of the gospel proved from the profoundness of the knowledge revealed in it.

I shall now go on to discourse the excellency of the knowledge of the gospel by those properties that do lie in order in the 26th verse.

In this 26th verse, as I have told you, there are three properties ascribed to this knowledge of the gospel which God hath made known himself by.

1. Here is the depth and profoundness of it, in that it is called a mystery. 2. Here is the secrecy and hiddenness of it ; it was hidden from all ages and from generations, till the apostles time and till Christ came.

3. Here is the rareness of the revealing of it, now when it is revealed ; it is revealed, only to his saints, Even that mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints.

I shall open these three heads to you in their order.

1. First, It is called a mystery. That word importeth more eminently these two things (1.) A profoundness and a depth of knowledge.

(2.) A secret and a hidden knowledge. Now because this second is contained in the words afterward hidden from ages and generations therefore I shall only speak to the first.

(1.) The knowledge, I say, of the gospel, and the things that are known therein, they are all deep, they are profound, they are mysteries mysteries for their depth. In 1 Cor. ii., the apostle, speaking of this wisdom of the gospel, he calleth it a mytery, as he doth here, and he calleth it a mystery for its hiddenness too. So ver. 7, * We speak the wisdom of God in a

272 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. II. mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world, &c. But if you read ver. 10, you shall find that he calleth the things revealed in the gospel, the deep things of God. The Spirit (saith he)

searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God ; meaning the things contained in this mystery. And hence, therefore, it is called a great mystery, 1 Tim. iii. 16, * Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifesteth in the flesh, &c. Now when it is called a great mystery, it is not in respect of its being hidden, but in respect of the depth and profoundness of it. Things may be carried hiddenly and secretly, that have no great depth in them ; therefore now mystery imports more than merely a being hidden.

And, my brethren, in the general, how can it be otherwise, but that all the things the gospel revealeth, every one should be depths and mysteries ? For it is the wisdom of God, called so in a special manner. So in that 1 Cor. ii. 7, We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. It is therefore a mystery, because it is a wisdom of his inventing ; and therefore containeth nothing but depth in it. What saith the apostle in Bom. xi. 33 ? (It is a * Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! And of what wisdom and knowledge doth he place full to this purpose.) speak ? You must know that, of all epistles, that of the Romans is a system of divinity methodically laid down; and the apostle having in the latter chapters uttered those great and glorious things of the gospel, and fetched them all out from the very bottom of God s breast he having handled elec tion and reprobation just before, and the calling of the Jews, and how that God had shut up all under sin, that at last he might have mercy upon all when he had waded now so far into all these depths, that he felt himself as it were over head and ears, he breaks off abruptly that whole discourse, and cries out, * Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and know ledge of God ! Like one that is wading into the sea, when he is gone so far that he begins to be up to the neck, to the chin, he then cries out, * Oh the depth ! and comes back again ; so doth Paul here. It is as if he had said, * ye Romans, I have gone as far as I can, and now I am even swallowed up, I can go no farther. Oh the depth

! The things of the gospel are depths (for that is the thing I quote this place for). It is a deep knowledge, because it is that knowledge which God appropriates unto him self as his invention.

Which may easily be made out by a small degree of comparison. Solomon, in Prov. xviii. 4, saith, that the words of a wise man are as deep waters ; but yet, though the words of a wise man are as deep waters, anothei

Counsel in the wise man may fetch it out. So he tells us in Prov. xx. 5, heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. But now take kings amongst men, and of all others, if they be wise (for that is Solomon s supposition), their hearts are unsearchable ; so he saith in Prov. xxv. 3, where he compares the heart of a wise king, such as he himself was, to the heavens for height, and to the earth for deepness: The heaven for height (saith he), and the earth for depth, and the heart of a king is unsearchable. And the reason is, because that they deal with metaphysical things (as I may so call them), that is, they deal with generals, as with all states and nations about them, and what their interests are with them, and their animosities against them ; and they deal with all the factions of their own people, and they know all the provocations of them ; there are a thousand such secret things by which their actions are guided that the people know not ; they having therefore such a mighty compass in all their transactions, their subjects cannot search into their hearts. Now then, if

the heart of a king be thus unsearchable, what think you is the heart of God, who had in his eye all souls in all ages, who hath had millions of worlds in his thoughts, which he could have made, afore this world was ? In that 1 Cor. ii., when the apostle would commend the gospel, because it is the wisdom of God, what doth he do ? He sets by it the wisdom (which is the greatest wisdom in this world) of princes, and of the great ones of the world ; We speak wisdom (saith he, ver. 6), * yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought ; but we speak the wisdom of God, &c. He instanceth, you see, in the wisdom of princes, as the greatest wisdom of all the rest ; and he makes that to vanish, and to come to nought before the deep things that are in the heart of God (as he expresseth it, ver. 10), before the depth of this wisdom which God himself hath revealed. In Ps. xxxvi. 6, David makes the judgments of God to be a great deep. By the judgments of God there he means the works of his common providence, his ways of governing this world, whether in ways of mercy or of judgment, for he doth not mean merely ways of judgment strictly taken for justice ; for in the Scripture phrase, the judgments of God are as well his works of mercy, as of justice ; and the works of his common pro vidence are meant, which appeareth likewise by what followeth in the next words, He preserveth man and beast ; that is, his ways whereby he preserveth man and beast, and governs all the world, they are a great deep. But if you come to the salvation of men, he is the saviour of all men, by common providence, but especially of those that believe ; if you come to those judgments, Oh, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out ! saith the apostle in that Rom. xi. 33, when he had spoken of his ways of saving men.

The greatest wisdom that was ever set up in this world by the princes of it, is the kingdom of popery ; it is a composition of all sorts of policies, called therefore a mystery of iniquity by the apostle in 2 Thess. ii. 7, and you shall find in Rev. xvii. 5, that the whore that rideth upon the beast hath this name written in her forehead, Mystery, Babylon the great, &c.

It is a very strange thing, that God in his providence should so order it, that in the old mitres that the popes used to wear, there was engraven in the inside Mysterium ; but since they were challenged out of the Revelation to be that great antichrist and whore, they have left it out. It is a wonder ful thing to read their schoolmen and casuists in their prosecution of what concerned the frame of religion they have invented, what great depths (but depths of Satan, which he hath helped men to invent), what harmony one head hath in it answering to another, what a great deal of profoundness of learning there is in that system and fabric. Now this great mystery I may call the gospel of antichrist, it is another gospel made on purpose, and set up by Satan to advance his eldest son antichrist. And as Satan did make a gospel for his eldest son, a wisdom which the world never knew before, and which for the depths of it is called a mystery of iniquity, surely, my brethren, when God himself shall go and make a gospel for his Son Jesus

Christ, to reveal by it the riches of his glory unto the saints, what depths, think you, must needs be in this glorious gospel ? It is called the mystery of Christ, in Eph. iii. 4. And when Paul boasteth of the profoundneiss of his knowledge, he doth it of his knowledge in the mystery of Christ, Col.

Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh, 1 Tim. iii. 16. The mystery of Christ s incarnation for the reconciling of the world (to instance but in that) was such a mystery, as all created understandings VOL. iv. s iv. 3. And as was said before,

274 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. II. could never have brought forth. For consider but this, how things did stand between God and man, (let me but state the difference and the con troversy, as I may say, between God and man). First, God laid this for a conclusion, that he would not put up the least wrong from his creature, but he would have full satisfaction from the sinner. In the second place, it was as clear and as apparent, that no creature could satisfy him, neither the sin ner nor any for him. And yet, thirdly, God stood upon this too, he would have satisfaction from a creature, and that nature that had sinned should satisfy. Do but lay all these three things together. If God now should have gone and referred the untying of this knot to a consultation of all in telligible* natures, angels and men, that ever were or shall be, it would have wildered, plunged their thoughts unto eternity ; and after millions of years of consultation they would have returned this answer, they could think and find out no way. Therefore, saith he, Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh ; and it is without controversy so too, that is, it is such a mystery, as whoever understandeth the state of the controversy before between God and man, and this to be the answer, he must needs acknowledge, that there are depths of God in it, and that no other could have invented it. It carries its own testimony of divinity with it. Without controversy, saith he, or universally, must this be received to be a great mystery, God manifested in the flesh. That is a deep knowledge, and containeth depths in it, which contains nothing but the reconciliation of contradictions, to make things, which in appearance are seeming contradictions, meet. But so the gospel doth all along. I shall give you instances, and some scriptures for them too. Take the doctrine of God s election and free grace. That at once a creature should be loved with the greatest love of God, and yet be a child of wrath at the same time (as before conversion he is), can you solve me this ? That he should be a son, and an enemy ; the apostle hath it, Horn, xi., where he tells you (speaking of the Jews jn the root), that they are beloved for the fathers sake, and yet enemies for the gospel s sake. And in Eph. ii. 3, he hath it plainly, * We (that is, I Paul and the rest)

were by nature the children of wrath; and yet Paul was a chosen vessel, beloved of God, even from everlasting, with the highest and greatest love. So were the Ephesians he speaks this of ; and it was therefore a love borne to them afore, which was the cause of this their quickening and bringing out of that estate. That one and the same man should at the same time be blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places that you have in the * But God who is rich in mercy, for the great love where with he loved us ; namely, then, when we were thus children of wrath, as is very next words, evident by that which follows after that, even when we were yet dead in * hath he quickened us, as it is Eph. ii. 5 and yet be cursed with all the curses written in this book, and stand under them, what an amazing wonder is this ! It is plain that every man is so ; for cursed is every one that continueth not in everything that is written in sins, out of that love this book to do it. It is applicable unto all. The reconciliation is easy, the gospel makes these seeming contradictions meet : for if you take man s person as considered in Christ, he is thus loved and blessed ; but if you take his person as considered in himself, without any to stand between God and his sin and guilt, he standeth under the curse of it. So that both these are true of him, one in the one sense, and the other in the other.

So likewise, when the prophet considered in Isa. liii., that God had a * That is, intelligent, or rather, capable of intelligence. ED.

Son as old as himself (as I may so speak) and equal to himself, he breaks out, Who can declare his generation ? Here is a depth. Our Saviour Christ himself puts some of these riddles to the Pharisees.

Saith he to them, in Matt. xxii. 43, Solve me this : If David call Christ

Lord, how is he his son ? The gospel solveth this. That a virgin should conceive a son, this was a riddle to Mary her self. How shall this be ? saith she to the angel in Luke i. 34 ? The gospel revealeth this.

That this man Jesus Christ should be in heaven when he was on earth, and should be said to descend from heaven as man, and yet never was there then when he said it ;* this was a riddle that Christ posed Nicodemus with. He stood wondering at the doctrine of regeneration, that a man must be born again. What ! saith Christ, do you wonder at that ? I ll

No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in tell you a higher riddle than that : heaven, John iii. 13. And if you mark the coherence of this with the verse before, you shall see he utters this as an heavenly mystery, beyond that which he had expressed of regeneration, which he saith was but an earthly thing in comparison of this ; If, saith he, I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how will ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things ? So you have it likewise in John vi. When Christ had told them that they must eat his flesh, and drink his blood, they strove amongst themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? And many of his disciples when they heard it said, This is a hard saying, who can bear it ?

. When Jesus (saith the text) knew in himself that his dis ciples murmured at it (they were those that were not believers, though disciples), he said unto them, Doth this offend you ? Can you not under stand this ? I ll give you a harder thing: What, and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before ? And yet he was but the son of a virgin, and was (as man) never but in her womb.

These riddles the gospel, you see, unfoldeth. Now as the person of Christ affords all these mysteries and depths, so his obedience affords more. That that God thai> made the law should be subject to the law, and fulfil

He was made of a woman, and made under the law. That God, who is nothing but spirit, should have blood to redeem men by, this you have in Acts xx. 28, Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. That he, that is God blessed for ever, should be made a curse, this you have in Gal. iii. 13. That he, that is, the Holy One of Israel, should be made sin, aye, and what is more, he that cannot endure sin, for nothing is more contrary to the holiness of God than sin, and yet it himself, this you have in Gal. iv. 4, * he that knew no sin was made sin, this you have in 2 Cor. v. 21. That God should never be more angry with his Son than when he was most pleased with him, for so it was when Christ hung upon the cross, God did find a sweet-smelling savour of rest and satisfaction even then when he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? Again, that God should be free in pardoning, and yet notwithstanding receive the fullest satisfaction, even to the rigour of justice, here is a riddle to all the world, yet you have it in Bom. iii.

23, 24, Being justified freely by his grace; but how? Through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Why, if there were a price by way of redemption paid, how was it freely by grace ? Yet it is both. And that it should ever be said *Ht God is just, and the justifier of him that * That is, in his human nature. ED.

276 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. II. believeth on Jesus, so it follows, ver. 2 ; that though he doth justify out of the freest grace, yet he is in the most absolute manner just in doing of it ; thus to bring mercy and the extremity of justice to meet, what a reconciliation is this ! I ll give you another, for indeed the doctrine of the gospel is nothing else, it is made up of these. God requires satisfaction of his Son Jesus Christ in his human nature, and God must be satisfied with something that is not his own, for you can never satisfy any one with what is his own already. How can this be reconciled ? Why, my brethren, the human nature being joined to the second person, he hath that right in it that the Father and the Holy Ghost hath not, it is his own in a more pecu liar manner ; for it is one person with him, which it is not with the other two persons. No creature could have made satisfaction unto God, for whatsoever the creature had was God s own already ; but this second per son, Jesus Christ, he could say to the Father, I will give you that which is mine own, I have such a propriety in it as you have not ; and yet all things are God s. This you see is reconciled in Christ, and therefore it is put upon redeeming us with his own blood.

To come to justification. What an amazing wonder is it that a man should be ungodly at the same time that he is justified, and at the same time that he is sanctified too. The Scripture is clear for this, Rom. iv. 5. Abraham, not only at his first conversion, but a long time afterward, yea, in his whole life, looked upon himself as a person ungodly, and to be justi fied by God as ungodly, considered in himself.

So if you come to conversion, there is no man that truly turns to God, but he turns freely to him ; it is the freest act that ever man did, or else he will never be saved ; yet notwithstanding, though it hath the highest freedom in it, it is wrought in him by an almighty power, even the same power that raised up Christ from death to life. Here is the highest freedom of will, and God s everlasting purpose and power mixed together.

Come to the life of a Christian after conversion ; take it as the gospel hath revealed it, and it consisteth of nothing but seeming contradictions. The apostle, in Gal. ii. 20, reckons up together two contradictions in appear ance ; saith he, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live ; well, yet not I this is strange but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God. My brethren, for one soul to live in another, and by another one s living in him, and that should be his life, it is only the doctrine of the gospel that makes these things true. Adam knew no such thing, there was no such art and skill in his life. That likewise in Phil. ii. 13, God should work in a man all, both the will and the deed, and yet the man work freely with God, this is a seeming contradiction, and yet made good by the gospel.

I have mentioned these, and have given you Scriptures which hold them forth to you in very terms. I might mention a thousand others, and I ll give you the reason why I mention them : it is not only to confirm the point in hand, but let me tell you this, and know it for a truth, the cause of all the errors that have been in the world hath been the want of recon ciling these things together.

The Arians found great things spoken of the manhood of Christ, as of a divine man, and therefore they denied that he was God. They could not reconcile these two, how God should be man, and man should be God, that both should be joined together ; therefore, taking part with one, they exclude the other.

CHAP. II.j GL/)RY OF THE GOSPEL. 277

Our Lord and Saviour Christ is God blessed for ever ; therefore, say the papists, he did not suffer the displeasure of God in his soul. Why, say they, can God love his Son and be angry with him at the same time ? And he that is God blessed for ever, can he be made a curse in his soul ? Yes, take him as a surety. They take part with one truth of the gospel to exclude the other, whereas the gospel is a reconciliation of both these, and therein lies the depth of it.

So in point of justification. Say the papists, Can a man be justified by the righteousness of another ? Are not the saints holy in themselves ? And doth not that make them holy ? Is not the wall white with the whiteness that is in the wall ? It is the want of reconciling these seeming contradic tions that is the ground of that error. I will give you a greater contradic tion in appearance to human reason : a man is ungodly and godly, a sinner and justified at the same time. This is true, the Scripture holds it forth to be so.

As for the Socinians, they say there is no satisfaction for sin ; for if God pardon freely, how can he pardon for a satisfaction ? Whereas the Scrip ture is clear, that there may be the freest grace in it, and yet satisfaction too ; and the truth of the gospel lies in reconciling these two, and that is the depth of it ; but they take part with one truth to exclude another. Take Antinomianism, as you call it. All those glorious truths of the gospel, that a man is justified from all eternity, yea, and glorified from all eternity too, &c. ; men cleave to all these truths, whereas other truths are to be joined with them. A man, before he believeth, is unjustified, there fore he is said to be justified by faith ; and he is a child of wrath until he believe. All believers are now glorified, and sit now in heavenly places with Christ, considered in their head, Christ; yet notwithstanding, what poor miserable creatures are they here below. Take believers in their own person, they are not so ; but considered in Christ, they are thus. I am perfectly sanctified, and perfectly holy, considered in him, and I was cruci fied with him, yea, but the remainders of corruptions are still. All men would desire to be more glorified than they are here, yet they are perfectly glorified in Christ, considered in him. Here is still taking part with one truth to exclude another, whereas both must be taken in. So others object they cannot conceive that God should be angry with his elect, and chastise for sin ; for if he nothing but love me, how can that be ? It is easily answered : there is anger that proceeds from love. Though men s sins are forgiven without interruption, yet there is a binding of sins in heaven, so saith Mat. xviii. 18 expressly. Take Arminianism. What is the foundation of their error ? It is merely a want of reconciling seeming, though not real, contradictions in the gospel. As, for example, they know not how to reconcile man s free will with God s peremptory decree. Say they, If God, out of his unchangeable peremptory love to a man, work irresistibly upon his will, how can his will be free ? Why, the freest that can be for all this. For consider this, who hath more freedom of will than the human nature of Jesus Christ ? For if he had not had the height of freedom of will, we could never have been saved by him. Yet infallibly and irresistibly, and with the greatest necessity that ever could be, was his will carried on always unto good. I say, the taking part with one truth, without reconciling it to another, hath been the foun dation of many errors, and therein lies the depth of the gospel, in recon ciling all seeming contradictions whatsoever.

,f All these mysteries, I say, hath God knit up in the gospel, to shew his

278 A DISCOUESE OF THE [CHAP. II. own wisdom, and to befool the wise men of the world. So that now, con sidering all those poor and petty plots of reconciling nations and kingdoms, all the ways of accommodation, whereby the greatest difficulties are resolved between men and men, and kingdom and kingdom, wherein the wise men and the princes of the world so glory (for their wisdom lies in ways of accommodation, and reconciling things, and in them they spend their thoughts, and in them they pride and magnify themselves) I say, take all those depths of state, and the least of these depths that are in the gospel makes all the wisdom and policy of the world to vanish before it as mere folly. It confoundeth the wisdom of the wise, and brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent; so the apostle saith, 1 Cor. i. 19.

I might likewise shew you that the gospel, in the knowledge of it, is excellent in respect of the depths that are in it, so in respect of all that har mony and correspondency that there is in the gospel of one truth with another. The excellency of knowledge lies as well in the suiting of one thing with another, as in the profoundness of the things themselves. Now there was never such an invention as this, that as it is said in Ecclesiastes, God hath set one thing against another, so the harmony, the suiting of all truths one with another here, in that glorious manner, is nowhere to be found in any wisdom or art whatsoever. The philosophers found a great deal of harmony in the things of this world, for the skill and art that God hath stamped upon the creatures consisteth in the harmony that is between one thing and another.

Now the observations would be infinite that might be made of this kind. How our sinfulness and Christ s satisfaction and obedience answers one another : there is nothing in thy soul that thou canst object, but there is that in the gospel which will answer it particularly. And so of all other truths, it may be said they kiss each other. My brethren, it is the thread that runs through all divinity ; therefore a man must make a whole body, a system of divinity, that will do this, and when it is done, there is nothing more glorious.

Now, the gospel is not only a mystery and a depth in respect of wisdom, but let me give you another depth, and that is a depth of love, which is laid up and revealed in this doctrine and knowledge of the gospel, Eph. iii.

18, 19, That you may comprehend, with all saints, the height, and depth, and length, and breadth, of the love of God, which passeth knowledge. Sin is a great depth, which the law lays open ; therefore, saith Jeremiah, chap, xvii. 9, The heart of man is desperately wicked, who can know it ? And Solomon saith, in Eccles. vii. 25, * I thought myself wise enough, I set myself to find out and to know the wickedness of folly. But he could not find out that depth of wickedness that is in man s heart, or make an anatomy of the heart. And poor souls, when they are humbled, find it so, and the damned spirits in hell find it so ; for what is it they study, and shall do to everlasting ? Their own sinfulness and God s wrath, their parts being extended and set upon the utmost tenter-hooks, and their sins being set in order before them, they study nothing but their sins, and meditate nothing but terror ; and this is hell. But now there is a mystery of love as well as of wisdom revealed in the gospel, a depth that swalloweth up all the depths of sinfulness that is in the elect, yea, and if they were a thousand times vaster than they are. The apostle, in that place I quoted even now, Eph. iii. 18, speaks of heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths in the love of God ; he compares it to a mighty sea, which swalloweth up hills like molehills, a sea which is of that depth that the thoughts of men, though

they shall be diving to all eternity to the bottom of it, shall never come thither, a sea of that length and breadth, that though they are sailing over it to everlasting, yet they shall never come to shore. It passeth knowledge, saith he. God s heart, my brethren, is as deep in love as it is in wisdom ; yea, and his love was it that set his wisdom to work, to find out all those depths whereby to shew his love. And, therefore, it is an observable place in Rom. xi. 33, which I quoted atthe first, the depth, saith he, of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God ! You would think that the apostle there speaks only of the knowledge and wisdom of God. No ; he means mercy and love, as well as wisdom, or rather, wisdom set a-work by love. And it is clear by the context, for he had spoken in the words before of God s shewing mercy to the elect, That through your mercy, saith he, * For God hath concluded all under * they might obtain mercy ; unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all ; the depth, &c. Having spoken of love and mercy, which God intends to his elect, and the ways and contrivances that wisdom hath to shew mercy, he cries out, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! And there, in Rom. xii. 1, where he comes to make application to all, what saith he ?

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you do so and so. We have two gulfs in us, two vessels, understanding and will, and both these must be filled. Why, the gospel contains two depths in it, the one to fill your understanding, the other to fill your will and affections for ever. It contains a depth of wisdom, and it contains a depth of love ; it is a mystery of wisdom, and it is a mystery of love. And so now I have despatched the first property of the excellency of the gospel, that it is a mystery.

I shall but make a short use of it, and that is only this. These are great invitements unto men to become saints, and being so, to search in a more especial manner into the things of the gospel. You know great under standings seek after depths, as good swimmers do after great rivers, and will not go to shallows. It is said of the leviathan, that he plays in the sea. There is room enough to do so. If anything invites the under standing of man to be searching and prying, the depths of the gospel will do it. And let me add this to it, which, as it enhanceth the worth of the gospel, so it should set on our spirits after the knowledge of it, and the knowledge of it as saints, the depths of it are so great that it will always produce new knowledge ; though you know but the same things again, yet your know ledge shall be always new. Why ? Because it passeth knowledge. Go, take all other things that are the greatest riddles and secrets in the world, and when you once know them, you know them, and they become trivial when you once know them. There was a secret in nature which the world almost for three thousand years did not know I am sure the heathens did not and that was the cause of the eclipse of the sun and the moon, and they stood all wondering, as of late the West Indians did, when such a thing happened. Now, we know that the moon s coming between the sun eclipseth it, and the shadow of earth coming between the moon and the sun eclipseth it ; and this great riddle that amazed the world, we count it, now we know it, but a trivial thing ; and who almost, when the sun or moon are eclipsed, thinks of it with any admiration ? But when the depths of the gospel are unfolded to you, you may still search into them, and search further with new pleasure, and to a renewed understanding they are always new and fresh. There is no new thing under the sun, saith

260 A DISCOUKSE OF THE [CHAP. III.

Solomon in Eccles. i. And lie speaks of natural, moral knowledge. But there is nothing but new things which are above the sun, which believers know. Therefore, as the mercies of God are new every morning, so the thoughts of these mercies, they are to an holy heart precious, sweet, new every morning. And you shall find this, that as you grow up more in holiness, still the things you knew before will be new to you, the very same things, besides your enlargement in other things that you did not know before.

* When that which is perfect

So the apostle clearly saith, in 1 Cor. xiii. 10, is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I understood as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Every new degree of spiritual light swallowed up what he knew before, that he thinketh that he did not know it before, the knowledge of it, or that new light, being so pleasant to him.

Now, my brethren, to have the mind of man not only to have depths made the object of it, but the holier he grows to be carried on to further depths, to be led along thus with continual new knowledge, there is nothing more pleasant ; and yet this the gospel is, and all the depths of it. And then, when you shall have depths of love added, a sea of love breaking in upon your hearts at every thought (if the apprehension be wound up high), to fill a man s will and affection, as the other filled his understanding, this must needs fill the heart with unspeakable pleasure and joy and content ment in the view and contemplation of this great and high mystery. Now, if we had holiness enough, and love enough, and faith enough, and grew in these, this would certainly be our case. And so much now for this first property of the gospel that is here mentioned, that it is called a mystery.

CHAPTER III.

Another demonstration of the excellency of the gospel, that it is a secret mystery, a hidden and concealed wisdom.

( Which hath been hidden from ages and from generations dC. COL. I. 26.

2. I come now to the second of those properties or adjuncts that are attri buted or ascribed unto the gospel, mentioned in this 26th verse, to set forth the glory of it, and that is the secrecy and hiddenness of it. Hidden, saith he, from ages and from generations. That which is here translated hid is, in Rom. xvi. 25, silent, not spoken of; it was kept secret, at least the mystery of it. Now to him, saith ( that is of power to stablish you, according to my gospel, and the he, preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began. The apostle Paul, in all the foregoing part of the epistle, had laid open the great things of this gospel, and now at the latter end of all, in the conclusion of it, because that it is the revelation of the gospel for which we are most of all to bless God, he makes that doxology, or closeth it with this praise and thanksgiving unto God, Now, to him that is of power to stablish you, according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, to God only wise be glory, through Jesus Christ. Amen. He doth involve and interweave the mention of the glory and excellency of this gospel as that for which there is glory to be given to

CHAP. III.] GLOEY OF THE GOSPEL. 281

God in all ages and by all nations (for so the doxology runs), and this for ever.

It is said here to be hid from ages and from generations. Interpreters, some of them, do make a difference between these two, namely, ages and generations, that the one doth import all those times of eternity (if they may be called times) before the world was ; and the other all the times that have been since God made this world, since indeed time was. I shall give you the sense in which the gospel may be said to be hid in both respects.

If, in the first place, we take from ages to be all the time before the world was ; as in Acts xv. it is, Known unto God (saith he) are his works, even from everlasting ; then this gospel was hid with God, even from ever lasting. In 1 Cor. ii. 7, he saith, it is the mystery and hidden wisdom which God hath ordained before the world ; and in Rev. xiv. 6, it is called the everlasting gospel. And therefore you shall observe likewise in the place quoted even now, Rom. xvi. 25, 26, he saith, it is a mystery, which was kept secret since the world began so our translators read it ; it is the same word which is used here for ages and is now made manifest, according to the commandment of the everlasting God. Why comes in the epithet of that God which hath been from everlasting, but because the gospel hath been so too, and hath been kept secret, not only from the time since the world began, but from, everlasting also ?

You will say unto me, In what respect should the gospel be said to be hid even from everlasting, when there was no creature to know it ?

I answer, because it was that knowledge which in God s esteem, even from everlasting, he resolved he would be sparing of, and ordained to reserve to himself. The things of the gospel they were (as the apostle tells us, 1 Cor. ii. 10) the deep things of God, that lay (as I may so speak) at the bottom of his heart, the great secrets, which he esteemed such even from everlasting. And whereas for other kind of knowledge he had but a common regard, not much caring or standing upon it, when he should re veal it, and so thought with himself. As for the knowledge of other things, I can set no time for the revelation of them (that is, in respect of any peculiar account or value I have of them, though all things fall within my decree), but I will give means to mankind to know anything else presently; but this of the gospel, saith he, I will reserve. Other things in God that he meant to reveal, they lay uppermost in his thoughts, &c., they were common, he cared not how soon they were known. But these were the deep things of God ; God hath not been sparing or nice (as I may express it) of any other knowledge whatsoever, that in this world he meant to re veal to the sons of men, either the knowledge of the creature, or of his law ; but this of the gospel he locked up in his own breast, he had a peculiar cabinet for it, and it lay under a lock of his own decree not to manifest it

hid in God, even from everlasting. There is a phrase in 1 Cor. ii. 10. Speaking of this gospel (as in that chapter he doth), he saith, The Spirit searcheth till the fulness of time should come. And therefore it is said to be all things, yea, the deep things of God. It is expressed after the manner of men, and that phrase with that emphasis, Yea, the deep things of God, implies that God, as other artists, and those that are wise, when he hath anything that is rare, and which he cares not to let every one see, keeps it close. In the like manner, you have a phrase at the 9th verse of that chapter, Eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things (the things of the gospel, namely, for he speaks of the

282 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. III. gospel in that chapter) which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Prepared, when ? Why, prepared even from everlasting, for, as Austin well expresseth it, the decrees of God (saith he) they are but the prepara tions, the contrivements of all those benefits and mercies which God in tended to bestow upon us.

Secondly, It is said to be hidden also from generations, that is, from ages since the world began. So the apostle speaks, looking backward to former times. I shall give you the particulars, in respect of which it was said to be hidden from all generations past.

The gospel, as it is now revealed, was hid from all nations.

(1.) It was hid from the Gentiles, so as it was new to them ; and that is plainly one of the apostle s scopes here. He writes to Gentiles, and he would magnify the mercy of the revelation of the gospel unto them ; and therefore if you mark it, he saith, ver. 27, To whom (namely, the saints) God would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. And so likewise you have it in Eph. iii. 8, Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery (namely, to the Gentiles, that they should partake of it), which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God ; insomuch, as some interpreters would make in all these places, both that in Rom. xvi. 25, and this place in the Ephesians, and likewise this text in the Colossians, the mystery intended to be the revealing of the gospel unto the Gentiles. But it is clear that is not the meaning. The mystery that was kept hid is not only that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles, but it is the things of the gospel itself; it is the mystery of the glory of it ; it is Christ the hope of glory ; and it is, in the Ephesians, the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and more plain, in 1 Pet. i., the things concealed to former times there, are not only said to be the revelation of these things to the Gentiles, but the things them selves, the salvation itself, as you shall find if you read the 10th, llth, and 12th verses of that chapter.

(2.) It was kept hid even from the Jews also ; it is therefore indeed called a mystery ; for what is properly a mystery ? It is not the thing merely hid, wholly kept so close as that there is nothing said about it, but when there is that said about it which doth obscurely and darkly reveal it, and yet hath a further meaning, which afterwards cometh to be opened. Even

they two thus as to the words that Adam spoke concerning his wife, that should be one flesh, what saith the apostle of it, in Eph. v. 32 ? This is a great mystery, saith he. Why ? Because darkly under the union of man and wife was intended the union of Christ and his church. I speak, saith he, concerning Christ and his church. Now it is therefore called a mystery even to the Jews, because although they had the gospel, the substance of it, yet it was veiled, and the carnal Jew he understood all in the letter, and looked to nothing in the gospel ; and as you have it in 2 Cor. iii. 13, there was a veil put over Moses his face, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, namely, to what was revealed unto them under the law. But now the gospel is come, all is open (as if you should speak of a riddle, and when you have done, give the meaning of it), and then they saw that all that the prophets and Moses had written was written con cerning Christ. But I say, the Jews in the time of the law saw not this mystery intended in it. You shall find this in that place of the Romans I

CHAP. III.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

quoted even now, chap, xvi., ver. 25, 26, According to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets mark that expression

according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations. Would you know, saith he, why the gospel is called a mys tery ? God hath hid a great deal of it obscurely up and down among the prophets, and Christ hath sent out his apostles to make known and reveal what all those prophets intended, which they themselves did not know, not in the clearness of it as we do ; they had as it were the letter, we have the mystery unfolded. Therefore says the apostle Peter (1 Pet. i. 10), Of which salvation ihe prophets inquired and searched diligently, who pro phesied of the grace that should come unto you ; unto whom it was re vealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things that are now reported unto you, &c. So that indeed the mystery, and the meaning, and the end at which all those things aimed that the prophets delivered, they themselves fully knew not ; they were to write the Scrip tures, and they inquired after, and searched diligently what those things which they wrote did signify ; but it was answered them, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things that are now re ported. But now in the times of the gospel (saith he in Eom. xvi.) By the scriptures of the prophets, it is made known unto all nations. Men had only hints before, but now by opening the prophets, and laying things together, the whole business is unfolded, and this mystery is come out. And this is properly a mystery, and in this respect the gospel was a mystery, hidden even from the Jews themselves. Therefore, to give you another place, there is a little particle in Eph. iii. 5, very observable, By revela tion he made known unto me the mystery, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men. What, did they know nothing of the gospel ? Yes, saith the apostle, they might, but.it was in a mystery, it was not made known to them, saith he, as it is now revealed; mark that particle, made known as it is now, to his holy apostles and pro phets, that is, the prophets of the New Testament, upon whom the Holy Ghost fell, who opened unto them all those prophecies of the Old Testa ment, and they saw clearly nothing but Jesus Christ in them. Hid it was, you see, from the Gentiles ; hid it was also from the Jews, in respect of the revelation of it. Hid it was also, (3.) From the angels, and from Adam in innocency. The angels might know that they were to have a head, in whom God did unite them unto himself, and they might know it as the fathers of the Old Testament knew there should be a Messiah, by whom they should be redeemed ; but how, and who, and what he was, they knew not ; and in that respect they are said, in 1 Pet. i. 10, 11, to pry into these things, which place I shall not mention much, but I shall give you another place, which will compre hend both, namely, that the great things of the gospel were kept hidden from angels and from man also. And it is in 1 Cor. ii. 9, compared with Isa. Ixiv. 4 (out of which the words in the Corinthians are taken), As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him. Now in Isaiah it is thus, * Since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, nor hath the eye seen, God, besides thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. To open these words a little. When he saith there in the Corinthians, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, &c., it hath reference to what was said, ver. 7, We

284 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. III. speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained afore the world. And it hath reference also to ver. 8, where * which wisdom none of the princes of this world knew ; and he it is said, brings a proof why none of the princes, none of the corrupt men of the world ever knew it, a majore, from a far greater argument ; for, saith he, these great things which the gospel reveals for the salvation of the elect, have not only not entered into the heart of corrupt men, but they have not entered into the heart of innocent man, not into the heart of Adam himself. How do I prove that ? From that in Isa. Ixiv. 4, Since the beginning of the world, saith he, men have not heard, &c., which phrase the apostles often use, when they speak of the gospel being hidden, as in Eph. iii. 9, he saith, It hath been hid from the beginning of the world. But you will say, he excludes not angels. Why, truly, if you consult the place in Isaiah, he saith, that none hath seen, God, besides thee. Who doth he speak to ? To Jesus Christ, as a distinct person from his Father. Why ?

It is clear by this, because he changeth the phrase, None hath seen, God, besides thee, what he hath prepared ; not what thou hast prepared, but what he hath prepared; as if he had said, besides thee, God the Son, knewest what God the Father hath prepared for those that love him, none else but only Jesus Christ, which was in God s bosom, knew it. Neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man. There is but those three ways of knowing, either from the inward natural principles, which are in the heart of man ; and so a thing enters into a man s heart from the principles of reason, which are in a man s self. Why, saith he, all the principles that were sown in Adam s heart, or in any man s heart else, would not have afforded this knowledge, it would not have entered into a man s heart. And then all the way of knowledge by the eye, or observation of the creatures, could never have afforded this knowledge, or the least jot of it. No ; all the hearing by the ear, all the communica tion that God should have made to Adam, would not have laid open these things to him. And it is plain, that Isaiah speaks of the things of the gospel, not only by the quotation of his words by the apostle Paul, but from the desire of the church there, that God would bow the heavens and come down, and reveal these things to them.

* Bow the heavens, saith

and come down, touch the mountains, &c. Even as the mountains, when God gave the law, bowed down before him, so he expresseth the he, revealing of the gospel under the same terms.

Having gone over all these places, there is one place more, in which all that I have said out of the Romans, and out of the Corinthians, and out of the Colossians, and out of the Ephesians, concerning the hiddenness of this wisdom, is in a manner contained, and it is in the Old Testament, and for aught I know, in the oldest book of the Old Testament, even in Job, chap, xxviii., which I shall open to jou as clearly as I can ; the truth is, I had not thought it had lain in that place, till I found the learned Ainsworth refer to it, though but in a word. Most interpreters, I find, refer all the matter in that 28th chapter to the 12th verse of the 27th chapter, and that there Job begins his preface to all the discourse that follows. I will teach you, saith he it is translated by the hand of God ; but Piscator reads it, Of the hand of God, that is, that shall be the subject I speak of, and that which is with the Almighty will I not conceal, that which is secret and laid up with him. Where he professeth to hint to them a secret counsel and wisdom, which was in God beyond what they had spoken, a wisdom which they knew little of, and

whicn God kept secret from all living. All the discourses of Job s friends, what had they been about ? They had been about God s outward dispensa tions, how God punisheth wicked men for their sins, and they confine them selves to that discourse, to the works of God s providence, and an enumera tion of his legal proceedings in a way of justice to sinners, which was a common ordinary notion then in the world, and which suited those times under the law of nature, under which it is thought Job lived. Now in this they prided themselves in their discourse; therefore Job, to confound them, and not only to confute them, but shame them too, he professeth to hint to them another wisdom, which they did not exercise their thoughts about. Why, saith he, ver. 12, you speak nothing but what is ordinary, Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it ; why then are ye thus altogether vain ? or boast yourselves of such a knowledge as you have uttered, by which you condemn me, as if I were a wicked man ? For by it they had condemned him, because God punished wicked men according to their works ; and so Job goes on to repeat what they had said, as you will see if you compare the 13th verse to the end with the 20th chapter. But, saith he, whereas you think that this knowledge you have uttered hath such a great deal of depth in it, I will tell you, or teach you of the hand of God, that is, of God s eternal purpose, for so you shall find it (as Piscator well observeth) in Acts iv. interpreted ; They were gathered together, saith he, * to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel determined before to be done.

I will not conceal (saith Job) that which is with the Almighty; there is a higher wisdom, which he in his eternal purpose hath ordered, beyond that which you see in the works of his ordinary providence, which you neither mind nor search into. Having thus prefaced his following discourse, he doth in the 28th chapter, as both Beza and Jansonius observeth, begin to speak of this wisdom, and to commend it to them. And see how he sets it out, you shall see it will fall in and open all the scriptures I have already mentioned.

First, He compares that wisdom, which he would set their thoughts awork upon, which they neglected, and out of the rigour of their legal spirits condemned him, he compares it, I say, first, with all human wisdom, and he tells them plainly this, that there is a great deal of wisdom in the hearts of men ; and instanceth in the art that men have to find out all the precious things that are hid in the bowels of the earth ; so ver 1, He findeth out where there is a vein for silver, and a place for gold ; he taketh iron out of the earth, and he hath such skill as he can make brass out of a stone ; and if a flood break out while he is digging under the earth, he can over come that difficulty and remove it ; and he digs up stones out of the earth where bread grows. One would have thought man should have been con tented with bread. No ; but he digs up the earth, where he finds stones that are the place of sapphires, and which hath dust of gold ; and, ver. 10, says he, He is able to cut out rivers among the rocks, for he speaks of man and his wisdom, which God hath given him in all this, and his eye seeth every precious thing. Well, but when he had thus described the art of man, from the first verse to the 12th, saith he, though men have all this skill and this art, Yet where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding ? And by wisdom here he means the same that Solomon doth in the Proverbs, viz., that wisdom that shall save men, as appears in the last verse ; for Job interlaceth many discourses of Christ, speaks of him as the redeemer : I shall see him with these eyes, saith he ; and he whom he calleth the Redeemer elsewhere, in this chapter he

286 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. III. calls wisdom, which was to be the ordinary phrase of the Old Testament, and so of those times, by which they did call the Messiah. He complains in the 13th verse, that man, who had all this art and skill to find out all things else, yet he sought not after this ; Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of the living ; you may go almost all the world over and hear no man speak of it, no man values it. He speaks not of that wisdom which is in God infinitely, for that is not a thing for man to obtain, and so under that consideration to value it as Paul did, when he esteemed all as dung in comparison of it. Man knows it not, saith he, he would never have enhanced the price of it (as afterward, ver. 16, It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire ), but to raise up the hearts to seek it. He speaks just as Solomon doth in Prov. viii., when he speaks of Christ.

Secondly, As he compares it with all the knowledge that man hath, so with all the knowledge that the creatures materially can afford. Go over all the creatures, they all do not contain one jot of that wisdom : so saith the 14th verse, * The depth saith, It is not in me ; and the sea saith, It is not in me ; for they do afford to man s understanding no hint at all of any such thing, not a whit to be known of the knowledge of God in Christ is in the whole frame of nature. Whence cometh wisdom then ? (ver. 20) and where is the place of understanding ? seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of heaven. Whence comes it ? That is, Who is the author of it ? And where is it to be found ? That is, What is the subject matter of it ? The depth affordeth it not, it is not to be found there ; the creatures, though they hold forth the footsteps of God, yet they do not hold forth this wisdom. He tells us afterward, in ver. 23, that God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof, for (as the apostle saith, in Eph v.) it lies hid in God ; and Job saith, that God had kept it close, and doth keep it close from all ; and so he reckons up all things that are to be reckoned up, he reckons up the sons of men.

It is hid, saith he, from the eyes of all living, that is, of mankind, and kept close from the fowls of heaven (as you have it in your margins), as metaphorically he calleth angels ; for otherwise, why would he ascend from the eyes of all living, speaking of man, to the fowls of heaven, unless he spake of such creatures as have more understanding than man, namely, angels, for so in Scripture they are called ? And, saith he, ver. 22, Go down to destruction and death, and they will say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears ; all our forefathers that are dead, they knew not the way of it neither, though they have heard the fame of it. The devil heard it when he was cursed, he heard it with a witness, that both his ears tingled when he heard it ; and all our fathers that are dead heard the fame of it, knew there was such a thing, as Job also did, but they had not that clear revelation of it. It being hidden therefore from all these, it is God, saith he, that understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof; that God that looks to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven ; that God that makes a weight for the winds, and that weigheth the waters by measure ; that God, when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder, then did he see it, and (as your margin hath it) did number it, or resolved it in his mind ; he recounted it, he prepared it, yea, and searched it out. He saw it ; that is, he had it in his view, as the chiefest wisdom of all else, greater than whatever else he was adoing in making the world. And he numbered it ; that is, he accounted it as the choicest of all knowledge else.

And he prepared it, as a further thing than the wisdom he stamped upon the creature, and he did as it were by study search it out. You find these phrases fall in with what the apostles themselves use of it.

If you ask me what wisdom this is that Job speaks thus of, it is (as I hinted afore) that wisdom whereby men are saved, which was the title that then in those old times they gave to the Messiah, and the fear of him, and the knowledge of him, and of God. If you look in Prov. viii. (and this book of Job was written long afore that of the Proverbs), you shall find that Solomon useth the same expressions that Job here doth, and he makes a description of Jesus Christ under the title of Wisdom, and of that way of salvation that was then but obscurely revealed, and afterward more fully manifested in the times of the gospel, even the hidden wisdom of God, as the apostle calls it. Solomon, in that 8th of the Proverbs, ver. 11, saith that the knowledge of it is better than rubies, and that all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. Job useth the same expression, ver. 18, No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. Had it been the wisdom of God himself, which God everlastingly keepeth to himself, and is not to be pried into, Job would not have put that price upon it to incite men to the search of it. ~: So likewise you shall find that Solomon makes the same complaints that Job doth, that the sons of men receive it not, value it not. And as Job saith, that * God, when he made a decree for the rain, then did he see that wisdom and prepared it, and searched it out ; so Solomon useth the same expressions also, * When he established the clouds above (it is the same expression), when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he gave to the sea his decree, &c., Prov. viii. 28 ; then saith Wisdom, I was there, and was daily his delight, &c. And that you may see how one

Scripture openeth another, you shall find in Eph. iii., where it is called a hidden wisdom, he saith, To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world was hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. Now, what saith Job, and what saith Prov. viii. ? Saith Job, When God did give a decree for the rain, when he established the clouds above, saith Solomon, then did he see this, he had this in his eye ; but he kept it close as a further wisdom than what he was a-making, and stamping upon the creatures. It was hid in God, saith the apostle, * who created all things by Jesus Christ. In the strength of Christ, God-man, did he create all things, and had then in his eye the Lord Jesus, whom he meant to propound to the creature as the head of the creation. It is a wisdom also which is not in nature, but distinct from it ; for Job saith, When he made the world, he saw this. And then he useth the very same phrases that are used of the gospel.

There are four things said of it: (1.) he saw it; (2.) recetisuit (so Piscator translates it), he numbered it with himself, recounted it ; (3.) he did prepare it ; (4.) he searched it out. Now, do but look in 1 Cor. ii.. 9, 10, where the apostle speaks of this hidden wisdom, and you have the very same

We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which God ordained before the world. The things which God hath prepared (the Septuagint useth the very same words in the Greek which the apostle doth here) and then he searcheth it out ; the Spirit, saith he, searcheth the deep things of God. And, my brethren, to add this as the conclusion, it is that wisdom by which men were then saved that Job had here in his eye. Now, what wisdom was L that men were saved by then ? It was by that obscure knowledge they had of God in Christ held forth in the promise, phrases,

288 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. III. which did cause them to cleave to him, and to fear him, and to worship him, and to depart from evil. Now, look in Prov. viii., and compare it with the last verse of this 28th of Job. Saith he there, ver. 12, speaking of wisdom, * I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, &c. ; and, ver. 20, I lead in the way of righteousness, &c. And so he goes on, and in the conclusion shews how that the knowledge of Christ, and of the gospel as it was then revealed, did work men to cleave unto God, to fear God, and to depart from evil ; that was the way whereby men were saved then. So Job tells his friends here ; you tell me, saith he, of God s dealings with me in an outward way of providence, but you mind not the wisdom of God. What is that?

The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil, is understanding. Now, in the Jewish language, the piety of those times, by which they are said to believe in God and to be religious, is still ex

the fear of the Lord. And he in the New Testament that is pressed by called a believer, in the Old is called a man that feareth God, for that was the wisdom Christ was made unto men in the Old Testament. I say, as faith is the great thing on which the language of the New Testament runs, so the fear of the Lord is the language of the Old. There is a world of * Come, ye children, and I will teach you the fear of the places for it.

Lord, Ps. xxxiv. 11. Therefore it is called the beginning of wisdom when they come thus to know God ; for it is called the fear of the Lord, because it was that by which they were to fear God and come to the Messiah, a fear which made them wise unto salvation. The same Christ, by teaching them his fear then, made them wise to salvation, which teacheth us now ; only our religion is expressed by faith, theirs by fear, because there was little gospel mixed with it ; it wrought in a legal way, in a way of bondage then, ours in a way of adoption. So that it is clear that Job speaks of that wisdom whereby men are saved, according to the notion of those times, having some hint of some further wisdom which was hid in God, which was not in angels nor in men, and which God himself in the end would reveal. And so you have, as I conceive, truly the meaning of that place in Job.

Use. Is the gospel thus a hidden wisdom, hidden from ages and from generations ? This should cause us to value and put the highest worth and esteem upon it. Amongst all other considerations that should move us to it, this is not the least. We see the greatest wits of the world, and the greatest understandings, have still been taken with antiquity, with any learning and knowledge that is ancient, especially when it is hidden too. How do men prize an old copy of a father (as they are called), which hath lain hidden in some hole in a manuscript, and is now revealed ! How doth a great scholar value such a thing

! -They think it a glory to be the publisher of such a thing. To have an old copy of the New Testament, though it doth not differ three words throughout the whole from what we commonly have, yet if it be an old copy (as lately one of the Septuagint, written thirteen hundred years ago, was sent over*), what a value is there set upon it ! If the prophecy of Enoch, which Jude quoteth (and such a thing they say is extant in Africa f), were now found out, how would it be * Doubtless the famous Alexandrian manuscript, which was sent from Constanti nople, as a present to Charles I., in 1628. Goodwin was not aware that it contains the New Testament, as well as the Septuagint version of the Old. ED. t The book, which was long believed to be extant in Africa, was at length found

valued ! If it were common here, how would it be esteemed ! Solomon, you know, wrote of herbs and plants, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that springs out of the wall ; if these books that are lost were now found, what a price would we set upon them ! my brethren, a far greater than the wisdom of Solomon is here, and far more ancient ; for here is the wisdom that was hid in God from ages and generations, even before the world was, which lay at the bottom of his heart, which are the deep things of God. Here is a whole edition (for so the gospel is) of a new testament, of a new knowledge of God, in comparison of what the fathers had. Here is the wisdom of God himself, which was kept close from the Gentiles, from all nations, four thousand years, kept hid from Adam in innocency, kept hid from angels, kept hid from all, that his own Spirit even searcheth into these deep things of God. How should this whet on our souls to be skilful in, and to study this gospel, and to know all the secrets of it ; to seek unto God for that holy and blessed Spirit who writ this word, and hath hid herein all the treasures of knowledge which are to be revealed to us. This did commend it to the primitive times. Paul still in all his epistles, as you have seen in that of the Romans, in this of the Colossians, in that of the Ephesians, in that of the Corinthians, makes it a mighty matter, that unto them this gospel was revealed that was hid before, that God had broke up a new treasury, not of notional divinity, but of the know ledge of himself, even the mystery of the Father and of Christ, as it is called in Col. ii. 1. But you will say unto me, this indeed did mightily commend it to our forefathers, that lived in the primitive times, to whom it was first made known. In regard to them it was admirable, that it should be four thousand years before it was revealed, and then made known unto them, and that they should be the first ; but for us, we are born under it, and it hath now been sixteen hundred years since it was made manifest. Therefore, what is this to commend it to us ?

I answer first, It did lie hid, however, four thousand years afore the world knew it ; and that thou shouldst have thy lot to be born in the days of the revealing of this gospel, and shouldst come to know these things which were hid to the ages before, is a favour ; for thou mightest have been born in the midst of those four thousand years.

But, secondly, so did God order it in his great wisdom, that though the law was given (I parallel it so) in Moses his time, yet there was a time (as that of Manasseh s, and of other of those kings) in which the law was in a manner lost, and the priest searching in the temple doth by chance find it. This hath been the case of the gospel since God delivered it to these times ; for this doctrine of the gospel in the greatest glory, and the riches of the secrets of it, was obscured for more than a thousand years, yea, from the very apostles time a mystery of iniquity began to work, and another gospel to be raised up that darkened the true one by degrees, till antichristianism overspread the world ; whenas all the world, and the learned men of the world, ran after the rudiments of the world, and not after Jesus Christ ; and the world was spoiled through school divinity, and through philosophy, as the apostle speaks, Col. Ji. 8. And it is not many years since that by the traveller Bruce, who brought home three copies of it in the Ethiopia lan guage. It was edited by Archbishop Laurence, and published in 1821. It is clearly proved not to be the Book of the prophet Enoch, but the production of a Jew of that name, who wrote not earlier than the middle of the second century of the Christian era. ED. VOL. IV. T

290 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. III. great and glorious breaking forth of the gospel began in the time of Luther, when God did break up another Indies. He gave the pope a world, the Spanish world, the West Indies ; he set them a-work about the first part of the wisdom spoken of in that 28th of Job, to find out a vein for the silver, and a place for the gold. And he gave another Indies of the gospel unto us of the protestant churches, and it had been happy for us to have 7 have done theirs. But, my brethren, though God began and renewed the knowledge of this gospel, yet the saints kept ours, and to improve it as the} will find digging work enough in it, even to the end of the world. You shall find in the very midst of the book of Revelation, when fourteen chapters of it were spent, that it is there said, ver. 6, * I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth. He speaks of the time of antichrist, for in the 13th chapter he describeth the beast, how he ascendeth out of the sea ; and in the 14th, he describes the saints under antichrist, and how he tyrannized over them, especially at the latter end, when the light of the glorious gospel of Christ breaks forth. And whereas they accuse the gospel of novelty ; no, it is an everlasting gospel, saith he. And God did set a-work many before us to preach this gospel ; and how did they begin to preach it ? for it went on by degrees. They fell upon images first, they bade people take heed. Fear God, and give glory to him, and worship him, that made heaven and earth ; that was the first great thing which the protestants laid open, when they first began to preach the gospel. Afterwards they began to challenge Rome with being the antichrist, that was the second angel. And then a third comes, and saith, that whosoever drinks of her waters, and of her cup, shall everlastingly be tormented ; so that men that are learned and knowing men, living in that religion, cannot be saved. And then in the 15th and 16th chapters, there come seven angels out of the temple, and they still reveal more and more. Thus doth God by degrees go on, so that within these hundred years, we in our age, ever since that great light first broke out (especially here in this kingdom), have had the light of the gospel rising still clearer and clearer, and so it will do till anti christ be destroyed, for he is to be destroyed, to be melted (so the word is) by the dawning of the Sun of righteousness, who is coming upon the world. Therefore in Isa. xi. 8 he saith, * The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the. waters cover the sea ; he hath the like expression in Hab. ii. And he speaks of the latter times, for he speaks of those times before, and upon the calling of the Jews ; and that is clear by ver. 11 of that Isa. xi., It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time, to recover the remnant of his people ; he had delivered them out of captivity once, and he shall do it again the second time, saith he. Now go take Ezekiel : he prophesieth likewise of those latter times, and he useth the same expression of the overflowing of waters by degrees, in Ezek. xlvii. Speaking of a glorious temple, that was to be set up in the latter days (that is clear by all the passages of that prophecy), he saith, he saw waters issue from under the threshold of the house, that is, of the church ; and saith he, first I was led through waters, and the waters came up to the ankles ; afterwards the waters were to the knees, and then to the loins, and at length a river that could not be passed over, for the waters were risen, waters to swim in ; and when he was returned to the brink of the river (that you may know what times he speaks of), he saith, There were very many trees on the one side, and on the other. Now compare this with Rev. xxii. There you have the same trees and the,

same waters (speaking of the latter times of the gospel too, as Ezekiel doth), whose leaves did heal the nations every month. So that he speaks of the growing of the knowledge 6f the gospel by degrees, which should be as waters that cover the sea. The like you have in Zechariah, where he prophesieth, that in the latter times there should come a day, which should be clearer towards evening. In the times before this, saith he, it shall be neither light nor dark (which I believe are our times), and it shall begin to clear up towards evening (it is in Zech. xiv. 6, 7) ; and he useth the same

shall go out from Jerusalem, &c. And Dan. xii. 4, Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. expression concerning water, ver. 8, Living waters, saith he, I speak it for this, that although the gospel was revealed to the apostles so long ago, yet God hath so ordered it, that to us now it is new again. My brethren, let me say this to you, it is a faith once given/ so Jude tells us. When the apostles had given it out of their hands, what, will God send apostles to recover this gospel again ? No ; it is a greater glory for God by degrees, and by ordinary light in the hearts of his ministers and his people, to recover this gospel (which was thus blasted by antichrist in the latter days), that it shall have the same purity in doctrine and govern ment that was in the primitive times ; I say, for God to do this by degrees and by ordinary means, it is a greater glory than to send apostles. It were an easy matter for him to pour out his Spirit upon men immediately, as he did then ; but he chooseth rather to do it by ordinary means, as he hath done, yea, and will go on to do it, and will never leave to do it, till he hath brought it to that height, when Jesus Christ shall come to possess his kingdom, the brightness of whose coming, the dawnings of it, shall consume antichristian doctrine and worship. It is a greater matter for him to work a miracle by ordinary means in a way of ordinary providence, than to shew these great miracles that he did among the Jews, and the like ; as indeed he hath in an ordinary way done as great matters for this kingdom, as ever he did in Egypt for the bringing of his people out of that l/ondage. It is, I say, an easy matter for God to go and create a new world, and the like ; but therein lies his glory, that he will restore things, and reduce them to the primitive purity, by ordinary means, and not send extraordinary persons to do it.

Antichrist brought in all his darkness by degrees, and it shall go out by degrees. The mystery of iniquity began to work in the hearts of men in the apostles times, and darkness grew more and more till midnight. So the mystery of the gospel works likewise, and these dawnings shall increase more and more till the perfect day ; and the issue of all these confusions that are now, when Jesus Christ hath done his work, will be some glorious thing. God hath given pastors and teachers (as the apostle saith), to all ages, and one age doth teach another, and they all tend to the edifying of the body of Christ, till we come unto a perfect man, unto a measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. All the light of the former ages is drawn down to this age, and in this age men suck in their very education the light of the former ages, and so are prepared for a further growth ; and so in the end, the latter age of the world will have a fulness of stature again. And the scope of all this is, though it is a mystery, yet God hath so or dered it in his providence, to endear it to us, to make it a new mystery to us, even as if he had had apostles afresh ; for it was obscured, and it hath broke out afresh after it lay hid a thousand years.

292 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. IV.

CHAPTER IV.

That the knowledge of the gospel is a most excellent wisdom., because, as a pecu liar favour, it is communicated by God only to some persons.

But now is made manifest to his saints. COL. I. 26.

Here is the rarity and scarceness of it, when it cometh to be revealed ; * but now is made manifest to his saints. And this is the subject which I shall insist upon.

In the handling of this, I shall do two things. 1. Give you an explication of the words.

2. Enlarge upon that theme, to shew from thence the excellency of the gospel.

1. For explication. If you mark it, the apostle doth not say, which is now made manifest to me, although Paul makes the manifestation of it unto him to be the means to manifest it to all the saints ; for as elsewhere he saith, it was a treasure in an earthen vessel committed unto him ; and therefore, in the 28d verse, and the last words, he saith, Whereof I Paul am made a minister ; and in the 25th verse, the first words, Whereof I am made a minister. But how is he made a minister ? For to reveal it to the saints. Therefore he doth not only say, is revealed unto me, but, * now is made manifest in the saints. The gospel, although it was at first revealed unto apostles and prophets, yet the end and intent of it was, that it should be revealed to all the saints. You have this expressly in Eph. iii. 5, comparing it with this. In the 4th

the mystery of Christ ; in the 5th verse, he verse he had called it (as here) saith, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. One would think now that the apostle here should only intend, that this gospel is revealed to the doctors and teachers of the church, to the holy apostles and prophets. No ; read the 9th verse. It is (saith he) to make all men see (that is, as these words restrain it, all the saints see) what is the fel lowship of the mystery, which hath been from the beginning of the world hid in God. It was not revealed only to apostles and prophets, * but now, saith he, is made manifest to the saints. And therefore in the 23d verse

If you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature under heaven. So that not only the holy apostles and prophets of the New Testament received it, and it was manifested unto them, but to the saints also. Therefore in the 25th of this chapter, saith he, verse of this chapter, I am made a minister of it, saith he, according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you. So that indeed it was given to the apostles, but only that they might make it manifest to the saints ; and hence therefore he saith, But now is made manifest to his saints. I shall not need to enlarge more upon this, in the way of open ing it.

2. I shall come therefore to the thing itself, viz., the rarity of this gospel, and of the mysteries of it, and shew you the excellency of it in this respect.

But is now, saith he, made manifest to his saints. He speaks as if God were dainty of this knowledge. He reveals it to

CHAP. IV.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

saints, and to saints only ; and to his saints. There is a revelation of it, which the saints only have, as I shall shew you anon, and answer objections to the contrary. In 1 Cor. i. 24 he saith, that to them that are called, both Jew and Greek, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We all say that he is the power of God only to them that are called, for he only works effectually in them : but that scripture also tells us that he is the wisdom of God only to them that are called ; they so understand the mystery of it as none else.

And then, if you mark it, he commends the knowledge of the gospel to us by this, that it is revealed to his saints ; his whom he had chosen, whom he had singled out. Certainly, if there had been any knowledge better than another, he would have reserved it for his saints. There is an em phasis in that. You know God chose a man beloved of him (for so Solomon was called), and as a testimony of his love to him, he gave him, above all things else, knowledge ; so that he abounded therein above all that were before him, or shall be after him. And Daniel, that had great mysteries opened to him, is called, a man greatly beloved. I quote these examples for this, to shew that that which is a more special excellent knowledge of < To you, saith Christ, it is all others, God would reserve it for them. given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, speaking to his dis ciples ; to you it is given, it was a gift, and a special gift. And there fore in Mat. xi. 25, we read of that great thanksgiving which Christ makes

I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. He revealed them to his saints, and those whom he had chosen. to his Father, My brethren, God reserved the gospel to reveal it first unto his Son (you shall see the order of it), so you read, in John i. 17, 18, The law came by Moses, but grace and truth, that is, the gospel, came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, that is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed him. The Lord reserved this knowledge, which was hid from ages and generations, for his Son to declare it first ; it came by him, he brought out the gospel first. And you have the like in Heb. ii. 3, Which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. You see that God prized this gospel so much, as he revealeth it first to his Son. And then, next to his Son he chose out holy apostles. Had not they been holy men, he would not have revealed it to them, to be the broachers of it, as they were: Holy apostles and prophets, saith he, Eph. iii. And then, lastly, the end of the revealing of it to all these, is that his saints may know it. It is to his saints in distinction now under the gospel from the saints in the Old Testament. The saints then were infants in knowledge, and they took up their faith much upon trust. But God under the gospel doth so reveal the gospel by his Spirit, that saints themselves see into the mystery of it, understand it, take in the comfort of it. And I take that to be the meaning of the promise of that covenant, in Heb. viii. 11, where he saith, They shall not need every man to teach his neighbour, but they shall all know me, saith the Lord, from the least to the greatest. Now then, to answer some objections that will be brought about this ; by which this truth will be the more clear.

Obj. first, You will say unto me, Is this knowledge so much commended to us, that it is reserved thus, and made manifest to his saints ? Why doth not all the world know it ? Is not the gospel preached to every crea-

294 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. IV. ture under heaven ? There is an objection lies not far off the text, for, ver, * It hath been preached to every creature under heaven.

28, he saith,

I answer, When our Saviour Christ, in that Mat. xi. 25, gave thanks to his Father, that he had hid these things from the wise and prudent of the world, and revealed them unto babes ; yet in the verses before you shall read that these things had been revealed to the wise men of the world, and * And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted up to yet hid. Bead ver. 23 : heaven, shalt be brought down to hell. Christ had preached to Capernaum more than to all the cities that were in Judea or belonging to it. It was Capernaum in Galilee of which the prophecy went, that Galilee should see a great light. It is recorded by the evangelist Matthew, upon Christ s going to Capernaum, because he made that the principal seat of all his preaching. But yet, though Capernaum were lifted up to heaven, in respect of all those glorious truths of the gospel that were preached by Jesus Christ thereunto, there were but a few babes that were therein that did receive it ; and he thanks his Father that he had concealed it from all the wise and prudent, and revealed it only unto those babes. It is true, indeed, that the gospel is preached unto every creature, and God is free* of it ; insomuch as the apostle saith, Rom. x., Have not they all heard? But then he asketh withal another question, * Have they all believed ? And therefore saith Christ in Mat. xiii. 11, To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to them it is not given, though they heard it. And therefore I may say of the gospel, as the great philosopher Aristotle spake of his writings. When he had published the lectures which he had read to his scholars unto the world, Alexander found fault with him ; for now, saith he, you have debased all your knowledge by making it common.

No, saith Aristotle, for they are edita, non edita, though they are published, yet they are not published ; for none will understand them now they are published, but only my scholars whom I have read them unto, and are privy to my scope in them. So it is true of the gospel, that though the mystery of it is made known unto every creature, yet it is editum, non editum ; though it be published, yet it is so published as only those that are taught of God understand it in the mystery of it.

Again, to answer this, that you may see the privilege of the saints herein.

Although the gospel is published unto every creature under heaven, yet it was the manifestation of it to his saints that was the motive and ground of publishing it. The world should never have known one tittle of it, had it not been for his saints in the world, unto whom he meant to convey his mind and meaning. And therefore you read in Jude, ver. 2, that it is called, the faith once delivered unto the saints. It was delivered unto them, and delivered for their sakes ; the world had never known it else. And therefore the apostles themselves, so far as they knew it, are called holy apostles ; they had not thus known it else. And when they did know it more than other men, they were but stewards, for so you know they are called in 1 Cor. iv. 1, Let every man account of us as stewards of the mysteries of God. Now, though the steward receive money for his own expenses, yet the chief of the money he receiveth is for the expense of the household. Go, take St Paul, with all his knowledge, and the most of that knowledge he did receive, it was not for his own sake chiefly, it was for the saints ; and therefore he saith, To me it is given, who am. less than the least of all the saints, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. To what end ? To make all men see * That is, liberal. ED.

what is the fellowship of the mystery, &c. Hence, therefore, you shall find in Scripture that where God had abundance of people, there the apostles were guided and instructed by the Holy Ghost to stay long. I have much people in this city, saith God unto Paul, when he came to Corinth, and therefore he continueth there a year and six months, teaching the word of God amongst them ; and when he would have gone unto one place, he was hindered, and carried unto another. Why ? Because still the preaching of the gospel went where God had his elect saints. There fore, in the words before my text, he saith, According to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you. The apostle had a great deal of knowledge, but, saith he, I am a debtor ; so he calls himself in Rom. i. 14, I am but a steward, I have received it for you. It is the saints that God principally aimeth at. Therefore, if he did give it to the apostles but for the saints, then the world, carnal men, come only to hear of it by the saints, because the saints are amongst them, unto whom God would make it known.

Obj. second. But again, you will say unto me, Do not carnal men know it as well as the saints ? Why, then, is it made their privilege ? Ans. first. I answer, first, that carnal men do know the gospel, and know much of it, and they know it to their cost. Say the Pharisees unto

Christ, Are we blind also ? Aye, saith Christ, If ye were blind, you had no sin.

Ans. second. But, secondly, the knowledge that carnal men have of the gospel is by hearsay. There is no truth of much moment, if you take the matter of truth, that is revealed first to them. You shall find, in Eph. iii. 5, that the men that God revealed it first unto were the holy apostles and prophets ; and in Peter it is said the Scripture was written by holy men. Had they not been saints, holy men, God had not revealed it unto them. Others may receive it as by tradition from hand to hand, but the men to whom God doth reveal any further light of the gospel are holy men.

But you will say unto me, Now it is given by those holy apostles and prophets, and laid up in the Scriptures, may not all men, or any man, understand it ? No ; for, as you have it in 2 Pet. i. 20, the Scripture is not of private interpretation (and he speaks especially of the gospel), that is, it is not in the power of any man s understanding to apprehend or know the meaning of the word. But, saith he, holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; and, therefore, as the Scripture was written by the Holy Ghost, so it must be the Holy Ghost that must interpret it. Take all the wise men in the world, they are not able to understand one Scripture: it is but private interpretation. The Holy Ghost, therefore, the same Spirit that guided the holy apostles and pro phets to write it, must guide the people of God to know the meaning of it; and as he first delivered it, so he must help men to understand it. But you will say yet further, Do not carnal men understand the mysteries of the gospel, and that by the Spirit of God ?

I answer, Yet still there is a mystery that all the carnal men in the world do not understand. In 1 Cor. ii. 7, We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. He doth not only say it is a mystery in itself, but he saith it is still spoken in a mystery. And what is the reason ? Because that carnal men, even when it is spoken, yea, when it is apprehended by themselves in a notional way, yet they do not know and apprehend that mystery that still is in It. You shall find that the Scripture speaketh of all the knowledge that carnal men have of the truths of the gospel as of

296 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. IV. no knowledge. In 1 Cor. viii. 1, 2, speaking to those among the Corinths that were puffed up, carnal spirits that thought they knew all things, saith

We know that we all have knowledge, so ver. 1 ; but what saith he, ver. 2 ? If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. So that now a man may have all knowledge, and yet, notwithstanding, he may know nothing as he ought to know. In Prov. ix. 10, he had spoken before of Wisdom (and by Wisdom still is meant Jesus Christ revealed, for that was the title they gave the Messiah in those times), now saith he, the knowledge of the holy is understand ing ; there is no knowledge or true understanding in the matters of the gospel, but only the knowledge of the holy. You know there is a form of godliness in the world ; so you have it in 2 Tim. iii. 5, Men shall come having a form of godliness, and deny the power of it. As there is a form of godliness that is not true godliness, so it is as certain there is a form of knowledge that is not true knowledge. I will give you a Scripture that is fully answerable to it, it is in Rom. ii. ; saith he, Thou knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed in the * hast a form of knowledge, and of the truth. Mark the expression ; as there is a form of godliness which is not true godliness, so there is a form of knowledge that is not true knowledge, that is but the law; and ver. 20, picture of it.

And therefore, my brethren, know this, that there is no man that is become a saint, but as for the truths he doth know out of the gospel, knows that of them which no carnal man in the world knows. I will give you but this instance for it. Go take any man that hath never so much knowledge both in law and gospel, and if God turn this man to him, you shall have him say, that all things he knew before are known anew by him ; he that had all knowledge before, he now professeth he had none as he ought to have had. And therefore, by the way, will you know what it is to be con verted ? It is to know over all anew, that you knew by education. It is plain by that of the apostle, in 2 Cor. v. 17, If any man be in Christ

Jesus, he is a new creature ; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. What doth he speak this of? He speaks it especially of knowledge, and that is clear by the verses before, for saith he, Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth we know him no more so ; all our knowledge of him is new, therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. What is the effect of that ?

Old things are passed away, all things are become new ; old things become new in this knowledge. But you will say unto me, How can this be? for carnal men speak the same things of the gospel that others do.

But yet let me say this unto you, although a godly man can express no more in wofds than the other doth, yet he knows that of the gospel which the other doth not ; yea he hath such a knowledge of it, as, in comparison of his, the other s is no knowledge. I shall first say this, that the notions and apprehensions that are in the heart of a saint of spiritual things, never entered into the heart of any carnal man in the world. It is the apostle s expression in 1 Cor. ii., and I will give you the reason of it. It is a received truth and acknowledged by all, that we have no knowledge in our minds, but that which we receive, and which we have by the images of things which our mind conceiveth. All knowledge which the mind hath, it is by forming of some image of a thing within itself. Now if the image which is formed up in the mind differ in one man and in another, then the knowledge differeth. As, for example, if I have seen the picture of a man,

CHAP. IV.] GLOKY OF THE GOSPEL. 297

I have an image in my mind of that man according to his picture ; but if I have seen the man himself, why, here is another manner of image formed up in my mind that have seen him, which is not formed up in the mind of any man else, which hath but seen his picture. Now all the knowledge that carnal men have of the gospel, is but by images received from the hearsay of it only ; but the knowledge which holy men have, is by the impress and image received from the thing itself made known unto them by the Holy Ghost. I remember one once said of the late Queen Elizabeth, I have seen her picture, saith he, but I have one picture of her that I will not sell for all the pictures of her in the world. And what was that ? I saw her but once, saith he, and the image of her remains still in me ; which image he could convey to no man living. Even so the image and impress, that which entereth into the heart of a spiritual man of the things of the gospel, is a different image to what is in the heart of a carnal man. And yet now, if the one should go and describe, and speak of the things of the gospel, he would express it no otherwise than the other, for there is something still that cannot be expressed. As, for example, take the sun, there is some thing in the sun that can never be pictured. And what is that ? The life, and glory, and heat of it, and yet therein lies the excellency of the sun. So there are those things in Christ, and in the gospel, which can never be pictured out by words, that unless Jesus Christ hath by his Spirit mani fested himself to a man s heart, he is never able to take it in. And there fore, now when a carnal man, and a godly man speak both of the same thing, he that is a godly man can speak no more than what the other can take in notionally ; yet he understandeth further, he hath seen that which no words can paint out or picture forth. Therefore, now, if you ask me what it is the saints know, which another man knows not ? I answer you fully, he himself cannot tell you, for it is certain, as to that impression which the Holy Ghost leaves upon the heart of a man, that man can never make the like impression on another ; he may describe it to you, but he cannot convey the same image and impression upon the heart of any man else. Therefore two men shall talk of the same things, and yet mean dif ferent things in matters spiritual. Why ? Because the gospel runs in a mys tery, revealed to his saints, and to none else.

Am. third. But further, in answer to this objection. Though carnal men do know the gospel, yet you shall still find that they will divert to other things, and not make this the main of their knowledge. You shall find (and it is a thing to be wondered at) that in the times of the gospel, when it shone most gloriously, still men that were of corrupt minds they diverted to questions about the law, and to chronologies and genealogies, and to a thousand other such things. So you find it in Tit % iii. 9, and 1 Tim. vi. 4, and 1 Tim. i. 7 ; and this, I say, they did when the gospel did shine most gloriously about them. Men will run out into criticisms, and the duties of the law, and knowledge of sin, and a thousand such things ; they will tithe mint and cummin, but the great things of the gospel they neglect. Our Saviour Christ, therefore, doth tell it as a wonder in his answer to John the Baptist, the lame are healed, the blind restored to sight, and the poor receive the gospel ; for men s spirits to be taken by the gospel, he makes it a mighty thing. You shall find, if you compare Mat. xi. 12 with Luke xvi. 16, that when the gospel began to be preached, all those good souls that were holy and godly were infinitely fired with it. Saith he in Luke xvi. 1C, The law and the prophets were until John, but since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth

298 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. IV. unto it, that is, the saints did. Now compare it with Mat. xi., and he tells us there, that from the days of John, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. That is, the gospel did so mightily fire the spirits of men, of those that were holy and godly, that they did climb up, for so the word signifies ; it is the same word that is used in Exodus, forbidding the people to climb up to the mount when the law was given. Now, saith he, since the gospel is preached, they climb up to it with all violence so he expresseth it, both in respect of multitudes that press to it, and in respect of the fire in their spirits.

Again, though carnal men do take in the gospel, and many of the truths of it, yet they are apt to mingle it, and embase it, and practically in their own hearts to turn it to another gospel, as the expression of the apostle Paul is, Gal. i ; when their notions and speculative judgments are orthodox about it, they will build their faith and their hope as well upon what is in themselves, as upon what is in Christ. You shall therefore find in men that profess the gospel (as the Jews and the Gentiles did), those of the cir cumcision and uncircumcision, that as those that are after the flesh savour the things of the flesh, and those that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit (as the apostle elsewhere speaks), so those that have legal spirits and are still carnal, they savour the things of the law. Therefore in Gal. iii. 7th, 9th, and 10th verses compared, you shall find that the apostle gives a different title in respect of their cleaving to the gospel. Saith he, ver. 7, * They which are of faith, that is his phrase; and so, ver. 9, They which are of faith. He names them as if they were a sect, a different kind and strain of men. He means those which follow the gospel, and their hearts closed with it ; for, saith he, ver. 2, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith ? that is, by the hearing of the gospel. And hence he denominateth a company of men, they which are of faith, saith he, ver. 7 ; and oppositely he describeth another gang of men, ver. 10, As many as are of the law, that is, that are of that strain; let them know never so much of the gospel, yet still (as the apostle saith, Rom. ix. 32) they will seek righteousness, as it were, by the works of the law. They will turn the gospel into law, and turn faith and all duties else into a form, and make it as a law ; that as the Jews of old, that had the gospel given them in types and sacrifices, turned all that gospel into mere law, as merely commanded as duties of works, not viewing Christ in them, so will carnal men do with the things of the gospel, and will do it to the end of the world. They desire (as he saith, Gal. iv. 21) to be under the law ; they will run that way still, and nothing but the grace of God can draw them off.

It is a great matter, my brethren, what truths they are that a man s heart closeth with and pitcheth upon, and maketh the eminent and top of his religion. Mark what I say, it is the greatest thing in the world, and doth as much distinguish carnal men and spiritual men as anything whatsoever.

I shall give you but an instance or two. In Mark xii. 31, there comes a scribe unto Christ, and he doth express the height of his religion, and Christ acknowledged that he went very far, and he expresseth it with a great deal of difference from the common gang of men in the world.

* Master, saith he,

thou hast said the truth (for he asked Christ which was the first commandment of all); for, saith he, there is but one God, and there is no other but he ; and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love a man s neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burntofferings and sacri-

CHAP. IV. j GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 299 fices. Here is a man now that, being under the law, doth pitch upon the most inward spiritualness of it; whereas the common ordinary Pharisees put all their religion in fasting twice a week, in paying tithes, in offering sacri fices when they sinned, and all this they did in a formal way. Why, saith this scribe, they are all deceived in this. The main of religion lies not in this ; but, Master, I say as thou dost, the main of religion lies in loving God with all a man s soul ; and although it is true a man must offer sacri fices, yet here lies that which I pursue after. What saith Christ upon it ? He doth not give such a testimony of all the Pharisees or of that sort of men, the scribes, as he doth of this man. When Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he saith unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven. It is pity now ; he pitched upon the most spiritual part of the law, to the height of it, but wanted the gospel ; yet Christ told him that he was not far from the kingdom of heaven. I quote it for this, that this man he was so far enlightened, that he knew where to put the height of the legal religion, and he put it right ; to love God, saith he, is more than all sacrifices. Now as this man doth pitch upon that which is the most spiritual part of the law to put religion in it, so the saints are taught to do hi matters of the gospel. There is an outward form, as it were, of the gospel, you may easily turn it into a form. But see what Paul saith, and what the height of his gospel religion was. Phil. iii. 3, We are the cir cumcision, saith he. Who ? Which worship God in the Spirit, and re joice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. We are taken off of anything in ourselves. This is my religion, and this is the true cir cumcision ; let them pursue after the other circumcision that will, I pitch upon this. Therefore it is a great thing to see what it is that men contend for in their own spirits, as the main, and spirit, and life of religion. When the apostle Paul did come to Corinth, he tells us, that he deter mined not to know anything among them save Jesus Christ, and him crucified (so you have it in 1 Cor. ii. 2) ; and he would have spent the main of his epistle (and so likewise when he wrote this to the Colossians) in holding forth the gospel to them ; but he was put by his scope, for, he saith,. they were carnal, and they put him upon deciding of I know not how many things, about covering and uncovering, and about all the orders of the church, which they had either violated or neglected ; but, saith he, I determined to know nothing save Christ and him crucified, for here lies the height of my religion. And he complains that he was forced to spend a whole epistle (as he doth the main of that) in nothing but in resolving such cases. And therefore, my brethren, the saints still close most with Christ and the pure gospel, make that the height, the top of their re ligion ; and though they may be put upon other things in the several times they live in, various duties that are to be done, yet there is something else in their eye which is more than burntofferings and sacrifices, namely, the knowledge of Christ and him crucified ; and to worship the Lord in the Spirit is more than all these, though religious duties are evangelical too.

Am. fourth. Again, to add an answer or two more which are in the text, Col. i. 27, and in the context, the saints only know the gospel in the riches and in the glory of it. They only know it so as to value it ; 1 Pet. ii. 7, * To you, therefore, which believe, he is precious. They only know the riches and the preciousness of it. Go bring a jewel to a child and to a jeweller ; ihey both know it, but the jeweller only is able to value it ; and BO are the saints only capable of prizing the gospel. And therefore in Mat. xiii. 25, he only is said to be the wise merchantman, that, when he

300 A DISCOUESE OF THE [CHAP. IV. hath seen the pearl, knoweth the worth and value of it, so as that he sells all for it.

Ans. fifth. In the fifth place, The saints only know it so as to have their hearts comforted by it, and by all the riches in it. You have thus much expressed in the next chapter, Col. ii. 2. He desired, he saith, to see them, and those of Laodicea, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of under standing, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ. Though others are brought to see the mystery in the let ter of it, yet none else but the saints come so to see the riches of the glory of it, as to have their hearts comforted thereby. And what is the reason ? Because the saints, when they know the mystery of the gospel and the riches of it, do but know what themselves are worth. All the riches which they see to be in it, they see to be their own, and if they attain to the riches of assurance of the understanding of this mystery, they attain to the assurance of the knowing of their own comforts and of their own riches ; and so (as the apostle saith) their hearts are comforted. Go take other men, though they are able to count and cast up these riches, yet they are but as learned lawyers that study other men s estates ; or as surveyors of lands that set out what other men possess, and what their titles are to them, or cash-keepers for merchants that tell over other men s moneys ; but for the heir, the possessor himself, for him to tell over all this, is all the while to study his own riches ; and so his heart is comforted according to the value that is in them. And therefore, saith the apostle here, which riches is Christ in you, it is your Christ. Therefore now a believer, the more knowledge he hath of the gospel, the more his heart is comforted. To another man all the truths of the gospel are but as flowers plucked off the stalks, they do not grow upon his heart, therefore they die and wither ; but a saint hath a root within, upon which all these are engrafted, and therefore he continually feels the fresh savour of them, there is still a fresh scent and verdure and sweet arising from them, whereby his heart is comforted.

Ans. sixth. And then, again, though other men may know the mysteries of the gospel, yet the saints only know them with the riches of assurance.

That your hearts, saith the apostle, may be comforted, being knit together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of Christ. If other men do know and understand the mysteries of the gospel, and the harmony and correspondency of one thing with another therein, it is but as the know ledge of mathematicians, as I may so express it. You shall have in the mathematics a supposition given, that if this and this be true, then all the following conclusions do harmoniously and naturally follow thereupon, and answer thereunto. As to give you an instance. There are two sorts of opinions : the one holds that the earth standeth still, and the heavens move ; and another opinion, that the earth moves about continually, but the heavens, the sun and moon, and all these stand still. Now suppose which you will of them, the one makes out their opinion in a way of har mony and correspondency as rationally as the other. So now carnal men, that want faith in the principles and foundations of Christianity, can yet say with themselves, if these principles be true, why there is a glorious correspondency of one truth with another, all truths do harmoniously kiss each other. But now a saint, he hath riches of assurance of understanding of the principles themselves ; he apprehends them by faith, and doing so,

he vieweth all the conclusions that are built thereupon with an assurance of faith, and this no carnal heart in the world doth.

Ans. seventh. Lastly, The saints do so know the mysteries of the gospel, that the things they know of it are to them the hope of glory. This also the text suggesteth, which is Christ, saith he, in you, the hope of glory. They do begin to know, and to conceive what heaven will be by that prelibation, by that taste which they have of what truths and things the gospel reveals to their faith. The savour and relish they have of communion with God and with Jesus Christ, and the things revealed in and by the gospel, doth give them a hope of that great glory which shall be revealed. And so much now for those differences that are between the knowledge of the saints, and the knowledge of carnal men, of the things of the gospel.

Use. My exhortation shall be unto all, to procure and heap up to them selves what of spiritual knowledge possibly they can in these mysteries of the gospel, for you increase your riches. The truth which by it I speak unto all, but especially unto you that are scholars, who come* hither to furnish yourselves as scribes fitted for the kingdom of heaven, to bring forth out of your treasures and store acquired here both new and old, as Christ speaks, to buy the truth, as Solomon, so as to be able to teach it to others ; you come as wholesale men to buy by the great. Therefore treasure up as much and as many precious truths as you can, and grace withal to vent by retail in the country, when you are sent abroad.

First t Inquire and learn where these treasures are to be had, even in the Scriptures. The merchant who knew the pearl was fain to buy the field, there the pearl lay. Timothy from a child had read the Scriptures, and so should you do ; they are able to make a man wise unto salvation, and make the man of God perfect. As the book of nature, when thoroughly known, makes a perfect physician for the body, so doth this book of the Scriptures make a perfect divine. Search the Scripture, says Christ, for they speak of me ; as Christ is the treasury of all knowledge, so the Scriptures of Christ. These scriptures lie scattered in all the veins of the prophets and apostles ; dig for them as for silver, take pains and travel to understand them : as Daniel s phrase is (Dan. xii.) Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. Do as merchants, who travel from place to place, so do you from scripture to scripture, comparing one with another ; and knowledge will be increased.

Secondly, Go to the markets and warehouses of those that have laid in or discovered much of this treasure ; that is, use the helps of godly men s writings and conferences, the help of saints both dead and alive. Why ? Because it is made manifest to the saints. The angels do learn of the church, and why not we ? Even Paul desires to see them at Rome, that they and he might be mutually comforted by their mutual faith ; therefore exchange and truck one with another. The knowledge of any one man is imperfect ; some have more skill in one point, some in another, and so in several ages several truths have been delivered and revealed KoXvpsgus, by fragments and pieces ; therefore use the help of all. Why ? Because it is made manifest to his saints ; and it is not made manifest in all points unto all saints, but they have it amongst them.

We know but in part, * This was preached in his younger time, when he was Fellow of Katherine Hall in Cambridge.

302 A DISCOUESE OF THE [CHAP. IV. saith the apostle, much more thou. Therefore saints should truck and exchange one with another. There is no man in the world that is as Paul was, whom the apostles themselves could add nothing unto, who yet professeth that he know but in part. The angels themselves they learn of the saints, they learn of the church, therefore do thou so too. In Eph. iv. 11-13, and so ver. 16, a place that falls fully in with this, he saith that Christ hath given to the body and he speaks of the universal church apostles and prophets, and teachers and pastors, from his time to the end of the world. For it is until all be come to keep to the unity of the faith, and to cause them to grow up to a fulness of stature in Christ ; the meaning of which to me is this, that the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every part supplieth the whole universal church, from the times of the apostles downwards to this very day ; the ministers and the saints that have been in former ages being tied unto us by bands and ligaments, have propagated the truth unto us. So as indeed it is every part of the church that helpeth forward the other ; it is the church in one age that helpeth forward the church in another, and one soweth and another reapeth. And the body (take the whole compass of it in all ages) is fitly joined together, that it may cause every age and every saint to increase according to his proportion. Therefore if God have revealed this mystery unto his saints, we must acquaint ourselves with saints, not only with saints living, but dead ; and we may have a great deal of knowledge from their writings, for it is the ordinance of God that the body in all ages fitly joined together should increase by that which every part supplieth. We have had a great deal of knowledge from the age before, and that which is coming shall have much knowledge from us ; and so one age being fitly joined to another, doth cause the body to grow to the fulness of the stature of Christ. And this is that which Christ also says, John iv. 37, one age sows and another reaps, that all may be one together.

Thirdly, Go to him above all, who hath the key of knowledge, Jesus

Christ, Rev. iii. 7. Pray to him, as you have it, 1 Pet. i. 10, They searched and inquired ; i.

they studied and prayed. Use both, as the apostles were to spend the time in both, Acts vi. It is a mystery which God only makes known, and you know how to deal with him ; James i.

4, 5, If any lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, whose special promise in the New Testament is to teach all that are his to know him. As you cannot see the sun without the light of itself, so not the riches of the glory of Christ without his Spirit, who is called the Spirit of wisdom and revela tion, who only knows these deep things of God, 1 Cor. ii. 11, as the mysteries of the gospel are, that lie at the bottom of his breast. The well is deep, we have nothing to draw with.

But you will say, God hath revealed himself in the Scriptures, and it is but reading them, and I have wit enough to understand them.

I answer, it was the Spirit that wrote that word, which is not therefore (says .Peter) of any private interpretation ; that is, no man s or men s pri vate understandings, without the assistance of that public secretary of heaven, can understand them : optimum mentis sues quisqiie est interpret, he only hid the treasures of knowledge in that field, and he only knows where they lie ; what an advantage is it then by prayer to unlock God s breast, to obtain the key of knowledge that unlocks God s study, and can direct to all his notes and his papers

Fourthly, Look to it that thou art a saint, to whom God will make

CHAP. Y.J GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 803 known the riches, &c., otherwise you cannot receive them ; you will count them foolishness, as has been shewed, you will take them but as upon trust, you will not be able to see the particular secrets that are revealed in the gospel. The saints are they that first find out and do preserve the truths of the gospel in the world. It is certain, if there were none but carnal professors in the world, this gospel would soon be lost, 1 Tim. iii. 9. The mystery of the faith is preserved in a good conscience, and without a good conscience it leaks out. And, 2 Tim. ii. 13, 14, If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful : he cannot deny himself. Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. It was once delivered unto the saints, and it is the saints that preserve it, and shall do to the end of the world. In Isa. xxxv. you have a prophecy of the kingdom of Christ and of the times of the gospel (as you shall find it to be by reading that chapter), and he says that there shall be a highway, and it shall be called the way of holiness, and the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shallbea way for wayfaring men, and, though fools, yet they shall not err therein ; that is, if they be men that have a mind to go to heaven, whose hearts God doth sanctify, though otherwise they are men of low parts and mean understandings, they shall not err. Why ? Because they are holy, they are saints, and he hath made manifest this gospel of his unto his saints, whereas the unclean shall not so much as cross the way, nor pass over it.

The apostles and prophets themselves were men of holiness, or God had not revealed the gospel mysteries to them, as the first publication of it by them. It is therefore emphatically said, Eph. iii. 5, As now it is revealed unto his hoi}

7 apostles and prophets. It will, however, to be sure, help you to get the start of any other, and grace will do this. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God. 1 Cor. ii. 12. A godly man hath a renewed principle, is made a spiritual man; a natural man brings only natural parts ; a regenerate man, supposed to have as good, hath a further power of discerning given him; the spiritual man discerneth all things, 1 Cor. ii. 15. Tis his own art, and as wicked men are often wiser in their art and generation than a * child of light, the reason will stronglier hold that a child of light may easier be wiser in his ; and therefore Solomon says, The understanding of the holy is understanding. Trust not the judg ments of unclean men, though ministers, in the matters of grace. This is a godly man s art, not a wicked man s, though never so learned ; and a man will trust an artist in his own trade rather than another. The under standing of the holy is understanding, says Solomon, Prov. ix. 10, espe cially in the ways of holiness.

CHAPTER V.

Thq excellency of the gospel consists in the riches of spiritual knowledge manifested in it.

To whom (viz., his saints} God would make known what is the riches of the <c. COL. I. 27. glory of this mystery, Though others know liie things of the gospel, yet those to whom God intends the intimate knowledge of it are the saints. All God s care and

804 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. V. contrivance is, that his saints may know it ; and that he may so reveal it that all his saints shall know it, he hath taken a sure course for that ; and as for others, he leaves them to the darkness and blindness of their own minds.

To whom God would make known, &c. The greatest controversy now on foot is this, who they are that are the supreme judge now upon earth of all the mysteries of the gospel.

1. The Socinians, they would have human reason to be the judge ; that God should have so writ the Scripture, that it should be made known to all men s understandings, that have but human reason in them, and that God would make known to human reason, instead of making known to his saints, what is his meaning in all the things delivered in the gospel. Now I con fess, that what they say hath the greatest reason in the world in it, if God had intended that the gospel should be made known, in the spiritualness of it, unto all mankind. But they do not consider, both that it is a mystery, and that God would have it so made known only to his saints. Indeed, if God had meant to satisfy all mankind, then the Scripture and all these mysteries would have been so delivered, as reason should have subdued them, and been able to have been master of them, and taken them in. But the care God took in writing the Scripture, was to have his saints satisfied, and they to take in the mysteries of it. These, I say, would bring all the Scripture to the bar of human reason, and would have the Holy Ghost s meaning, in all the places of Scripture, concluded within the circle of a syllogism, and believe no more than the power of reason can convince them of. Reason indeed subserveth, for this is a certain truth, that there is nothing that a saint by faith apprehendeth, but when he apprehends it, he sees the greatest reason, from the harmony of one truth with another fall * in with it, that may be. One scripture doth suit so with another, and one theological truth so with another, that there is nothing more agreeable to spiritual reason, than what in the mysteries of the gospel are held forth.

But, my brethren, reason will never alone work out these mysteries. There are two principles in the heart of man (and you would wonder they should be the greatest enemies, either of them, that can be), the one is natural con science, and the other is human reason. They were the two principles that were set up in Adam, and therefore they would be the predominant prin ciples still. Now God hath set faith over them both. He will have faith subdue conscience ; my meaning is this, conscience shall subserve faith, it shall serve to give directions to a believer how he shall walk ; so the law doth, and so conscience doth ; but if you will make that the eminent prin ciple, a man will fall into a legal temper, and all his comfort will come from his conscience, and not from his faith. So on the other side, if you will make reason the predominant principle, when you come to judge of the matters of religion, it is a good servant indeed ; but if you will make that the supreme judge, you will understand nothing, or little, of the mysteries of salvation, for God hath appointed faith, and faith in the saints to receive them all.

2. The papists make a pope that shall determine all controversies, as our infallible and standing judge, led into all truth. And, I confess, had God meant in delivering the mysteries of the gospel to have satisfied all mankind, and to have resolved all their consciences, and all their scruples in interpreting scriptures, he would have had some such judge. He would have had either an internal judge common to all mankind, which human reason is, or an external judge which all mankind should submit unto as to * Qu. falling ? ED.

CHAP. V.] GLOKY OF THE GOSPEL. 805 an oracle. But, my brethren, whatsoever power on earth shall be set up, the great end and scope of God in writing the Scriptures, is to make things known to his saints, and he hath taken a course, and made provision for them beyond all these. And what is that ?

(1.) He hath given to his saints his Spirit, who writ the Scripture, who knows the meaning of all the mysteries therein, and he is the supreme judge ; and to be sure he gives this Spirit unto his saints : We have not received the spirit of the world (1 Cor. ii. 12), but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God. Here is my word, here is my Spirit, saith he. Wherever God hath a saint, he doth by the ministry of the word convey his Spirit into that saint s heart, and teacheth him this mystery ; and let the world quarrel, that they have not an infallible rule to judge by ; God never meant to satisfy the world ; he meant to make this mystery known to his saints.

We have not received the spirit of the world, saith he, that is, we have not only received that principle, or that ability to judge of things which the world hath, which carnal men in the world have, and whereby worldly things are judged, which is that of human reason, &c., to beat out truths that way only, but we have received the Spirit which is of God. Here then lies the great wisdom, and love, and favour of God to his children, that he hath taken a course and made provision for them ; he hath given them his Spirit (for he can give his Spirit to whom he will), and he will certainly lead all those he means to save, into so much truth as shall save them.

(2.) As God hath given to his saints his Spirit, so he doth give to them alone an understanding on purpose to know the things of the gospel ; 1 John v. 20, We know that the Son of God is come, and he hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true. As they have the Holy Ghost as a guide, so they have an understanding created on purpose for to know him that is true ; and therefore you may observe, that still the

* that the eyes of their mind may be en

apostles in their writings pray

lightened, &c.

(3.) As he hath given them a renewed understanding, so he hath put a new creature, his own image, into the whole man. And what is the image of God, that he thus puts in the whole man ? It is a thing suited to all truths more or less. And because this image is imperfect, hence therefore it is, that there being corruption and darkness in the holiest men, they cannot relish all truths ; darkness prevailing in respect of some truths, more than the light of God s image in them ; even as it doth in respect of ignorance of some sins. But yet I say, as he hath given them his Spirit, as he hath given them a renewed understanding on purpose, a new eye, so he hath given them a new creature, his own image stamped upon their wills and affections, which savoureth and relisheth what is true, as what is agreeable unto it. God hath put into every creature a taste, and a discern ing of what shall nourish it. A man by his taste discerneth what is good and what is ill for him in a great measure, what agreeth with his stomach and with his nature, finds what inflames him, what poisoneth him, what comforts him, the whole man feels it. So is it here. God hath suited all the truths of the gospel to the regenerate part, that, as some philosophers said, all truth is interwoven in the soul of man ; so, to be sure, all truth is interwoven in the image of God in a man. And as the senses in a man are suited to objects in the world, a man s eye to colours, his ear to sounds, his stomach to meats, so nath God made the things of the gospel to suit the regenerate part, and the regenerate part to suit them. And therefore VOL. iv. u

306 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. V. in that 1 Cor. ii. 9, the things of the gospel are called things prepared for them that love him ; they are suited, suited on purpose as it were to them ; and in Philip, i. 9, the knowledge of the saints it is called sense, This I pray, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge, and in all sense, so the word is in the original, and in your margins. We translate it in all judgment, but it is a judgment which ariseth from, or at least is joined with sense, a taste, a suitableness that the soul hath to the things revealed. And so much now for the clearing of that also, To whom God would make known, &c. I come now to those two other properties that, in this 27th verse, are attributed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The one, that it is a rich mystery ; and the second, that it is a glorious mystery. To whom, saith he, God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery, &c. Riches and glory here doth not only refer to Christ himself, though mainly to him as the subject of the gospel as those next words, which is Christ in you, &c., imply as if that Jesus Christ only were the riches, and the glory that the apostle here intended ; but it refers to the mystery, to the doctrine that reveals this Christ also, which by reason of the riches that are in him, which it revealeth, is a rich mystery and glorious. It refers there fore both objectively unto Christ, and likewise to the gospel that reveals him ; because that Christ himself is so rich and glorious, therefore is the gospel which reveals this Christ rich and glorious also. And indeed, ac cording to the Hebraism, that is, that phrase that the Jews use to speak in, which the apostles do likewise often use in writing the New Testament, these two riches of glory are terms convertible, and his meaning is this, that the gospel it is either rich in respect of the glory of it, or glorious in respect of the riches of it ; so as none knows whether the riches or the glory of it be greater. I shall first of all, therefore, open to you the riches of this mystery.

Obs. The gospel itself, which revealeth the Lord Jesus Christ, and the free grace of God in him, is a most rich gospel. In 2 Cor. iv., the apostle having spoken of the gospel (as you shall find he doth all along in that chapter, from the 1st verse to the 7th), and laid open the excellency of it in the glory thereof, what saith he when he hath done ?

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the power might be of God, and not of us. I am (saith Paul) but a poor man, I am but an earthen vessel, made of the same clay mingled with sin, that other men are made of, yet God hath been pleased to betrust me with a world of treasure. What a world of treasure was lost though it was not lost, for he had preached it out, and writ it but what a world of treasure was broken when that earthen vessel was broken. And what was that treasure ? It was (as the coherence evidently carries it) the gospel. Hence is it that every believer, that believeth this gospel and the truths of it, is said to be rich in faith, James ii. 5, and in 1 Cor. i. 5, to be rich in all knowledge. The know ledge of the gospel is a rich knowledge, and the faith of the gospel is a rich faith, and the gospel itself is a treasure, saith Paul, which poor earthen vessels carry about with them. Now riches imply these three things 1. A preciousness. 2. Abundance.

3. Profitableness and gain. And the things the gospel revealeth, and the truths contained therein, and the knowledge thereof unto those that are the true owners and professors of them, and do make them theirs, are rich in all these respects.

CHAP. V.] GLOEY OF THE GOSPEL. 807

1. First, There is a preciousness in all the truths the gospel doth reveal. Not only Jesus Christ is said to be precious, as the foundation and corner stone (that you have in 1 Peter ii. 6, I will lay in Sion a chief corner-stone, elect and precious ), but the truths that are built upon Christ are all pre cious too ; so you have it in 1 Cor. iii. 10, I, saith he, as a wise masterbuilder have laid the foundation, which is Jesus Christ, the great precious stone of all the rest ; now if any man shall build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, so he calls all the truths that are built upon this foundation there is not a truth of the gospel but it is more worth than gold, more rich than precious stones ; and then he expresseth all the false hoods that men build thereupon by wood, and hay, and stubble that will be burnt up, but by gold and precious stones, he means those truths that will abide the fire. So that every truth of the gospel that is built upon Jesus

Christ, that is the superstructure of it, are all pearls and precious stones, and gold, and silver ; they have degrees of excellencies indeed, but they all have a preciousness in them. I shall not need to enlarge more about it, I will only quote one place, and so open the particulars in which the gospel is precious. Prov. iii. 14 ; speaking there of wisdom, he saith, The merchandise of it is better than the merchandises of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold ; and if there be anything better than these (and yet the world hath turned these up as the great things that should master all the rest), he prefers it before them. Precious stones, you know, are more precious than silver and gold. Why, saith he, Wisdom is more precious than rubies ; and yet because the hearts of men imagine there is something more precious than these, he addeth, All the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. This he speaks of wisdom, which is the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he speaks of it as he knew it even under the time of the law ; he valued every truth, and every part of it, above gold, and silver, and rubies, and whatever the heart of man could think precious.

Every truth of the gospel is precious in these five respects (1.) Antiquity makes things precious. Small pieces of coin that contain not much in value, if they be old, are prized ; any old medal, or old pieces of brass, or of gold, and silver coined in the time of the Roman emperors, or in the time of the Grecian, any piece that hath Alexander s image and stamp upon it, and the like, how do your antiquaries esteem it ! How more precious do they think it than a great deal of gold

! Now if antiquity commend anything to you, why, there is never a truth of the gospel but was coined in heaven, and coined from everlasting. It is the everlasting gospel, and it bears the image of God upon it.

(2.) Things far fetched are precious. She fetcheth her merchandise from afar, saith Solomon, Prov. xxxi. There is not a word of this gospel, but it came from afar, it came from heaven. Jesus Christ came himself from heaven on purpose to reveal it. Heb. xii. 25, comparing law and gospel together, says the apostle, If they escape not that refused him that spake from earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven. Who doth he mean by him that speaks from earth, and who by him that spake from heaven ? Why, Moses and * the law came by Moses, and the law came but from earth ; but the gospel, every tittle of it, came from heaven. The law comes out of a man s own heart, it was written in man s heart on earth, Christ. Moses gave the law, namely, in Adam s innocency, and there is a great deal of it written even

they do the things of the law, which are in the hearts of wicked men ; written in their hearts, saith the apostle, Rom. ii. But not a word of this

308 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. Y. truth of the gospel was written in Adam s heart ; no, it was written in God s heart, it was hid in God, it came from heaven.

(3.) Things that are dearly bought you account precious. There is not one truth of the gospel, but it cost the blood of Jesus Christ. You will easily grant, there is no grace you have but it cost Christ s blood ; why, my brethren, there is no truth you have that is a gospel truth, but it cost the blood of Christ. The law did not cost Christ s blood, for the law was written in Adam s heart, and without the supposition of his death, it was given to Adam in paradise ; but not a tittle of the gospel, not a promise of it, but depends upon the blood of Christ. In him all the promises are yea and amen, 2 Cor. i. 20, and they are therefore

exceeding precious pro mises ; so Peter calls them, 2 Pet. i. 4, for they all cost the blood of Christ. We could have had no promise if Christ had not paid the thing promised ; not a promise had been written if Jesus Christ had not died to make it so ; they had all been blanks but for his death.

(4.) Things charily and warily laid up are precious. The gospel and all the truths of it have had the richest cabinet that ever was. First, it had God s heart, it was hid in God (as I said afore), Eph. iii. 9. Then there was a copy of it transcribed into Christ s heart, and he came into this world full of grace and truth, as full of the truths of the gospel as he could hold. Then doth God transcribe it out of Christ s heart into the hearts of < Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of his elect ; 2 Cor. iii. 3, Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.

(5.) Things that perish not, but still do vindicate themselves from cor ruption, they also are precious. Why is gold and silver precious ? Because that gold if put into the fire, though it will melt, yet it will not be lost, it

faith is more precious than gold. Why ? Because it perisheth not, though it be tried in the fire. Gold in time will perish ; if you try it too often, it will come to nothing ; but faith, the more you try it, the more precious it is, there is not a dram of it lost will not be consumed. But, 1 Pet. i. 7, at any time. And the doctrine of faith, and of the gospel, is of the same nature, it will never perish, and it will still vindicate itself from corruption ; though men mingle it, as always in the bringing forth of truths certainly men mingle a great deal of dross, and of their own wisdom and artifice, but that Spirit that is in the truth itself will work out all that dross in time. Never take care* to have the truth of God clear. We may be doubtful of it in many things in our age ; it is certain the next age, or an age after, will clear it ; the truth hath a spirit in it that will still purify it. In 1 Cor. iii. 13, saith the apostle there, where he calls truth gold, and silver, and * Every man s work, saith he, namely, every minister s precious stones, work, whether he preach truth or whether he preach falsehood, whether he preacheth gold, silver, precious stones (so he calls the truths of the * it shall be made mani gospel), or whether he preach wood, hay, stubble, fest, for the day shall declare it, whether it be precious stones or no, be cause, saith he, it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man s work of what sort it is. He speaks evidently of the doctrines men preach or hold forth in the world ; still there will come a more clear daylight that shall reveal them, and there will come a fire, and if it be hay or stubble, or whatever it is that is dross, or falsehood, or error mingled with the truth, it shall be burnt up. As when you go and burn cloth of silver or of gold, * That is, Do not be over anxious, as if it depended on you. Certainly Goodwin did not mean to inculcate indifference as to the clearing of the truth. ED.

CHAP. V.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

all the cloth is burnt up, but the silver and gold remains," so it is here ; and the Holy Ghost will never leave till he hath purified his truth thoroughly. Therefore the psalmist saith, The words of the Lord are pure words (Ps. xii. 6), as silver tried in a furnace, purified seven times. You know, they that purify silver to the purpose use to put it in the fire again and again that it may be thoroughly tried. So is the truth of God ; there is scarce any truth but hath been tried over and over again, and still if any dross happen to mingle with it, then God calls it in question again. If in former times there have been scriptures alleged that have not been perti nent to prove it, that truth shall into the fire again, that what is dross may be burnt up ; the Holy Ghost is so curious, so delicate, so exact, he cannot bear that falsehood should be mingled with the truths of the gospel. is the reason, therefore, why that God doth still, age after age, call former things in question, because that there is still some dross one way or other mingled with it ; either in the stating of the opinions themselves, or else in the scriptures that are brought and alleged for them, that have passed for current, for he will never leave till he hath purified it. The doctrine of God s free grace hath been tried over, and over, and over again. Pelagius he begins and he mingles his dross with it : he saith, grace is nothing but nature in man. Well, his doctrine was purified, and a great deal of dross purged out. Then comes the semi-Pelagians, and they part stakes ; they say, nature can do nothing without grace, but they make nature to concur with grace, and to have an influence as well as grace ; and the dross of that was burnt up. The papists they take up the same quarrel, but will neither be Pelagians nor semi-Pelagians, yet still mingle dross. ^The Arminians, they come and they refine popery in that point anew ; still they mingle dross. God will have this truth tried seven times in the fire, till he hath brought it forth as pure as pure may be. And I say it is, because that truth is thus precious. And so much now for that first head, that it is a rich gospel in regard of the preciousness of the truths that are therein.

2. The second thing that is proper to riches is abundance. Now the doctrine of the gospel hath abundance of truth and knowledge in it. Take all philosophy, all the books of human wisdom and learning, if they were all distilled, if you could extract the quintessence of them all, there is not so much knowledge as one book of the New Testament contains. In this Col. ii. 3, saith this apostle there, do you stick to the knowledge of Jesus

Christ, and do not leave that, for in him are hid all the treasures of wis dom and knowledge. There is all sorts, both wisdom and knowledge, and there is all wisdom and knowledge, and there are all treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in this Christ, who is revealed to you in this gospel. It is all knowledge by way of eminency, as they use to say metaphysics are : it contains all knowledge, because it swallows up all the axioms of all other sciences. I may say of all other learning and knowledge whatsoever, they are all by way of eminency swallowed up in the truths of the gospel. As the person of Jesus Christ contains by way of eminency all the excel lencies in the creature, so the knowledge of Jesus Christ contains all the excellency of whatsoever knowledge can be had, the knowledge of governing kingdoms, the knowledge of nature, or the things of nature, or the know ledge of the law, or of whatever else. Our Saviour Christ, as he was full of grace, so he was full of truth ; John i. 14, We saw his glory, as the glory of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth. He came so rich into this world, he had such abundance of treasures, that he brought forth continually some truths or other. He was full of grace to

310 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. V. fill the will and affection, and full of truth to fill the understanding and judgment ; and those truths did comprehensively take in all sorts of truths that ever were uttered, in a transcendent manner. Solomon he had a heart as large for knowledge in natural things, as the sea is full of sands ; he had as many notions in his head as there be sands upon the sea-shore. This Solomon, Jesus Christ that came from heaven, he had his heart larger than the sea, as large as heaven itself, he was full of truth. Saith David, who knew but the law (I mean the law in distinction from the gospel, as we know it, and as it is now revealed), yet saith he in Ps. cxix., I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy law is exceeding broad ; he saw such a vastness in the knowledge of the law as he stood aghast at it ; as if a man should stand in the midst of the sea, it is so broad, so vast, he cannot see where it ends ; I can see to the end (saith he) of all perfection else, but I cannot see to the end of thy law, it is so full, so broad. And therefore in 2 Cor. iii. the apostle tells us they did not see to the end of his ministry ; ay, but, my brethren, the gospel is much more endless, for what doth John say in that place quoted even now, when he said Christ was full of grace and truth, he speaks in opposition to the law, The law came by Moses, saith he, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ ; and we saw his glory, and we saw him full of grace and truth. Moses his law was but a scanty busi ness, though it was exceeding broad, and David saw an end of it ; but the knowledge of Christ, and of what is contained in the gospel, they do so abound as they are unsearchable. So the apostle saith, Eph. iii. 8, That I may preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and Paul himself, though he had abundance of revelations (as he saith in 2 Cor. xii.), yet he professeth that he knew but in part, such abundance is there in the truths of the gospel. The times of the gospel therefore, they are like the times of Solomon, in which the scripture saith, silver was as the stones in the street ; so Jesus Christ hath filled the world with the riches

The riches of the Gentiles, and the riches of the world, wherein the precious truths revealed concerning him, they are as common as the stones in the streets, and as many for number, if men had eyes to see them, and hearts, and heads, and hands to of the gospel, for so the gospel is called, dig for them, and search them out of the mines in which they lie. And so much now for the second head, viz., that the gospel is a rich gospel, in regard of the abundance of truth and knowledge contained in it.

8. Thirdly, All the truths of the gospel are likewise rich in regard of the gain and profitableness of them ; they do make those rich that are the pos sessors of them. There are in the world a great many curiosities of know ledge, which men do pride and boast themselves in ; the trial of the secrets of nature, and the experiments thereof. But usually all such knowledge doth impoverish all those that are retainers to it. But the knowledge of the gospel is clean otherwise, it possesseth them that know it by faith of all the treasure it revealeth. It is not like stories that do set forth glori ous and rich things to you, yet when stories do so they do mightily take you, but you may read such stories and be poor men still. But the gospel, as it reveals to you infinite riches, so it possesseth you of them ; therefore what doth the Holy Ghost say here ? Which riches is Christ in you, saith he, for the particle which refers to riches as well as to mys tery, and indeed to both. And therefore in Prov. iii., a place I quoted afore for the preciousness of wisdom and all the wares thereof, it is not only compared to rubies for the worth and preciousness of it, but for the gain and profitableness of it also ; Happy is the man that findeth understand-

ing, for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than of fine gold. And if the heart of man in its vast desires could think of any more precious things unknown, stretch the compass of your desires to the utmost, yet saith he, All the things thou canst desire cannot be compared to her : so ver. 15.

If you ask me, wherein lies this riches ? It lies in wisdom, says Solo mon, and that wisdom is Christ, says the text. Which riches, saith he, 1 is Christ in you. We all acknowledge that God is infinitely rich and blessed in himself, Philip, iv. 19, My God shall supply all your need, ac cording to his riches in glory by Jesus Christ; riches in glory, for God s riches lie in glory most, and he communicateth them to all believers in and by Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ s becoming yours ( Which is Christ in you, saith the text) hence you come to have a title and interest in all those riches of God that God himself possesseth. This is certain, that Jesus Christ is worth all that God is worth. He is God s only Son, and he is his heir (he is said to be the heir of all things, Heb. i. 2) ; and God will not give one penny from him, as I may so express it to you. Now this glorious gospel which we preach, if received and entertained, makes Jesus Christ yours, and all his riches. And therefore in 1 Cor. iii. 22, the apostle thus pleads the title of a Christian, Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ s, and Christ is God s. Here I say you have, as the inventory of a Christian, so the title by which all things are derived to him.

All things are yours, saith he, why God himself is worth but all things, and Jesus Christ (as I said) is worth all that God is worth ; things are yours, for ye are Christ s, and Christ is God s. And therefore, in Rom. viii. 17, we are said to be heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ ; not only heirs of God, as a son is said to be the heir of his father, that is, that he is the bequeather, but we are said to be heirs of God materially, heirs of God himself, for he is our inheritance, and we are jointheirs with Christ ; we are so put into God s will, that as men are said to be joint purchasers with another, so we are said to be joint-heirs with Christ. Joint purchasers we are not, that is Christ s prerogative alone, but when it comes to matter of inheritance, then we are joint-heirs with Christ.

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? There is not only all things that you possess, and the title, as joint-heirs with Christ, but you have it

And that which we are to possess is a free estate, Rom. viii. 32, freely ; there is no debts to pay out of it, no portions, no legacies, but you are heirs of all things, and of all things freely. And then do but consider what the revenues of Christ s blood are. Look what both Christ s personal interest in all things would convey to you: so much is a Christian worth ; and look what the purchase of Christ s blood is : so rich is a Christian also that entertains the gospel. I say two things. First t Our Saviour Christ is personally the heir of all things, and you have the same title he hath, being joint-heirs with him. Then this heir laid all that he was heir of down again to make a further purchase ; and do but think now what a purchase this must needs be, what riches it must needs arise to. In 2 Cor. viii. 9, * Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich (for he was rich, as he was the heir of all things), yet for your sakes he became poor. Why? That ye through his poverty might be rich. Jesus Christ is first rich as the heir, and ye

312 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. V. are ordained joint-heirs with him, by that title. But he that is the heir of all things becomes poor, and poor on purpose to purchase, if it be possible, more riches, or the same over and over again. As it is in Philip, i. 8, thought it no robbery to be equal with God. As in glory, so in riches, he had as great and as good an estate as God himself hath, and it was no robbery, it was no stealth. He came not by it by any such course or way, it is no unjust claim that he laid to it ; yet he emptied himself, he left him self not worth one farthing. He emptied himself, so saith the text, as in respect of glory, so in respect of riches. He became poor, and as we may express it, not worth the ground he went on, for he had not a hole to hide his head in ; women ministered unto him. Now I say, this heir of all things made over all his riches, and did it all for you ; it is said in that Prov. iii., The merchandise of wisdom is better than that of fine gold. When Wisdom, Christ himself (I do not say that is the meaning of the place, only I allude to it, and speak in the expression of it), shall put forth all the riches he hath in a way of merchandise to have it returned again, and become poor to make us rich, do but think now what riches this must needs amount unto.

Now the gospel therefore is a rich gospel, not only because it doth reveal and is the story of all these riches, but because it possesseth you of them, and is your bond for it. The gospel, I say, and all the promises of it, are the bond that you have to shew for all these riches, and in that respect it is rich. When our Lord and Saviour Christ laid down all his riches, and laid down his blood to purchase riches for us, what is it that he hath to shew for it ? He hath but the promises of the gospel, which God hath made to him, and made to us in and through him ; therefore as a man is said to be rich, though he be rich but in bonds, if they be sure bonds, so is a Christian, he is rich in promises. Compare for this Eph. iii. ver. 6 with ver. 8. At the 6th verse, saith he, That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and partakers of his promise in Christ, by the gos

That I should pel. Now what is it the gospel containeth ? Eead ver. 8 : preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Where lie all these riches ? They lie in the promises ; we are now partakers but of the promises of the gospel. They are unsearchable riches, which cannot be told over to eternity, and the promises are the conveyers of them, and in these promises do our estates lie for the present, but it is a sure estate ; and in this respect Peter calleth them exceeding great and precious pro mises, 2 Pet. i. 4. And, therefore, although you will say a Christian hath nothing, it is true, but he is rich in promises ; and our apostle answers it in that 2 Cor. vi. 10, As having nothing, yet possessing all things. Why ? Because a Christian possesseth Christ; which riches is Christ in you, saith the text here. It is all one to be rich in bonds, and rich in money told by you, and that is all the difference between your estate here and in heaven: in heaven you have the money, the thing itself; and here you have the possession of the bonds themselves.

It were infinite to go over all the inventory of a Christian ; I have there fore done it in a short, brief sum. Here are riches in Christ to pay all thy debts the first day thou comest in ; and to pay all thy debts thou shalt run into God (and it would have beggared all the angels in heaven to pay for one sin), and when that is done, thou hast a righteousness so rich as the angels never possessed, a robe stuck so full of jewels (for such is every action of Christ, and all his sufficiency) as never came upon the angels back. Every grace thou hast is a rich thing; rich in faith, James ii. ;

rich in assurance, Col. ii. 2. In a word, hath God any more riches ? His Spirit is as rich as Christ too, and thou hast him. It is a phrase used in Tit. iii. 6, He hath poured his Spirit richly on us ; so it is in the original and in your margins. And then thou hast all the riches of glory in the world to come, when thou art to be the possessor of all this. And this the gospel reveals to thee, and makes thee possessor of it that art a believer ; and although the meanest Christian, if he have but the least knowledge of the gospel, is possessed of this, yet the more he comes to know the gospel, the more he comes to know his own riches.

First, Therefore, my brethren (that I may make a use or two of this, and so pass on to the next), it is a very great invitement to us to be acquainted with all the things of the gospel of Christ ; for still what dost thou do ? Thou dost but study over thine own riches, and increase thine own inven tory, cornest to the knowledge of things thou never dreamedst of should be thine. The angels do study the gospel, and pry into it, but it is not their riches ; it is not ichicJi riches is Christ in angels, but it is, which riches is Christ in you. It is a thing worth your observation, that in Eph. iii., speaking of the excellency of the gospel, and the riches of it, he saith, that it is made manifest to all men, and likewise to angels, but with this difference, unto men it is called the unsearchable riches of Christ ; so ver. 8, That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; but when he speaks of the angels knowing of it, he calls it wis dom : so ver. 10.

* To the intent, saith he,

that now unto the princi palities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. The angels are taken with the wisdom of it, but thou mayest be taken with the riches that are in it ; not only with the wisdom of it, though that takes the angels, and may take thee ; but it is riches to thee, but wisdom only unto them.

Secondly, Is the gospel thus rich in its preciousness and abundance ? Then let us take heed that we do not sell any part of the truths of the gos

Buy the truth, saith Solomon, Prov. xxiii. 22, pel which have been revealed to us.

but sell it not ; for if you do you sell your riches, you part with your estates. This kingdom, and this city (for aught I know) hath been the greatest mart of truth for this last age, of any part of the world, and Wisdom hath cried her wares here \ more than in any other place. There is nothing more the riches of a kingdom or a city than the gospel ; it is the expression the Holy Ghost hath in Eom. xi. 12, where, speaking of the gospel, when it was revealed to the Gentiles, he calls it, * the riches of the Gentiles and the riches of the world, in the same place. Take heed, therefore, of parting with any of the truths of the gospel, those truths that have been cried,* that have run through the fire so much in all ages, for let me tell you this, that when God did first deliver to the saints in the primitive times, all that the apostles said went then for cur rent in a manner ; but when they were gone, God presently went and began to put every truth to a trial, first one and then another. That there is one God, and one Christ his Son, and that he is God as well as man, and hath a true human nature ; all these fundamental truths were the exercise and conflicts against heretics and heathens, that the holy Christians in the primitive times suffered for. Then God put this truth into the fire, whether Christ was God or no, and all the world turned Arian ; but he tried it, and it hath stood, and doth stand, and is continued to this day. He hath likewise put the doctrine of free grace into the fire. * Qu. tried ? ED.

314 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. V.

He began to do it presently after Arianism was down ; he hath tried it over, and over, and over, and it is still propagated purer and purer. Now I say, all those truths that God hath thus suffered to run through the fire, which we now possess by the blood of Jesus Christ, and by the blood of martyrs, and the conflicts of the saints in all ages, should be preserved by us. I beseech you, give not up those truths, for they are your riches.

Shall we now in this age question the foundation of religion ? for so some do. Will you sell away those things that have been derived to us age after age at such cost ? Oh let us possess them as our dearest treasures. Let us value the truths of the gospel as Paul did. I profited, saith he, in knowledge more than any of my brethren, equals, or as much as any. Oh, thought he once, when he had got a form of the knowledge of the law in his head, what a treasure have I ! But, saith he, Phil. iii. 7, 8, The things I counted gain to me, thought myself rich by them, I esteemed all to be but loss and dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord. My brethren, let us not sell the truth. God never takes it away from a nation or a people till they sell it, as Esau did his birthright. The Lord had made the Jews his market for truth ; to them were committed the oracles of God, Rom. iii. 2, and therefore because he had committed to them the truth, and they had been the pillar of it, when the gospel came to be preached, they must have the first offer of it, they must have the refusal of it before God would carry it to another market.

It was necessary, saith Paul and Barnabas, preaching to the Jews, Acts xii. 46, that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you: but seeing you put it from you, seeing you refuse it, carry your selves unworthy of it, we will go to the Gentiles.

And, last of all, let the doctrine of the gospel dwell plenteously in you ; let it dwell richly in you, for so the expression is, Col. iii. 16. And let us labour to be enriched with all the knowledge of; as it is in 1 Cor. ii. 5, let us grow rich in faith, for the more you know, the richer you are.

But you will say, I am estated into all the riches of the gospel, if I have but the least spark of faith, and all the riches of Christ are mine.

I confess that all the riches of Christ are thine. But let me tell thee this, the more thou growest, after thou believest, in the knowledge of the gospel, the more thou growest in the knowledge of thine own riches ; and what a happiness is that ! And though thou hast all the riches of Christ, and all the promises, and all the truths of the gospel tend for to comfort thee, and to make thee happy and rich, and will one day make thee so ; yet in the mean time, till thou increasest in the knowledge of it, till thou hast assurance of the things thou knowest, thou art in thine own appre hension but a poor man. There is that maketh himself poor, but is rich, saith Solomon ; which is the case of many poor souls, who either want assurance, or else do content themselves with a little knowledge, only so much as may save them. So that now here is the advantage of a man growing in knowledge, that the more he knows of the gospel of Christ, the more he knoweth his own riches ; and if a man had no other work but to tell over money newly given him every day, he would surely count it the pleasantest work in the world. If thou couldst grow every day in a new degree of knowledge, whilst thou dost thereby grow the more in the know ledge of thine own riches, how happy must thou needs be ! And so much now for that attribute that is here given to the gospel, it is a mystery, and it is a rich mystery.

CHAP. VI.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

CHAPTEK VI.

That the gospel is most excellent, because it is a most glorious revelation of God and Christ to us.

The next thing that is (in Col. i. 27) attributed to the gospel is, that it is a glorious gospel. The apostle, when he speaks of the glory of things spiritual, usually gives the title of riches to them ; thus, in Rom. ix. 23, when he speaks of the glory that is in God, he calleth it riches of glory ; so in Eph. i. 18, when he speaks of heaven, he calleth it riches of glory; and here, when he speaks of the gospel of Christ, he calleth it likewise

riches of glory. I need not stand to give you many Scriptures in which the gospel is called glorious. I shall quote you hut one or two. First, that in 1 Tim. i. 11, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and he speaks it in opposition to the law clearly. He saith that the law is good, ver. 8 ; but when he comes to speak of the gospel, he calls that glorious, for glory is the superexcellency and superlative of goodness. You have one whole chapter (viz., 2 Cor. iii.) that shews the glory of this gospel; and indeed more than that one chapter, for the apostle doth enlarge his discourse of it to the 6th verse of the 4th chapter. And there also he calls it treasure (as in ver. 7), as he had called it glory in all the discourse before ; and as he had done in Timothy, so here in this chapter of the Corinthians, he compares it with the law. He doth acknowledge that the law had a kind of glory in it; so ver. 7, If the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance ; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious ? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. I shall take all these arguments afore I have done, to shew how glorious the gospel is, both because it is the ministration of the Spirit, and because it is the minis tration of a glorious righteousness ; but now I only quote it for this in the general, that the apostle, though he attributeth a glory to the law, yet in comparison of the gospel he makes it no glory ; for so it follows, verse 10, Even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.

The law was glorious (and yet that glory which it had, he saith, was but a made glory), first, in the promulgation of it, which indeed was a very re semblance of the day of judgment ; for God, when he came to give the law to sinners, came down from heaven and placed his tabernacle upon Mount

Sinai, like unto a judge, attended with glorious angels (for the law was given by angels ), and with many glorious miracles, thunder, and earth quake, and fire, and smoke, and the sound of a trumpet. Even as the glory of a kingdom is most seen when they go to enact laws, for then the king and all the nobles go in their parliament robes ; and so your judges, when they go to execute the laws, to condemn men, go attended with the sound of a trumpet, and halberds, &c. So God, when he came to give the law, came attended with all this glory.

And then, secondly, as the law was glorious in respect of the promulga tion of it, so in respect of Jie matter of it. For the moral law, of which the apostle specially speaks, for he speaks of that law which was written

316 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VI and engraven in stones, had a glory in it. Why ? This is a certain rule, whatsoever holds forth the image of God hath a glory in it, for the least ray or beam of God hath glory in it ; and if the law be the image of God, if God be glorious, that must be glorious too. Now, the law holds forth the image of God s mind. Therefore it is, that man in his first creation is called the glory of God, because he was the image of God, and hence there fore the grace in Adam was called glory ; and so I think it is the best inter pretation, or at leastwise one great part of the meaning of that in Kom. iii. 23, All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. It is meant of the image of God plainly ; for in 1 Cor. xi. 7, the glory of God and his image are made all one. They are fallen from that grace and righteousness which at first God did implant in them, by which they were justified, and so are come short of the favour of God, which did shine upon them. And hence likewise in 2 Cor. iv. 4, the gospel is said to be glorious, because it holds forth Jesus Christ, the image of God. Now the law, therefore, con taining the image of God, had a glory in it materially. In these two respects, I say, the law was glorious: 1. In the promulgation of it, God put a state upon it when he delivered it ; and, 2. in respect of the matter of it, because it contains the image of God.

But now, my brethren, the gospel infinitely excelleth in glory in both these respects. I will not stand so much upon the first, because it is not so proper to the text, yet somewhat I will say of it. The gospel, in the promulgation of it, had all the glory that could be put upon it. What greater glory than for a king, before he comes himself in state, to have a train of men of four thousand years ? So had Jesus Christ. Before he came into the world to give the gospel, what a long train had he ! For all the patriarchs and prophets were but his forerunners, his train, men that went before him ; and at last came John the Baptist, who was greater than all those patriarchs and prophets, because he came next to Jesus Christ, and because he spake more gospel than all of them had done. You have an express place for it in Isa. xl., 3d, 4th, and 5th verses compared, where the glory of the gospel is held forth by this, that it had this forerunner, The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, &c. ; and saith he, ver. 5, The glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Because it was so great a glory, he ushereth it in thus by John Baptist. It is true indeed, there was no sound of a trumpet, nor no earthquakes ; but you shall see there was as much, for after all this train was past, and all these forerunners gone by, comes Jesus Christ himself, the brightness of his Father s glory, and the express image of his person, whose shoe-latchet, saith John

Baptist, who was yet more than a prophet, I am not worthy to unloose.

Compare for this but the first chapter of the Hebrews, and the third verse

That in these of the second chapter together. In the first chapter, he saith, last days God hath spoken unto us by his Son, and then he sheweth what * he was heir of all things, and that by him also God made the worlds, that he was the express image of his Father s person ; and all this to the end, that he might shew forth the glory of the gospel ; as appears, chap. ii. ver. 2. For, saith he, If the word spoken by angels was so stedfast and excellent, how much more shall that word be which was spoken by so great a Lord ; so ver. 3. And when Jesus did first come a Son this was, that to be inaugurated, before he preached one sermon (for his inauguration is re corded by the evangelists before he preached one sermon) it was by a voice coming immediately from heaven, saying, This is my well-beloved Son,

CHAP. VI. J GLOEY OF THE GOSPEL. 317 in whom I am well pleased. You have the same afterwards in Luke xvii. when he was transfigured, when he appeared all in his glory. Moses his face did but shine, but Jesus Christ s face, clothes, and all shone all over ; and then cometh a voice from heaven too, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him. It is a preface to the gospel. Here is a Lord of glory, saith he, when he had shewn him in all his glory ; here he is, hear him, take that gospel that he delivereth from his mouth, for here is the reality of Moses his shadow. There was a voice came from the excellent glory, BO Peter hath it, which is more than the sound of a trumpet which angels made upon the mount at the promulgation of the law. Here when this gospel came to be delivered, when it was first begun to be spoken by the Lord, all the three persons give witness and testimony, and instead of angels the Holy Ghost cometh down ; and instead of the voice of angels, here is a voice from heaven, even the voice of God himself ; and instead of Moses shining with his face, here is Moses and Elias both appearing in glory with Jesus Christ, who put them down clean ; for, saith John, speak

We saw his glory, as the glory of the only be ing of his transfiguration, gotten Son of God ; which glory of his was as evidently to be distinguished from the glory of Moses and Elias, as the glory of the sun is from that of the stars. And, my brethren, what was the purpose of presenting Christ in that glory upon the mount ? It is evident, it was in answer to the glory of Moses his face, who was the deliverer of the law, and that upon this ground ; because there is a voice come from heaven, from the excellent glory, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him. And then when Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, that first gave this gospel, went to heaven, what follows ? Why, a world of glories, beams of glories, were still scattered to confirm it ; 1 Peter i. 10, * Of which salvation the prophets did prophesy, and of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glories that should follow, (so it is in the original). For when Jesus Christ him self ascended and entered into glory, he poured down glorious gifts, he poured down a glorious Spirit, he poured down this gospel, whereof he had but the substance of it in brief sayings, which the apostles delivered to us. So you have it in Heb. ii. 3. As it was first preached by the Lord, so he saith it was confirmed by signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and by giving of the Holy Ghost. And this was the glory of the gospel in respect of the promulgation of it, which indeed is not so much the scope of the text, yet because the apostle in that 2 Cor. iii. speaks of the promulgation of the law, and of the glory of it in that respect, when he compares it with the gospel and the glory of it, I thought good a little to handle it. But, Secondly, As the gospel exceeded the law in glory, in respect of the pro mulgation of it ; so let us compare the matter of the gospel with that of the law, and we shall find it likewise to be transcendently glorious in that respect also. The law, I told you, was a glorious law, because it contained the image of God, so far as dead letters could hold forth that image. The law written in Adam s heart was the image of God, and that] being blotted out, God took a copy of what was in Adam s heart, so that indeed the law is rather an image of the image of God, than the image of God properly ; it is but the image of the image that was in Adam s heart, and but a literal picture of it. But now the gospel must needs be much more glorious, because, First, It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the express image of the person of his Father, so you have it, Heb. i. 2, 3, who is the heir of all things (speaking of Christ), the brightness of his glory, and the express

318 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VI. image of his person. Now do but look how more glorious the image of a man in his son like himself, who hath the same reason in him, and pro perties of all kinds that himself hath, excelleth the image of his mind, or of his thoughts delivered in writing ; so doth Jesus Christ excel that image of God expressed in the law. And it is this which makes the gospel so glorious, because it is the gospel of Christ, who is the image of God ; so the apostle saith in 2 Cor. iv. 4, Lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them ; hence therefore in Isa. xl. 4, Christ is called, the glory of the Lord. Therefore look how far the image of God stamped upon Jesus Christ exceeds the image of God in Adam s heart, and therefore must needs excel the image of God in the law, which is indeed but the copy of the image, so much doth the gospel exceed the law in glory, and all the knowledge of it. The law, I say, is the copy of the image of God in man s heart, but the gospel is the glass in which the image of God in Christ, and the glory of Christ, appeareth.

I will not stand to enlarge much upon that subject, to shew you how transcendent an image there is stamped upon Christ ; I have done it else where, in opening the 18th and 19th verses of this chapter. And that Jesus Christ is the great subject of the gospel, I intend, by the blessing of God, to speak of that, taking chap. ii. ver. 2, where the gospel is called the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ ; these being the subject of the gospel. I will now only shew you, how glorious the gospel must needs be, that doth hold forth the glory of Christ, and how lively it holds it forth.

My brethren, let me tell you the story of it a little. The apostles that * they saw his glory, as the glory of the only be lived with Jesus Christ, gotten Son of God ; so you have it in John i. 14. And as John s expres sion is (and he speaks feelingly) in 1 John i. 1, * That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled; they handled him, that is, they had a sensible know ledge of him, their ears took in his gracious words, their eyes beheld him, beheld his glorious miracles, beheld the glory that God stamped upon him when he was in the mount, and had that voice from the excellent glory. Well, but Jesus Christ is gone to heaven, and all his glory is taken up with him ; and these apostles that saw Jus glory were all to leave the earth, and therefore though it is true that we shall one day be where he is, according to his prayer, John xvii. 24, that we may behold his glory, yet how in the mean time should we come to see this image of God, and the glory of Jesus

Christ, who in that place of Isaiah is called the glory of the Lord ? Jesus

Christ therefore did by his apostles frame up a doctrine of the gospel, which is left written by them ; for he having delivered it unto them, they have declared it unto us ; so you have it in the forementioned place, 1 John i. 3, That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you. He declared it first to them, and they while they lived preached the same gospel by word of mouth, and then left it unto us in writing, that so in the opening of it by pastors and teachers to the end of the world, we may come to see Christ, as the apostles did, in respect of his glorious excellencies. Now this glorious gospel which the apostles have thus left in writing, and which we poor ministers in all ages do expound as well as we can unto you, what is it ?

It is the lively image or picture of Jesus Christ, who is the express image of the great God, and of all his glory ; and hence is it a glorious gospel. When the apostle Paul preached to the Galatians, what saith he of the gospel he preached ? Gal. iii. 1, Before whose eyes, saith he, Jesus

CHAP. VI. ] GLOEY OF THE GOSPEL. 819

Christ was pictured, so the word signifies, or painted, written out. The gospel, my brethren, is the liveliest picture of Christ that could be. But you will say, pictures do not represent the glory of a thing. No more they do not. If you would picture the sun with the liveliest colours that could be, you could uot picture the glory of it ; what hath God done therefore ? He hath made his gospel not only a picture of Christ, but he hath made it a glass. So the apostle saith in that 2 Cor. iii. 18, compared with chap, iv. ver. 4, we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, namely, of Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God. What is the reason he calls the gospel glorious ? Because it is the image of Jesus Christ. And how doth the gospel hold that forth ? Not only as a picture, but as a glass; and a glass, if the thing be glorious that shines upon it, will represent not the thing only, but the glory of it too. As if you hold a looking-glass to the sun, you shall not only see the picture of the sun in it, but the glory of the sun, and the sun in his glory. Now the glory of God that shineth upon the face of Jesus Christ (and therefore ver. 6, we are said to have the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ), and the face of Christ shineth in the gospel as in a glass. Hence we come by looking into the gospel to see his glory, and therefore the gospel it is a glorious gospel. To open this a little to you. A glass it is the most lively way of representing things absent that can be invented, for it doth not represent things in dead, lifeless, and wan colours, as pic tures do, but really. It is a middle way of representing a man, between seeing a man s picture and seeing the man himself. It doth represent him so lively and clearly, that though indeed it is not so comfortable as seeing the man himself, yet it is much more comfortable than seeing the picture of the man drawn by all the art in the world. Therefore it is said here, we behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord. Now it is a rule in optics, and a true one, quod videtur in spcculo, non est imago, that which is seen in a glass is not a mere picture, but it is the thing itself; if you see a man in a glass, though you do not look directly upon the man, yet you see the man himself. Only with this difference, that when you look upon the man him self you see him by a direct act, and you see him by an image taken off from the man himself, coming into your eye ; but when you look upon him in a glass, you see him by a reverberation, as I may so express it, the image of the man is beaten back again. That I may express this thing to you: the eye of a man sees nothing, but by the image of the thing some way or other coming into it, and therefore now when you behold any man, if your eye be looked upon, there is the image of that man in your eye. Now if a glass doth take that image (and a glass it is an artificial eye, as I may call it, and the eye is a natural glass), I say, if a glass doth take in that image, it beats it back again, and that is seeing a man in a glass ; whereas, if you see the man face to face, his image is conveyed immediately into your eye ; but go now and hold a glass before that man, and the same image which you received directly into your eye by seeing him immediately, is in the glass, which if you behold, that image is reverberated or beaten back again to you. As an echo is your own voice beaten back again, so is a man s image which you behold in a glass. And therefore it is the most lively way of seeing and beholding a thing that can be. Why ? Because you do not see a mere picture, but you see the man himself by a reverberated species, that is, by the likeness of him beaten back again to your eye. And thus, my brethren, doth the knowledge of Christ in the gospel, and in heaven, differ. In heaven, there you see him by sight. Why ? Because, as the

820 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VI.

we see him there face to face ; but in the gospel, we see him as in a glass, but still the same Christ, really represented in the glass of the gospel, above all pictures whatsoever, whom one day we shall see apostle saith, face to face in heaven. For the sight we have of Christ in the gospel, is not merely notional or literal, but it hath a reality in it ; and therefore we are said to see the glory of the Lord in this glass. This glory could never have been painted, for the glory of Christ it must be beams shed imme diately from himself, and to see Jesus Christ with his own beams, though shining in the glass of the gospel, is to see Christ himself. And therefore you see how the apostles speak> as they compare the thing we see Christ in, to a glass ; so they compare the faith we see him by, to sight plainly, Heb. ii. 8, * We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. Alas ! they had not eyes of their bodies to look up into heaven, but their sight of Christ was so lively, as he was represented in the glass of the gospel, that the * we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. So that, my brethren, suppose that you had a glass that did perpetually retain the apostle saith, image of an absent friend, suppose you had not only a picture of him, but a glass, that look what image he had when he looked upon it when he was present, that image sticks in it still. What would you give for such a glass ? Some nations do use to keep their dead in a glass, which being artificially closed up, preserves them from stench ; but, alas ! it is but a dead friend in a case of glass. But here is another artifice that Jesus Christ useth : he hath framed by his Spirit a doctrine of the gospel, which is delivered to us in the writings of the apostles, which doth retain a lively image of Jesus

Christ ; and if men, when they come to hear it preached, or when they look into it, bring the Spirit with them, they see the glory of the Lord there. But now you will say unto me, How can this be ? How comes this to pass ? Is not the word preached, or read, or thought upon, not merely words, and so the picture of things, and of Christ, as all other stories of men are ? They are better, indeed, than emblems are ; the ceremonial law was nothing but emblems of Christ, but the gospel is a plain describing of him in words, but yet as he said, poetry and oratory is but the picture of things, how should this word, written and preached, come to be a glass to represent Christ thus lively ?

I will give you the reason of it, for the apostle doth it in that 2 Cor. iii.

4, he saith, that it is the ministration not of the letter, but of the Spirit. The gospel, my brethren, hath a Spirit lying hid in it, and which goes along with it ; and if the Holy Ghost did not accompany it to the heart of a believer, it would but speak mere words of Christ, even as the law spake but mere words. It would be but a mere letter, for, indeed, the gospel of itself is but the ministration of the letter to worldly and carnal men, whose eyes God doth not open (so saith the 4th verse of the 4th chapter of that 2d Co rinthians), It is hid, saith he, to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. But it is called spirit, and there is a Spirit that doth accompany it, and as he saith, in Isa. lix. 21, < the word and the Spirit shall not depart out of thy mouth. And the Holy Ghost thus accompanying all that is said of Christ and his glory in the gospel, he createth (let me say it, for it is true) such apprehen sions of Christ, and of all the things spoken of him, which never entered into the heart of any carnal man in the world. He createth a new light, by which you do really view Jesus Christ, although by faith, and though as in a glass, yet a real sight you have of him beyond all the story of words and hearsay whatsoever. It were indeed but the ministration of the letter, if

there were only but a verbal and hearsay knowledge of him. No ; but whilst you read words in the Scripture, or hear but words in the preaching of the gospel, there is a spirit goes along with it, whose peculiar artifice it is to make it to be as a glass, to see Jesus Christ in the doctrine of it, as you see a man in a glass, and that sight is a lively and real sight of his image. Whilst we do limn out Jesus Christ by words as well as we can (for what we express is still but literal, in comparison of what a man, if he be a believer, apprehendeth while it is expressed, and we are to use all the art we can to express things to you ; whilst, I say, we are doing this), the Holy Ghost, that dwelleth in the word, and dwelleth in the heart of believers, begetteth such a real image of Christ by that which is spoken, that they behold the glory of the Lord as in a glass, and are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. It is compared to the seeing in a glass, because there is a subsistence given by the Holy Ghost to the things spoken of, beyond all pictures, or words, or notions. And hence do but observe what follows in the text (which I shall afterwards more distinctly open) ; Which, saith he, is Christ in you, which importeth thus much, that while that Jesus Christ is known by a believer in the doctrine of the gospel, he becometh Christ in him ; he is not only known by him as a man knows the king, but he is known as when a man knows the sun, the beams of it coineth into his eye. So that the apprehensional knowledge that a saint hath of Jesus Christ by faith, the taking in of Christ by faith, is so real a thing that it is called Christ in a man. And I take that to be the meaning of that in Gal. iii. (which I shall further

Till Christ be formed in you, and so Piscator open anon), where he saith, takes it.

I shall endeavour to make this further plain to you thus. You may see an imitation of this work of the Holy Ghost in this. Suppose there were a man standing two or three houses off from your house ; it is possible by the reflection of looking-glasses set one against another, to see the image of this man in a glass in your own room. Is the art of man able to do this ? The art of the Holy Ghost is abb to do it much more. You see

Satan, what doth he do that is a spirit ? Whereas men can make but the picture of a man, what can Satan do ? Absolutely he will make a man appear before one as a man, in lively colours, not a bare picture. This artifice Satan hath. My brethren, the Holy Ghost accompanying the doctrine of the gospel, hath a further artifice : though you see not Christ face to face (that is reserved for heaven), yet you shall see him in a spiritual glass, you shall not only see him as described by words, but you shall have those lively, real apprehensions of him created in your mind (and you have so, if Christ be in you), as puts down all the literal and hearsay knowledge in the world ; it is like the seeing of a man s image in a glass. And there fore, now observe it, in that 2 Cor. iv. (for I have still recourse to that), the apostle hints how it cometh to pass that you come to see thus by the Spirit. He gives the reason there, why that the gospel that is thus glorious is hid from the eyes of the world ; saith he of some, ver. 4, Whom the God of this world hath blinded, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. But how is that light wrought ? Read on. Ver. 6, * God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is done, you see, plainly by a creation. He createth a light in the soul of a man, out of that dark ness that is in him. And without this, let a man stand under the gospel a VOL. iv. x

322 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VI. thousand years together, he would only know Christ by hearsay. But if the Spirit cometh and createth a light, this light shall carry the image of Christ to the soul, such an image of him as never entered into the heart of any carnal man, though he knows never so much of the gospel. I shall make it plain by opening the apostle s comparison. Every beam of light always carries with it the image of that thing which it is the beam of. If you do behold a little beam of the sun coming through a pin-hole in a dark room, run to the beam, lay your eye to it ; that beam conveys to you the image of the whole sun. So whenas there cometh a created light into a man s soul by the Holy Ghost, joining with the gospel which speaks of Christ, he who is a believer, by his eye of faith taking in that beam of light, beholdeth Jesus Christ, that image of God, beholdeth the glory of Christ in the gospel thus described, in such a manner as no creature else is able to apprehend. It is, I say, because the light of the glorious gospel is com manded to shine out of darkness. It is a light that is given ; so saith the * He hath given us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. And therefore now in Isa. Ix. 1, 2, 3, where he speaks of the glory of the gospel, which shall one day break forth to the apostle, Jews, he expresseth it in these very terms : Arise, saith he, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Whenas the light of the gospel cometh and shineth into a man s soul by the creation of the Holy Ghost, the glory of the Lord cometh into him too ; he beholdeth the glory of the Lord as in a glass. And hence, my brethren, it comes to pass, that a man doth see the Lord Jesus Christ really in the glass of the gospel. The understanding understandeth everything per phantasma, as we say, the fancy of a man. Still when the understanding works to understand any thing, the fancy of a man begets the image of the thing in his mind. When ever you hear a story told of a thing done in such a place, by such or such a person, still your fancy will be working the image of that thing or person in your mind, though it be a story told you never heard before ; for God hath appointed the fancy to give the mind a subsistence of what it under standeth. Now when God cometh to reveal spiritual things, the fancy could never take them in, it could never give any subsistence to them, it hath no images to make of them. What therefore doth God do ? He createth faith. And what is faith ? It is not phantasia, but hypostasia; it gives a subsistence (so the apostle saith, Heb. xi.), a reality to the things we understand, even as the image of a man in a glass is a real thing, it is a subsistence ; so God and Christ, they have a subsistence, a reality in a man s spirit. And hence, my brethren, it comes to pass, that the soul doth form up out of the gospel glorious apprehensions of Christ, for as the gospel holds forth Jesus Christ in his glory really, so by the help of the Spirit, the same image that is in the gospel is begot in my heart of this Jesus Christ ; that is, real and glorious apprehensions I have of him, which are wrought in me in and by the gospel, and according to what the gospel describeth of him. And as I said afore, it is part of the apostle s meaning inthat place of the Galatians, when he tells them, I am in travail, till Christ be formed in you ; he doth not speak in respect of sanctificatkm, that he laboured to have the image of Christ formed in them in that respect, for they were sanctified and had not fallen from that ; but saith he, I endeavour, till such time as those appre hensions you have had of Christ, which you have lost, be formed in your hearts again, and that your understanding take him in aright.

So then to close up this first thing, of the glory of the gospel in respect of the matter of it, here is the sum of all that that I have said. First, Here

is Jesus Christ ; lie is the image of God, the most glorious image of God that ever was. Here is the gospel appointed to be a glass to represent this glory of Christ, describing him not by words only and in a literal way, or by a picture, but in a glass, lively and really, and so the gospel becometh a glorious image of Christ; even as if you hold a glass to the sun, there is a glorious image of the sun in the glass ; and hold your eye to that glorious image of the sun in the glass, and that image is begotten in your eye is it here, the gospel being the image of the glory of Christ, having the Holy Ghost in it, the heart of a believer coming to it by faith, takes in all that glory, so far as it is revealed to him, and so having further and larger apprehensions of Christ, he is formed in him, and as the gospel hath Christ s image in it, so he hath Christ s image in his heart. So the apostle indeed tells us, in that 2 Cor. iii. 18, We are changed into that image from glory to glory. To see a thing, my brethren, that is glorious, by its own light, it always makes a glorious sight, a real sight. The least beam of Christ it helps you to the sight of him, if it be a beam of himself. You may hear of him by hearsay, as of other things, but if (as the apostle s expression is) there shine into your hearts but a beam from himself by his Spirit, it doth convey the reality of Christ to you, it makes Christ to be in you, as the text saith, although you do not see him face to face. If the sun were down at this instant, if there were a glass that took in the beams of it above the earth, I might always see the sun in that glass. So though Jesus Christ be in heaven now, yet the gospel being that glass in which the image of Christ is, I may have a real and lively representation of him, so far as the gospel reveals him. And so much now for that first thing, in respect of the matter.

I will but add a comparison to shew you how much the glory of the gospel exceedeth that of the law in this respect. Compare it either with the moral law, or with the ceremonial law.

1. Go, take the moral law. Why ? The moral law it is a glass too, and a glass that revealeth God, or rather, what the image of the mind of God is. Yet it is merely a glass of the image of God in Adam s heart, it is but a copy of the image of God in man, and so it is rather a glass to shew man to himself than God to him ; you have it in James i. (for it is good to compare the similitudes the Scripture useth, one with another), If any man be a hearer of the word, saith he, and not a doer, he is like to a man beholding his natural face in a glass, but he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was. Whilst you look into the law, you see what an image of God was once in you, and by comparing yourselves with it, you see your own deformity now ; and so I know not how far, by a remote consequence, you see what a holy God he is that gave such a law. But it is not a glass that representeth God, but a glass that representeth yourselves, and representeth that image that was in man by nature. And therefore the apostle calleth it only a dead letter written upon stones, rather than a glass, when he makes a compari son of it with the glorious gospel.

2. Go, take the ceremonial law, that was joined to it, and that reveals more of the gospel, for indeed that was nothing else but gospel in shadows, and you shall find that, because it had gospel in it, it is called glorious too ; there is glory attributed to it more than to the moral law simply or alone considered. Hence the ark, which was Jesus Christ in a shadow, is * To them belonged the adoption and the glory, namely, the ark. And so the called the glory of Israel, in 1 Sam. iv. 22 ; and so in Rom. ix. 4,

324 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VI.

glorious high throne, in Jer. xvii. 12. And in 1 Kings temple is called a < The glory of the Lord filled it at the dedication. Yet what is viii. 11, all this now in comparison of the gospel, this gospel that is now revealed, the glass that we see Christ in ? The law is called glorious, only because, as if the sunshould shine upon a cloud in a rainbow, it took in the sun that was arising before we saw it. All this in comparison of the gospel is but a shadow, it is but as the glory of the sun in a cloud ; but the gospel is a glass, that look as you would think, what a great deal of difference there is between the seeing of a man in a glass, and seeing his mere shadow, such a difference is there between that knowledge of Christ which the cere monial law afforded, and this which the gospel now affordeth. You have it expressly in Heb. x. 1. (Let us go up and down still, and examine the * The law, saith he, having a shadow of good things to come (he speaks expressly of the ceremonial

Scriptures which speak to this comparison.)

the very image of the things. It was so far off from having the image of it, saith he, that it had but the shadow of it. But now what saith he of the gospel ? We behold as in a glass, saith he, law, for the moral law had it not), and not, saith he, * the glory of the Lord. It is more than shadow, nay, more than an image or picture, you see the thing in a reality. The glory of the Lord that filled that same first temple, what was it ? A cloud, a mere mist, it was no more ; yet it is called the glory of the Lord. But what is it that appeareth in this glass ? Read Mai. iv. 2, * The Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. He speaks of the coming of Christ, for he was the last that prophesied, he had said at the 3d chapter, ver. 1 , The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple ; and presently in chapter iv. he saith, that he is the Sun of righteousness that shall arise with healing under his wings. Nay, further, that you may see how the Scripture still speaks in this language, the apostle, in Col. ii. 17, speaking of the ceremonial law, saith, They are the shadow, which, saith he, vanisheth when the body is come. You will say, the shadow doth never use to arise till the body comes. , Yea, but if the body be the sun itself, if that come, all the other vanish ; so they did when the Sun of righteousness did arise. Hence therefore, in Hag. ii, 7, 9, it is said, that the glory of the second temple should be more than the first. Why ? Because Christ the Sun of righteousness is the glory of it. He is called the Glory of Israel in the song of Simeon, Luke ii. 32. And the gospel is the glass in which we see this sun.

And so now I have done with this first thing, in respect of the matter of it, that the gospel is thus glorious, because that Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of glory, shineth in it thus really, and clearly, and fully, as in a glass, and that compared with the knowledge that the Old Testament afforded. I might also compare it with that knowledge which may be had by the crea tures, which is a glass too, for you may behold God in the creatures ; but the truth is, they hold forth merely the handiwork of God, you do not see God there as in a glass. But I will not stand upon that.

Secondly, The gospel is glorious in respect of the matter of it, because the riches of the glory of God shineth in Christ revealed in this gospel. This is intimated too in that 2 Cor. iv. 6, where he endeth the discourse of the glory of the gospel, He hath shined in our hearts, saith he, to give the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But to give you a scripture or two more for it in a word, 1 Tim. i. 11, I quoted it before, to prove that the gospel is a glorious gospel, for so it is called there ; but mark what follows, it is called, the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

CHAP. VI. J GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 325

Observe that expression; there is a connection between those two, why he should give that attribute to God, when he calleth it his gospel, and a glorious gospel. Why, it is not only a glorious gospel, because it holds forth all the glory of God, but because it doth communicate ; and God s end in revealing it is to communicate his glory, and to make men blessed. And the plain meaning of it is this, as if he had said, the Lord, that great God, being so blessed in himself, having such riches of happiness and glory in himself, he did so overflow, he did so overbound in himself, that he meant to make others happy with this happiness in himself, for he is God allsufficient; and being so full of blessedness, and his blessedness con sisting in his own gloiy, he inventeth the gospel, contriveth in his own glorious wisdom the great design of his Son Christ, in whom he would reveal himself, who is the subject of the gospel, that by revealing of it he might communicate that blessedness unto others. He did it not only to hold forth his own glory, and to manifest how great a God he is, but he did it as a blessed God, that delighteth to communicate that glory unto others ; and he doth it by the gospel, that so as he was blessed in himself, he might by the gospel communicate his glory, and bless others. For, my brethren, look as envy ariseth in a sinful creature that is miserable, when he sees another happy, and he doth it naturally ; so doth the desire of communicating what happiness one hath, arise in the heart of him that is truly noble, and perfectly happy and blessed. And so it did in God. Am I thus blessed in myself ? saith he ; I will have others blessed by me, to whom I will communicate this happiness and glory ; and he therefore inventeth this gospel, which is therefore called the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

Of all things God s mercy is his glory; and while you look upon the face of Jesus Christ, you there behold nothing but grace and mercy shine in the gospel. We behold, saith he, < the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that as in the face of a man you behold his disposition toward you, so you see the disposition of God in the face of Christ, you see his mercy, you see his glory. Not a whit of this did shine in the law, not a whit of mercy or free grace, and yet that is the glory of God. In Exod. xxxiii. 18, 19, 20, Moses there desired to see the glory of God : I beseech thee, saith he, shew me thy glory. Saith God, ver. 19, I will make all my goodness pass before thee. But how should all his goodness appear? Clothed all in mercy ; for it follows, I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. The law speaks not such a word ; no, my brethren, this is the very bottom of the gospel, the bottom of God s heart ; here is his glory, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. It is the glorious gospel of the blessed God, that being blessed in himself, thus resolveth to be gracious and good to poor creatures, to such sinners as we are. Moses had seen the glory of God upon the mount ; he had seen the glory of God in delivering the law in a great deal of state ; after all this, Lord, saith he, * let me see thy glory. What is God s answer ? I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, &c. Here is my glory. And this glory shinethin the gospel, and if you will see it, look upon the face of Jesus Christ. You may see Jesus Christ s face in the glass of the gospel, and in that face you may see all this grace and mercy shine. And so I have done with the second thing, namely, the chief and principal matter of the gospel. It revealeth, 1, Jesus Christ in his glory; and, 2, it reveals the glory of

826 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VI.

God in the face of Jesus Christ; and all this as in a glass. I come now to the third.

8. The things that the gospel communicateth and conveyeth are all glorious. The apostle compares it with the law too in this respect, in that 2 Cor. iii. 6, 7, &c., God hath made us able ministers of the New Testa ment ; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the

Spirit giveth life. If the ministration of the letter, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious ? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth ; that is, the gospel. In the first place, he tells you that the gospel is the ministration of the * It is not the ministration of the letter only, saith he, Spirit of God.

but the Spirit, and he meaneth the Holy Ghost plainly, for in the last verse of that chapter he saith, that by beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, even by the Spirit of the Lord, that is, by the Holy Ghost. Now do but lay these two things together. First, that the gospel only communicateth the Holy Ghost to you. And, secondly, that the Spirit is a Spirit of glory upon whomsoever he resteth : and then the gospel must needs be, in respect of its communication, a glorious gospel. To make out both these to you.

First, Look, as when Jesus Christ was baptized, that excellent glory opened, and the Holy Ghost descended upon him ; so when the gospel is preached, doth the Holy Ghost descend upon the elect, and look upon whom the Holy Ghost resteth, he is the Son of God. As he said to John, John i. 88, Upon whomthou shaltseethe Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he ; so it is here. In the primitive times, when they heard the gospel preached, the Holy Ghost did visibly, and apparently, and instantly fall down upon them. And now he falls upon them so as to turn their hearts, and to enable them to see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is more than falling down upon men in extraordinary gifts, simply considered, if there were nothing else. For to have the Holy Ghost to fall upon a man so as to dwell in him for ever, to take possession of his heart, and to bring him to glory, is more than to have extraordinary gifts, which many had who never were saved. Now it is the gospel only which helps you to the Holy Ghost, and not the law. What saith the apostle in Gal. iii. 2, This only I would learn of you, Eeceived ye the Spirit by the work of the law, or by the hearing of faith ? No ; it was only by the hearing of faith, only by the hearing of the doctrine of the gospel, that is, the doctrine bf faith, for that is meant by faith there, as in many other places of Scrip ture. The law indeed, as the apostle saith, Eom. vii., is holy and spiritual, but it is not the conveyer of the Spirit ; though it be a spiritual thing, it is but a spiritual letter, saith he, it is not the ministration of the Spirit itself, but so is the gospel. Now as the gospel only conveyeth the Holy Ghost to men, and the know ledge of it, so the receiving of the Holy Ghost is to receive all glory. For the Holy Ghost will never rest till he hath glorified you fully and per fectly. As Jesus Christ s work was to redeem you, so the Holy Ghost s work is to work all grace and glory into you ; therefore when you receive the Holy Ghost you receive all glory in the seed and foundation of it. It is the foundation of our union with Christ; they that are joined to the

Lord are one spirit ; it is by the Holy Ghost. To give you an express

The Spirit of glory shall rest upon you. And the giving of this Spirit of the Holy Ghost unto you is more than all scripture for it, 1 Pet. iv. 14, grace and glory that ever you shall have. If you would ask now what is the substantial glory of a man, that is the foundation of all his parts and wit, and makes him capable of the glory the world puts upon him, without which he would lose all in an instant, what is it? It is his soul that dwelleth in his body ; take that away and he is a beast ; nay, take that away and he is a dead carcase, he is sown in dishonour instantly as soon as that is gone. Therefore, in Gen. xlix., the soul of man is called his glory, Into his secret, saith he, let not my glory enter. Now look, what the soul is to a man, that is the Holy Ghost to a holy man. He is the founda tion of all glory, of all grace. When he hath given you the Spirit, he hath given you all the grace and glory in the foundation that ever you shall have, for he will never leave you till he hath wrought you up to glory ; and the gift of him is the earnest of glory ; so he is called expressly in 2 Cor. v. 5. Jesus Christ is the glory of the Lord to you objectively, but the Holy Ghost is all grace and glory efficiently, yea in heaven ; and when you receive him, you receive glory, because you receive a Spirit that will never rest till he hath made you glorious ; and this Spirit you receive by the gospel, and by nothing else, by no knowledge else, either of the law or whatever else. Hence therefore the gospel that communicateth this is called a glorious gospel, in respect of what it ministereth ; for, saith he, if the ministration of the letter was glorious, which did give nothing else but the literal knowledge of the law in men s heads, then the ministration of the Spirit is much more glorious. That is the first thing the apostle saith. The second thing the apostle saith here in this 2 Cor. iii. is, in respect of a righteousness which the gospel doth convey. You shall find it at the 9th verse of that chapter, If the ministration of condemnation be glorious, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. By righteousness here he means the righteousness of justification clearly. Why ? Because he doth oppose it to condemnation. He doth not mean the righteousness of sanctification ; no, he means the righteousness where by we are justified, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why, saith he, what doth the law do ? Alas, saith he, the law, although it be a glorious thing, for it reveals the image and mind of God, yet it doth but shew you your own unrighteousness, and leaveth you where it found you. A man sees his own face as in a glass, and soon forgets what image he had, sees his spots and deformity, and sees the sentence of death written in his own countenance, and in the threatenings of the law. He sees himself look like a dead man, guilty of death, and that is all the law holds forth.

But, saith he, the gospel is the ministration of righteousness, and that righteousness is glorious, and therefore the gospel is such which ministereth it ; for that is the thing he aims at. Will you know what righteousness it is ? Why it is the righteousness of Christ ; and in the last verse of that 3d chapter of the Corinthians, that righteousness of Christ is called his glory clearly ; We behold, saith he, as in a glass the glory of the Lord. As he means the personal glory of Christ, so he also means his holiness and righteousness for justification. How prove you that ? Because it is that into which we are changed into the same image by beholding it. For whilst a man eyes Christ to be justi fied by him, look what righteousness he lays hold upon by faith, the image of that righteousness is wrought in his heart. And therefore the apostle

328 A DISCOUKSE OF THE [CHAP. VI. here speaks in a more special manner of the righteousness of Christ, which the gospel is the ministration of; it is a ministration of righteousness, and of the glory of the Lord, saith he. Now then do but think what a glorious righteousness the gospel reveals and offers to men. It is the righteousness of Christ, and the righteous ness of Christ must needs be glorious. Why ? He is the Lord of glory. The righteousness of the angels is not glorious in this respect, They are glorious creatures, but they are not lords of glory. When you speak of the will of a king, what do you call it ? His royal pleasure. If you speak of a message he sendeth, what is it ? A gracious message, be it what it will be. Why ? Because you put these titles upon his person, therefore you put the same upon whatsoever he doth or thinketh. This is the manner of men. My brethren, Jesus Christ is the Lord of glory. Did he work upon a trade as a carpenter ? It was a glorious action, it was a glorious part of that righteousness which he performed in obedience to his Father ; for he was the Lord of glory, and therefore I say his righteousness is called, The glory of the Lord. But besides this, it is glorious also in another respect, viz., because he, to perform this righteousness, and in performing of it, laid all his glory down, and therefore it is as much worth as the glory he left. His death is valued at the rate that the life which he might have led in heaven is worth.

They crucified the Lord of life, saith he. And the obedience he per formed hath the value and the stamp upon it of that glory he might have had. He was equal with the Father in glory, and in all things else ; and he emptied himself of it all, laid it all aside, and took upon him the form of a servant, and became obedient even to the death. His righteousness is therefore a glorious righteousness, because it is to be valued by that glory he laid aside, and might have had, to perform it ; so much as he forewent to do it, so much it is to be valued at. God the Father was s nsible of it. Father, saith he, glorify me, as I have glorified thee on earth ! I will give you one scripture more for it, it is in John i. 14, We saw his glory, as the glory of the only begotten Son of God. What was that glory? In a special manner his grace and, holiness. How do you prove that ? It follows in the text, Full of grace and truth. Now, my brethren, it is the gospel that doth communicate to sinners, to men con demned to die everlastingly of themselves in hell, all this righteousness of the Lord of glory makes it theirs. If they get but this righteousness upon their backs, what glorious creatures, think you, must they be ! Yet it is the gospel that communicateth it to them, and puts it on, through the Holy Ghost by faith, as the apostle in Gal. v. 5, We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. In Rev. xii. 1, you have a woman clothed with the sun. Is not here a glorious clothing ? What is that sun ? It is the Sun of righteousness ; it is the Lord made our righteous ness ; it is the Lord Jesus Christ and his glory ; it is his righteousness which a man is clothed withal. Is not this a glorious gospel then, that doth not only shew you the glory of this Sun, but wrappeth you about with the beams of it, clotheth you with it ? The angels are poor, beggarly creatures, that is the truth of it, as we may so speak, to* a poor sinner clothed with this righteousness. The text saith, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like to the lilies of the field ; so the angels in heaven, in all their glory, are not clothed like one sinner here upon earth, that is clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This Sun of righteousness was never * That is, in comparison with. ED.

put upon their backs, not to be righteousness to them. He is a means of conveying grace and good to them, but to be the Lord our righteousness, so he is only to sinners ; and thus he is only revealed and communicated in the gospel. What is it that makes you glorious in God s eyes ? It is not your own inherent grace, in any comparison; it vanisheth, it is nothing. No ; it is your being clothed with Christ, with this Sun, this is it which makes the foulest creature, an ugly toad (for so a sinner is of himself), thus glorious in the eyes of God. A wife shineth with her husband s beams, and so doth every believer with the righteousness of Christ. As the moon shineth with a borrowed light that the sun clotheth her with ; and her own entire light, without that of the sun s (as you see it in an eclipse), it looks like the bottom of red brass, such is your own inherent righteousness if Jesus Christ take his away from you. But take the moon out of an eclipse, when she is clothed with the light of the sun, what a glorious creature is she ! So is every believer when he is clothed with this Sun of righteousness.

Thirdly, When a soul is thus, by means of the gospel, clothed with his glorious righteousness, which the gospel revealeth, he is able, with open face, to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Whenas Moses his face did shine, which was a type of the law, they could not behold the glory of it, there was a terror in it ; it was the glory of a judge condemning which did shine in Moses, for he had the law in his hands. But when the Holy Ghost hath once communicated to you, and you come by faith to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and appear before God, then you dare (as the text saith) with open face behold and look God in the face. Why ? Because you behold the glorious mercy and favour of God in the face of Jesus Christ, which is called the light of his countenance, that is lift up upon you too ; that as the favour of a man is seen in his looks, shines more there than in all other parts of his body, so is the glory and the mercy of God, it is seen in his face, even in the face of Christ. Therefore in Psalm xc. 16, the favour of God is called his glory: Let thy glory, saith he, be upon thy servants. This the gospel revealeth to you ; you behold the glory of God, that is, his favour, in the face of Jesus Christ.

Fourthly, The gospel doth not only thus convey the Holy Ghost to you, to dwell in you for ever, clotheth you with this righteousness, enableth you with open face to behold God and the more glorious God is, when you see him nothing but love and favour, you will never be dazzled with that sight ; that is the reason you are not terrified, because all his attributes appear in love ; God is love, saith the apostle I say the gospel doth not only do all this, but it changeth you into the same image, from glory to glory ; so saith the last verse of that third chapter. You might look in the law long enough, even look your eyes out, and never be changed. In the law you may see your spots, but you go away as full of corruption as you were before. You may there see and read your own destiny, and read your own duty, but it will not change you one whit. A man beholdeth his natural face in a glass, saith James, and goes his way, and straight way forgetteth what manner of man he was. If it have an impression in his memory, that is all ; but, saith the apostle, we in this glass of the gospel behold the glory of the Lord, and are thereby changed into the same image. If that an ugly and deformed woman or man could have a glass that if they see but a beautiful person in it, they should be changed into the same image, what would they give for it ? My brethren, this doth the gospel do.

380 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VI.

But you will say, If it doth change me into the same image, is that image glory too ? Yes, so it followeth, We are changed into the same image, from glory to glory ; that is, from one degree of grace to another.

All the grace the gospel works in you is glorious, for it is the image of Christ, in whom shineth the glory of God. And therefore in Eph. v. 26 the apostle, there speaking of sanctification (for to me it is clear he speaks of it, both by the words before and after), he saith that he hath cleansed us and washed us with water by the word, that he might present us to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle ; for when he hath done (he speaks of what he will do at the latter day, when he hath fully sanc tified us), he will present us to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that we should be holy and without blemish. I quote it for this, that every degree of grace is glory, and when that is filled up, there is a glory in it which Jesus Christ reckoneth such, * He shall greatly is pleased to look upon as such, for it is his image. delight in thy beauty, saith he, Psalm xlv. What is that beauty ? She is all glorious within ; so it follows there in that Psalm. And, my brethren, let me tell you this, so far you are changed into his image, that you never look upon him in the glass of the gospel, but you go away with some further degree of holiness wrought in you, if you see him really as in a glass. You may come to a sermon and hear notions indeed, but if you get a real sight of Christ, you will be changed ; and, I say, so far as we see him, so far we are changed. Here we seeing of him but as in a glass, in his holiness, and in his righteousness, as he is described in the gospel, how he walked while he was here below (for so the gospel represents him), we are changed into the same image, into the same image of holiness and righteousness, from one degree to another. But now, at the latter day, when he shall appear, we shall then be changed into his image too, for we shall see him as he is ; and when we see him as he is, we shall be as he is, in his glory in heaven.

I will add but one more ; it doth not only change us into a glorious image, which is called glory, but it doth work also in the hearts of believers a joy that is glorious. And this, although it be but the hope of glory, yet that hope of glory works a glorious joy in the hearts of the people of God. It is a known place that in 1 Pet. i. 8, Whom having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeak able and full of glory. Whom having not seen, that is, face to face, but having seen him in that glass of the gospel for to the sight of things in a glass is the sight of Christ in the gospel compared, even the sight of faith yet because it is not seeing him face to face, the apostle saith, Whom having not seen, &c.

It is not every act of faith that works this joy, but faith may be so ele vated as it will work and bring in joy unspeakable and full of glory. That phrase is it I quote it for. It is called unspeakable, because it ex ceeds the sense and the understanding ; that is, the understanding cannot naturally take in such joy, or apprehend what it should be ; as in Philip, iv. 7, The peace of God is said to pass all understanding. The plea sures of the senses are great, but the pleasures of the understanding are far greater ; but, saith he, this is a peace, and this is a joy, that passeth

when they saw the Lord all understanding. We read in John xx. 20, that they rejoiced ; so when a believer, though but by faith, seeth the Lord Jesus Christ, though but in this glass, and that but darkly, hath but a glimpse of him, yet it begets a joy which is unspeakable. And it is not

only said to be unspeakable, but to be glorious. All the joys in this world are mean things, things that men shall be .ashamed of, but this, saith he, is a magnific joy. True joy is a solid thing, but you see the apostle riseth higher ; it is, saith he, full of glory ; or, as the word implies, it is dipped, it is steeped, in glory. Now, I say, it is not always thus, that whensoever any one seeth Christ by faith, that this joy is wrought ; but it is by faith though, that is, faith elevated, yet so as it is but a sight of Christ in the gospel, and that by faith, whenever it is wrought. It doth not, I say, always accompany an act of faith, that is plain and clear from the next words, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. You see here that joy unspeakable and glorious, which God sometimes works in the hearts of his people, is called the end, the reward of their faith (for so in Prov. xvi. 25 the word end there signifies reward) ; and the meaning is this, that when a man hath a long while believed and glorified God by a way of sheer faith of recumbency, then God doth reward him, gives him a reward of his faith by giving him joy unspeakable and glorious, which is called the salvation of the soul. And that that is the meaning of * receiving ; he it is plain by this, because he speaks in the present tense, * receiving the reward of your faith, the saith not, ye shall receive, but salvation of your souls. And if you mark it, it is called likewise the sal vation of your souls. Now, the reward which we shall receive at the latter day, will be the salvation both of soul and body ; and of that the apostle speaks in Eom. viii. 23, which he saith there we wait for. But there is a salvation of the soul which a man receiveth now, and therefore in the 24th verse of that Romans viii. he saith, We are saved by hope, by hope of * By grace ye are saved. Now, then, our eyes beholding this salvation of the Lord, having the evi dence of it, the soul is filled with it, it is saved, it receiveth the reward of that glory at present. And so in Eph. ii. 8, its faith, the salvation of the soul. And thus, my brethren, it is full of glory, the least dram of it is like elixir, it expelleth all trouble. We re joice, saith the apostle in Rom. viii., in the hope of the glory of God.

It exceeds and weigheth down all the good things here. And this the gospel communicateth to us.

I will mention no more particulars whereby the glory of this gospel is held forth to us, but proceed to the next particle, passing by such uses as I might make of what I have said of this glory.

That which is next to be considered is, that the glory of this mystery shines among the Gentiles. There is never a word but it doth hold forth something of the excellency of this gospel. You know I have made a com parison of this gospel with the law, and shewed you how the law had a glory in it, which yet was no glory in comparison of that which the gospel hath, which I have opened in divers particulars. Let us now compare the law and the gospel together in another respect also. When God did give the law, he gave it but to one nation, the Jews, whose land was no bigger than the dominion of Wales. Ps. cxlvii. 19, He shewed his word unto

Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel, but he hath not dealt so with any nation ; and as for his judgments they have not known them. But now, what saith the apostle ? He did keep from ages and from gene rations a further glorious mystery to be made known among the Gentiles, that is, to all nations. You have a place in Num. xiv. 21 (that I may speak coherently to the point of glory, the gospel is a glorious gospel, and it is glorious in this respect), when the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord, against the law that was newly given, God doth at Moses his

332 A DISCOUBSE OF THE [ClIAP. VI.

entreaty pardon them for the present

: I will pardon them according to

all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. I know that many interpreters do interpret this to be meant thus, that God would take a course, that his justice in punishing of this people should be known to all the world, and so he would fill the whole earth with his glory. But I take it (and I shall give you Scripture for it) that he here makes known and manifest his own counsels of his one thy word, but as truly as I live, saith he, day rejecting of the Jews, to the end he might provoke them to jealousy, as the apostle saith, he having given them a law, and they sinning thus against it ; well, saith he, I will not contain myself within this nation, but I have a glory which I will fill all the earth withal ; and that indeed is the knowledge of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I shall give you a scrip ture for this interpretation ; it is in Is. vi. 3. For there the phrase of fill ing the earth with his glory is again used, and nowhere else that I know of in the whole Scripture, answering to that phrase that God had used in that place of Numbers afore-mentioned. Now, whenas it is said here in Isaiah, the whole earth is full of his glory, what do you think is spoken of? Why, it is Jesus Christ revealed sitting upon his throne, with his train filling the temple, hardening the hearts of the Jews, and giving commission to his apostles to go and preach to all nations. How is that manifest ? Look in John xii. 40, where Christ himself quoteth this very chapter in Isaiah, ver. 10 and 11. Go and tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. And upon that follows their casting

Then said I, Lord, how long ? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be off, utterly desolate. But is this spoken of Christ ? Yes ; read John xii. 40.

He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, and be converted, and I should heal them; these things (saith he) said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. Here is plainly, in this prophecy of Isaiah, the oath fulfilled that God sware in that place of Numbers. And God swears it in that sense (as I said even now) that Paul speaks in Rom. xi. ; when he lays open the riches of the gospel, he says he did it that he might provoke to emulation them which were of his own nation ; so doth God here. Have they indeed sinned thus against my law, which also typically holds forth Christ ? Well, though I pardon them for the present, yet I have a glory beyond all this, which I will fill the earth with, when I send my Son into the world, and which I have reserved for the Gentiles and for all nations. And therefore this gospel must needs be infinitely more glo rious than the law, God now breaking up his treasures, and fulfilling his oath, to provoke the Jews if possible unto jealousy. He reserved some better things for us, as the phrase is, Heb. xi. 40. And as he reserved a greater glory for us than that of the law, so, to speak to the other property (for the gospel is called both rich and glorious), he reserved a greater treasury of riches whenas he would break open his mind to the Gentiles. You have it under these very terms expressed in Eph. iii. 8, 9, To me is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, &c. When all men, all sorts of men, were to see it, and God meant to communicate it to the world, then he brings

CHAP. YII.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 333 forth bis riches, the unsearchable riches of Christ, which had been hid, as it is here, * from all ages and generations. So that now this particle in this text, among the Gentiles, it is not idle, it hath an emphasis in it, it hath this emphasis in it, that God did reserve the fulness of his glory, and the riches of Christ, till such time as all the world was to come in. He would have all the world to be specta tors, and he would have all men know what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles ; and therefore, I say, he reserved the revelation of it till then. And so much now for that particle. I shall only here, as the coronis of all, spread before you this great truth which concerns us : that though God s primary aim in giving the gospel is to make it known to his saints, yet because the elect of nations in the succession of ages are infinitely numerous, and none knows where this inhe ritance will fall, or upon whose posterity, therefore the gift of the gospel unto the several nations of the Gentiles was, and is, indefinitely bequeathed to the Gentiles by God as a national endowment, as a national inheritance to every nation it takes place in. It is not to be judged given to the saints of a present age that enjoy it, but indefinitely to the whole lump of a nation, even as you call the proper native commodity of a nation a staple commodity to the nation. Although every man in that nation trades not in it, yet it is national as proper to that nation, as benefiting the nation, and no man is excluded from traffic in it. Because in process of time none knows upon whom in that nation it may fall ; therefore every nation is to look upon it as a national interest and concernment.

CHAPTEE VII.

How it is the glory of the gospel, that Christ is not only revealed in it, but Christ so known by the believer is in him.

Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. COL. I. 27.

The apostle, in the former words, having laid open the glory and excel lency of the gospel, the riches of the glory, saith he, of this mystery among the Gentiles, he closeth up all that he had said of it with this short appli cation, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He doth not only hold forth Jesus Christ as the subject of the gospel (and yet the highest glory the gospel hath is that Christ is the subject of it) ; he doth not content himself to say the riches of which mystery is Christ, as he saith afterwards, * the mystery of God, and of the chap. ii. 3, where he calls the gospel

Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ; but he addeth, which is Christ in you. How excellent the gospel is, because Christ is the subject of it, I have partly shewn you all

which is Christ in you ; and what is the apostle s meaning thereby. In the first place, I take it, the apostle brings this in here by way of along ; I shall therefore now shew you why this cometh in here, application, for their comfort. When he had shewn them all these glories which the gospel holds forth, by holding forth of Christ, he tells them, this Christ is in you if you be saints ; he is your Christ, by whom you have possession of all these riches, and that in so intimate a manner, that they are not only without you, but you have them all within you by having

884 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VII.

Christ, which is Christ in you, saith he, and with this addition, the hope of glory, of a greater glory than yet you have received. And when he saith, which is Christ in you, the least of his meaning, if at all, is that the image of Christ is in them, as some would have it. Though

we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, yet I know no place where the image of Christ is called Christ, or Christ in us. There are many places where the image of God is said to be in Christ, but nowhere the image of Christ is called Christ. He that is in Christ is a new creature ; and in Jesus Christ there is neither bond nor free, but the new creature ; and we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works ; so the apostle still expresseth himself. There is one place indeed which hath a seeming show of it, that Christ in us should be put for the image of Christ in us, and that is that in Gal. iv. 19, That Christ may be again formed i.n you ; but that is not the meaning of that place, as I shall shew anon. However, it cannot be the meaning here, at leastwise not the only mean ing, for it is too narrow, too poor a thing, that after he had spoken such great and glorious things of the gospel of Christ, he should go and contract all the riches and glory of it to the new creature which is in us, to the image of Christ in us ; no, it is Christ personally, Christ himself certainly that is here meant, I shall as briefly as I can give you all the interpretations of this clause that have fallen into my thoughts. My scope is not to go and handle how many ways Christ is in you, but in relation to the context, to the coherence, to the gospel which he had commended before.

First, Therefore, Christ in you implies that that knowledge which they had of the Lord Jesus Christ, take the object of that knowledge, it is Christ. I appeal, saith he, to your own consciences, you Colossians that have taken in the gospel as you have done, taken in Christ, in the know ledge of him, whether yea or no, there is not abundance both of riches and glory hath been manifested to you concerning Jesus Christ ; and this know ledge which you have of Christ here in this life begotten by the gospel, I appeal to you, whether it be not the greatest evidence of a future glory. It is impossible it should rest here, but as this Christ, in whom you know so much riches of glory, is now in you the hope of glory, so when you come to be with him for ever, do but think what a glory you will be filled withal then. I take this, I say, to be the first part of the meaning, that it is Christ in you, objective. And this is to me clearly one part of his scope, for he speaks in respect of the gospel revealing Christ to them, whereby they behold the glory of Christ, which gives them hope of that glory after wards with him.

That which must make good this interpretation is this, that the know ledge which the saints have of Jesus Christ is called Christ, and Christ in you. I told you before that the gospel is compared to a glass, and it is called the gospel of Christ, because it representeth him ; and the doctrine of the gospel is ordinarily and familiarly called Christ in the Scripture. Now that knowledge, that representation which is taken from Christ him self in the gospel, by the eye and faith of a believer, is called Christ in him. And as the gospel itself, being the glass of Christ, is called Christ, so the sight of Christ, that image of Christ (I call it now image, as being an objec tive image, as I may so express it, not subjective, the grace that is in you, but), that knowledge that is in you of him, taken from himself in the gospel, which a believer hath, is called Christ in him. In Gal. i. 16, Paul, speak ing there of the revelation of the gospel to him, at the 12th verse, saith,

CHAP. VII.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL

I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ ; Christ himself revealed it ; now at the 16th verse he saith, It pleased God to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen. The knowledge that he had of Jesus Christ by reve lation in the 12th verse is called in the 16th verse the revealing of Christ in him ; mark the expression ; and it is the revealing of Christ in him, that he might preach him to others. God gave him an intimate knowledge of Christ in his own heart, the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ did shine in his heart, that so he might preach it unto others ; and therefore when he saith, He revealed his Son in me, it is all one as if he had said, He revealed the gospel, for it was that he might preach the gospel. And he speaks not only of an experimental knowledge ; I mean, that is not all the purport of it, that he had experience of it, and what it wrought, for that he might have had without revelation. Neither doth he mean only that the image of Christ was in him, and that God revealed his Son in him by enabling him to walk as Christ walked, for it was not the image of Christ only which he preached, but it was Christ himself. There fore now it is the gospel, and the knowledge of Christ in the gospel, that is called the revealing of his Son in him ; and it is said to be revealed in him, because he had it immediately; that is the reason why it is said so here of Paul, in opposition to other apostles.

There is another place that I shall give you for this, and that is Gal.

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you. They had not lost the image of Christ in respect of sanctiiv. 19, fication in their hearts, for certainly they were men that were holy, but the truth was this, they had been diverted from the knowledge of Christ which at first they had received, they were diverted to another gospel, as he saith, chap, i., and so to another Christ; Moses had been formed in them. Ho doth not say, until you are formed in Christ, but until Christ be formed in you. He cannot mean the person of Christ dwelling in them. Why ? Because that is not formed, that was formed in the womb of the virgin, and now is glorious in heaven ; therefore it must be the right notion and appre hension of Christ in the gospel that he meaneth. It is as if he had said, till you be fully evangelised ; and as both Piscator and Pareus interpret it, till you be fully restored to your former true knowledge of Christ ; now you are full of Moses, he is formed in you ; that appears by the 21st verse, for there were some amongst them that were so full of the law, that there was nothing but law almost in them ; now in opposition to this, saith he, I long till such time as Christ be formed in you, till there be a complete knowledge of Christ, according to the nature and genius of the gospel be gotten in you. And this is called Christ. Now, why should the knowledge of Christ in the gospel be called Christ in us, speaking of spiritual knowledge ?

1. The reason is clearly this, there is no knowledge else in the world can be called the thing that is known.

2. I shall shew you that Christ as thus revealed in the soul may truly be called Christ. There is no knowledge else in the world can be termed the thing that is known. When a man hath the species or image of an horse or man in his mind, or the thought thereof, you cannot call that image a man or a horse, because all natural knowledge is but a mere phantasm ; but the knowledge of Jesus Christ in the heart of a Christian is Christ in him. Why ? Because that faith which we know Christ by doth give a being, a reality, and a subsistence to the thing that is known. I

836 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VII.

Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord ; and I shall enlarge upon it now, that you may still see how one thing follows another. In Heb. xi. 1, faith is there called liypostasis, that which doth give a subsistence to the things hoped for ; so as indeed in the beholding of Christ, and by beholding of mentioned it upon another occasion, in opening that place, Christ, he is in me, there is a reality, a subsistence to me of him. To open and explain this to you a little, the difference of the spiritual knowledge of Christ, and of all natural knowledge whatsoever, I shall give it you as briefly and as plainly as I can. You must know this, and you do know it, for you feel it within yourselves, that God hath annexed to the understand ing of a man a fancy, which we call phantasia, I speak it in opposition to that other phrase in the Hebrews, where faith is called hypostmis. Now the other word, phantasia, corneth from phanos and stasia, it sheweth its office, for it makes things absent from the mind to appear, and yet but to appear ; it doth not give a subsistence to them, it is but phanos stasia. Think where you will of any thing ; if you hear a story told you of a thing done at Rome in a church, of such a person, or the like, your mind will be thinking of a church, or framing the image of some person of whom the story is told, though you were never there. This is natural to the mind of man to do it. This is the work of the fancy, which is annexed and joined to the understanding of man in his natural knowledge. And the reason why God did annex to the understanding of man that faculty of the fancy, which makes things which the understanding would understand appear to it (for so the word implies), is because the mind of man would still behold something ; and because the thing is not present itself, hence therefore God hath made the fancy to give an appearance, still to feed the mind with a view of the thing it would understand, and so the mind is supported in the understanding of what it doth understand by the assistance of the fancy. Now the Lord having prepared for his people and children spiritual objects of another world, himself and Christ ; alas, the fancy is not able to take in the image of himself and of Christ ; it will not serve the understanding to any other knowledge of him than merely notional or literal, hence therefore he hath put in that grace of faith, which is not phantasia to the understand ing, but it is liyiwstasis, so the word is, Heb. xi. 1. It doth not give an appearance, but a real subsistence to the things the mind would know ; and as the fancy helpeth natural knowledge in the understanding of natural things, so doth faith spiritual knowledge, and indeed is all one with it. And hence therefore the beholding of Christ, and of the glory of God by a believer, is not by way of fancy merely, but it is by way of subsistence ; the heart findeth a reality in what it believeth, and it hath so great an impres sion, as it changeth the heart into the same image, which all the fancies of natural knowledge in the world will never do. And, my brethren, this is plainly Jesus Christ in you, in one sense ; and therefore now we find in Eph. iii. 17, that Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by faith ; for faith hath, by the help of the Holy Ghost, that sight of him that makes him real to a man s soul. As now how doth the sun dwell in the eye, or in a house ? The sun is in the heavens ; so is Jesus Christ, as Acts iii. hath it, the heavens must receive him, until the times of restitution of all things ; and yet he is in the heart of a Christian, Christ in you, saith the apostle. How comes this to pass ? Why, look as though the sun is in heaven ; if it shine into the eye, it dwells there, for there is the real image of the sun begotten in the eye ; and as it is said to be in the house, when it comes in with its beams and its light, which if a man put his eye to he may see the

sun ; so is it here, there is the light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, that shines into the heart. And I say, this is the first thing that is here intended, when he saith, * which is Christ in you ; he doth appeal to those that had known Christ in the gospel, if there were not an unsearchable riches of glory, a vast glory in him, even so far as they had known him, which did give them a hope of infinite glory yet to come, though this knowledge was yet imperfect, and therefore was ordained to be built up in the world to come ; for (as I hope to make plain and clear to you) there is nothing is a greater evidence of a hope of glory to come in heaven, than that knowledge we have now of so great a glory in Jesus

Christ. Jesus Christ in us now is an imperfect thing, and yet hath so much riches and glory in the sight of him, as gives us a certain hope that there is a perfection of it to be one day. So you have it in 1 Cor. xiii. 12, * Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; now we know but in part ; it is an imperfection which must be built up ; but, saith he, * then shall we know, even as we are known. So now that is the first meaning of this phrase, why it is that he having spoken of the riches of the glory of the gospel in itself afore, addeth, which is Christ in you ; that is, that knowledge which the gospel hath begotten of Jesus Christ in you, I appeal to you how rich and glorious it is, though you do not see all of it, and it doth give you a hope of a future glory to come.

Now to cast in other additional imports, which will come in and stand with this, and help to fill up the meaning of it.

Christ in you; that is (he speaks still by way of applica tion to them for their comfort), this is for your comfort, that whatsoever

Secondly, It is glory, and whatsoever riches of Jesus Christ the gospel lays open, it is all yours, it is all in you, and for you. Which riches of glory, and which mystery, and all, is Christ in you, and in you the hope of a further glory. When Marcion the heretic had wrote a gospel, as the rest of the evangelists had done, said an orthodox Christian of him, it is my Christ that is in your gospel ; implying, that he had no part in him, though he had written so of him. But all that this gospel saith of Christ is your Christ, it is Christ in * All is yours, for ye are Christ s, and Christ is God s. The gospel (saith he) which I commend to you, it doth not only tell you of riches and glory, it doth not only talk of it as other stories do, but it makes all this yours ; you; as the apostle saith, 1 Cor. iii. 23, * The riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which riches is Christ in you, Christ made yours. It is a deep phrase this, and it imports the possession that a Christian hath of Christ, and of all riches of glory in him.

I shall open, as parallel to my text, another scripture, Col. iii. 11, Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision ; Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free : but Christ is all and in all. His scope is this, as Bollock hath well observed upon the place, that all outward external privi leges, belonging to the new creature, were nothing at all valued by him ; it is not the privilege of any nation that is so much to be considered, * it is neither Greek nor Jew. It is not the privilege of any profession of religion, that a man is of this opinion, or of that therefore, saith he, opinion, that he is circumcised or uncircumcised. It is not the privilege of tongues, or learning, or wit, * neither Greek nor Barbarian. The Greeks were a wise and learned people, the Barbarians rude, but men of spirit, as the Turkish nation now. It is not riches or honour, or any external con dition, that is valued by the _ew creature, there is neither bond nor free, eaith he. But then what hath the new creature, that undervalueth all these VOL. iv. Y

338 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VII. privileges, in lieu of them ? He hath Christ, -who is all in himself, and is in all. He doth not only say, that Jesus Christ alone is all, the meaning whereof is this : Go take the old man, though it hath a thousand things to make it happy, yet it hath not one thing alone that is instead of all to make it happy, but it hath several thousand things that must always go to make a creature happy ; but saith he, one Jesus Christ doth it, Jesus Christ is all. But that I note it for is this, to remark the phrase in all; he is not only said to be all unto all, but he is all in them all, He is all, and in all, saith the apostle. He puts an emphasis upon it by way of difference from all outward things whatsoever. He is not only instead of all to Christians, but he is all in all Christians, and in every Christian. He is all in them, that is, they may find Jesus Christ in themselves to be that to them which all things else are. As for example, go take a king, or any great person in the world, though he hath all things that this world can afford him, yet all these things are but all to him ; they are not all in him, for all that goes to make them comfortable are out of himself : honour is out of himself, riches out of himself, dainty fare and beauty all out of himself, the wisdom he hath, indeed, that is in himself. But now take a Christian, as Jesus Christ is all things to him, so Jesus Christ is in him. All other things and a man may be severed, because they are but all to a man, but if all things were all in a man, a man could never be but completely happy. But so it is here, which is Christ in you. He is not only all to you, but all in you ; go whither you will go, you carry him about with you, that is all to you. And so now, that is a second thing which this phrase importeth, why the apostle addeth it here ; saith he, if you have Christ in you, you carry about with you, wherever you go, him that is all to you ; come what will to you, you can never be parted from this Christ, for he is in you. He is Christ in you, all these riches, and the hope of glory likewise.

Again, this phrase, which is Christ in you, Jis thus added upon the commendation of the gospel ; because, when a man comes fully to know the gospel, the more still he knows of the gospel and of Jesus Christ savingly, the more he comes to be nothing else in himself, and to himself, but Christ. My meaning is this : take a man that hath his spirit evange lised (as the Scripture phrase is), that is, that is gospelised, the more his spirit takes the gospel in, the more all he is, and all he hath, and all he doth, becomes to him nothing but Christ. Let the gospel have its full and perfect work, and Jesus Christ full admission into your hearts by faith, if he be fully formed in you, you shall see neither law nor nothing else in comparison of Christ, he will swallow up all ; that though other things be in you, the law is written in your hearts, and the image of Christ is in you, yea, but Christ is all ; Christ in you, saith the apostle, all things are turned into Christ, and he gives the glory of all to Christ, all is Christ in * I live, saith the apostle, and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, Gal. ii. 20. He doth not only say, he lived a life to Christ, as you have it you. in 2 Cor. v. 15, that we should not live to ourselves, but to him that died for us, but he saith, that Christ liveth in him. What life is it that is in the branch or in the buds ? It is the life of the root. So saith he, It is not I that live, I am but a branch, it is Christ that liveth in me. Jesus

Christ converteth the life of nature, the civil life, assimilateth all the actions of a Christian to himself, he liveth in him. When a man cometh to be perfectly evangelised, it is Christ in him. Even as the members of the body do live a reasonable life, but the reasonable life they live is merely from the head, it is the life of the head in the members. The tongue

talketh reason. Where hath the tongue that reason ? It is the life of the head in the tongue. That these dull members of ours live rationally, it is because they live the life of the reasonable soul. So now thus doth Jesus

Christ to me, he liveth in me ; it is not I that lives that spiritual life that I have in all that I do in matters of religion, it is Christ that liveth in me. He doth not only say that he liveth with Christ, as if Christ was the author of his life (and so it is, for I having had a life from him, I live with him), no ; but he is the author of my life, as he is the root of my life, and he liveth in me, rather than I live, as having had life from him. And his scope was to shew that he was dead to the law ; saith he, I can never be a Jew again while I live. Why ? Because I have received Christ into me, and there is a life of Christ in me, so that I can never return to my works, return to the law again. That is his scope in that coherence. And there fore, you know, he defineth one that is of the true circumcision, that he rejoiceth in the Lord Jesus Christ : Philip, iii. 3, And God forbid that I should rejoice in anything, saving in the cross of Christ; so Gal. vi. 14. Why ? If I live, it is Christ that liveth in me ; and if I die, to me to die is Jesus Christ, is gain ; if I act anything, it is not I, but the grace of Jesus

Christ in me ; if I have any strength, it is the strength of Christ, Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 Tim. ii. 1. If I be sanctified, it is not grace, so much as Christ, is made sanctification. The truth is, that as a man still grows up more and more gospelised in his spirit, so Jesus Christ is in him, and works out all things else, till there be nothing but Christ in him, melteth the soul into Christ as sugar is melted into wine. All a man s graces, whatsoever he doth, he turns it all into Christ, as it is all from Christ. As a beam is nothing if it be cut off from the sun, so there is nothing in what the soul is, or desireth to be, but so far forth as it is knit to Christ, and cometh from him, and is received from him. My brethren, I use to say that grace is nothing but a company of nothings, and a com pany of alls, as I may so express it to you. It makes the heart to be nothing in its own righteousness, but Jesus Christ to be all. It makes the heart to be nothing in its own abilities to do anything, but Jesus Christ to be all. It makes the heart to be nothing in its own ends, but to set up Jesus Christ in all. It makes the heart to be nothing, in respect of being accepted for anything in itself, but to be graciously accepted in the beloved, to be all in that respect. It brings the heart to be nothing in comfort, to I seek for nothing of comfort, but what is to be had in Christ, in the face of I Christ. It makes the heart to be nothing in valuation of itself, but Jesus i Christ to be all. These things indeed we all fall short of, but this will be your pitch, that there shall be nothing but Christ in you, not you in Christ, but Christ in you, if your spirits be truly and fully turned to the gospel, if * the riches of the they be evangelised. That you may know, saith he, I glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you.

Lastly, It may also come in here by way of special instance, to shew

Ithat that union which Jesus Christ hath with the saints, and in the saints, whereby he and they are all one, and by which all the glory he hath, and riches in him, are made theirs ; that that union, I say, of Jesus Christ and * Christ in them, is one great and eminent mystery of the gospel, and the greatest hope of glory. There are, saith he, a world of glorious riches and mysteries in the gospel, but I will give you one instance, which his saints, of all other is the greatest, or at least the comfortablest to you, and that is jthis, that Christ and you are one, that Jesus Christ is in you, and so the "lope of glory. So that he speaks, I say, of the union that is between Jesus

340 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VII.

Christ and believers, as of all other the greatest and the richest mystery, at least the most comfortable unto us which the gospel holds forth, and is the foundation of all glory and of all grace, it is the hope of glory. He instanceth, I say, in that, both because it so much concerned them, and their comfort by way of application ; and also, because in itself it is one of the greatest mysteries, and a thing of the greatest moment for believers to know.

First, It is one of the greatest mysteries of the gospel. I observe this, that all divines, when they come to speak of the union that we have with Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ with us, they do generally make this apology, if they handle it anything largely, that of all others it is one of the greatest mjsteries. Still, I say, they make that apology, that great is the mystery of our union with Christ, and Christ with us. There fore the apostle might well, in the close of all, say, by way of one instance of the greatness of this mystery, which is Christ in you. There are two things in the New Testament which the Holy Ghost doth put an emphasis upon, and calleth them great mysteries, and they are two unions. The first is, the union of the human nature with the Godhead in the person of Christ, 1 Tim. iii. 16, Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. What is that mystery? God manifest in the flesh, that is, the Godhead was manifested in the human nature of Christ, uniting it to itself, and in that human nature shining gloriously as God. This thing, that God was made flesh, that the Son of God was made man, he saith, is a great mystery. The second great mystery is, that this Son of God made man should be united to a body of men, his church, his saints ; that Christ should be in them as God is in Christ ; and for that you have Eph. v. 32, This is a great mystery, saith he, having discoursed before of the union of Christ and his church under the representation of the first marriage of Adam and his wife in paradise, and so he interpreted himself; and saith he, I speak of Christ and his church, for the but there is not adversative, but explicative, that is, when I speak of a great mystery, I mean the union of Christ and his church. It was a mystery that that union should be infolded in Adam s marriage, and it is a great mystery in respect of the thing itself. To give you a scripture or two for this. The mystery of the union of Christ with his church is so great, that Christ himself parallels it, and setteth it out by the union which the God head had with him, and his union with the Father. So you have it in John vi. 56, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, he dwelleth in me, and I in him. Here is now the union between us and Christ, here is Christ in us. How doth he parallel this Tunion ? Read ver. 57, As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth

1 shall live by me. The scope is plainly this, All life, saith he, me, even he is by union with the fountain of life. I being united to my Father, who is the living Father, do live by my Father. He speaks of himself as he is sent, as he is man, as he took up a human nature. The living Father, saith he, hath sent me, and so knit and united me to himself, and to the Godhead, and as thus sent, I live by him ; and you, saith he, do live

because I live, you shall live also. Why ? Because, as it is John xiv. 20, I am in the Father, and you in by me, and (as he saith elsewhere) me, and I in you. That which I quote it for at this time is this, that he parallels our union, and the life we have by virtue of our union with him, wtih that union of his human nature with the Godhead, and with the Father.

And because I am fallen upon this place of John vi., I shall a little open it to you. You shall find that this is the great mystery that stumbled the world, yea, that stumbled his very disciples, many of them, so that they went and left him. In that chapter you have a sermon of his, in which he told them that they must, by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, come to be united to him, and whosoever did so was united to him. Now

Many of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This saith ver. 60, is a hard saying ; who can bear it ? It is a hard saying, for how can one believe it ? Nay, say they, it is an intolerable, an insufferable saying ; whose ears can bear it ? And they were disciples too, many of his dis ciples said. And the saying is not only the eating his flesh, but it is all his whole sermon about it, that he would dwell in them, and they should dwell in him, by eating of his flesh. Saith Christ, Doth this offend you ?

I will make the wonder yet greater ; ver. 62, What and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before ? He poseth them with a greater mystery, and that is the near union of the human nature with the divine, so near that he that is now on earth is also in heaven by com munion of properties, though all those that were reprobates did not see him ascend with bodily eyes, nor all the saints neither ; but I am gone, saith he, and when ye hear that I am gone to heaven, verily you will think then that there can be no union between me and those that believe in me, for there can be no eating of my flesh or drinking of my blood. If therefore you wonder at it now, how will you conceive of it when I am gone up to heaven ? But, saith he, I will solve the mystery to you, if you will under stand it ; It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. I have a Godhead in me, a divine nature (for that is meant by Spirit often, when Christ is spoken of, as, He was put to death in the flesh, that is, in his human nature, but quickened by the Spirit, that is, by his God head), I have, saith he, a Godhead dwelling in this human nature, though this flesh you cannot eat ; and though, if I have nothing else but flesh, I could not dwell in you, nor quicken you, nor give life to you, yet having a Spirit, a Godhead in me, it is that which quickeneth. And how doth he quicken ? And how doth he cause you to dwell in him, and himself in you ? Why, saith he, by the words which I speak unto you, while you by faith chew upon the word that describeth me, as I am the Saviour of the world, as I give my flesh for the salvation of the world, the Godhead that is in me, and the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in me, causeth me by faith to dwell in * The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit, and spiritually to be understood ; and saith he, they are life. There is a great question amongst divines, whether we are first united to the human nature of Christ, and by it to the Godhead, or immediately to the Godhead ? For my part, this place mightily helpeth me to resolve the question. It is the Spirit, saith he, that quickeneth, that is, the Godhead (now he had spoke of union before) ; and so by virtue of uniting to the Godhead of Christ, there is a quickening of us, and though we are united to whole Christ, yet to the Godhead first. you, and so to give you life ; for so it follows in that 68d verse

I shall give you another scripture that this is the great mystery of the gospel, it is in John xiv. 20 (a place I named afore, and did but name it). The greatest mystery that is in the gospel was reserved for the apostles to know it, when Jesus Christ ^hould be ascended, for then the Holy Ghost fell upon them, for to reveal to them the great and glorious things of the gospel. Now what eaith Christ there ?

* At that day, saith he, (namely, when the

842 A DISCOUESE OF THE [CHAP. VII.

Holy Ghost is come, for he had promised to send the Comforter in the words before) ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. These two are made parallels. The apostles had had their union with the Father and with Christ before now, they had it at this time when he spake unto them ; but saith he, then you shall know it, you shall under stand it, both experimentally in your own hearts, and you shall know the mystery of it, so as to teach it unto others ; for so the apostles did, they re ceived this knowledge by the Holy Ghost to communicate it to others. And this great mystery (which the apostles then did not so clearly understand, but should fully know it when they received the Holy Ghost) he reduceth, you see, to three heads, and all are matters of union, and indeed the one dependeth upon the other. First, saith he, you shall understand this great mystery, that there is an union between me and my Father, and the human nature and the Son of God, and so that I am one with him, and that is the foundation of all your comfort. This they understood not at first. lieve in God, believe also in me, saith he. Secondly, You shall know that as I am in my Father, so you are in me ; that is, that God the Father did from everlasting make me a public person for you, and I stood in your stead, and you all were in me, when I did whatsoever I did here upon the earth, and you are in me when I go to heaven ; it is an union representa tive between you and me. And thirdly, you shall know that I am in you, and you shall feel it ; and that is a communicative union, as I may so ex press it. And every one of these is the foundation of the other ; you shall find, saith he, that as the union of myself with the Father, and the union of the human nature with the Son of God, is the foundation of my being a public person for you, why I was able to die, and my death to be effectual, so you shall find the power and virtue of all these communicated to you by my being in you ; you shall be sensible of this union. This, I say, is the great mystery, which was reserved for the Holy Ghost to reveal unto the apostles themselves. And because that the comfort of all lies in this latter, to feel Christ is in me, for by that I climb up to the other, hence the apostle singleth it out, when he would hold forth and bring home to their hearts the riches of the glory of the gospel as theirs, and that Christ is theirs, and that they are one with the Father, and that Christ did represent them from everlasting, &c. He instanceth only in the latter, * which is Christ in you.

My brethren, this is so great a mystery, as that the angels do not know it as we do, for they are not united with so near an union to Jesus Christ as we are. As he took up our nature into a greater nearness with God, and did not take up the nature of angels, so he takes us up into a nearer union with himself, and so with God. It is a mystery indeed, that the angels stand and admire at ; * seen of angels, saith the apostle, and so it is ad mired by them, that Christ should be in us ; but they do not feel it as we do, and. therefore of all mysteries it is the greatest.

CHAP. VIII.] GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 313

CHAPTER VIII.

The glory of the gospel farther manifested, forasmuch as Christ, the great subject of it, is, in the work of God upon us, revealed in the soul.

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, <&c. Gal. I. 15, 16.

My designed subject is, the application of Christ to us, or, the appear ing of Christ in us. There is Christ in redemption, which work was wholly transacted out of us, between him and his Father. And the work thereof I have handled. But this is Christ in application, or as brought home to our hearts, which is as necessary for our salvation as that other of redemption.

You hear a great deal of talk of Christ within us. But as that talk runs, truly another Christ is meant thereby than that Christ, God-man, that Jesus who was crucified at Jerusalem. But, indeed, Christ within us is no other than that very same Jesus who was and is out of us ; and both one and the same, even Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, and manifested in us and to us.

Brethren, there is the work of election, which is the Father s ; there is the work of redemption: and both these wholly are performed without us. God was in Christ reconciling the world ; that is the Father and Christ giving himself for us a ransom. It was he that died and offered a sacrifice, and now is risen and ascended long afore we were, and it is he that now in tercedes in heaven, and transacts all with his Father for us ; and thus indeed considered, he is a Christ without us ; but the same Christ is in you when you are turned to God (or rather, that turns you to God, Acts iii. 26), and are called by his grace, as the apostle saith here, when it pleased God to call me by his grace, and reveal his Son in me, then you have the same

Christ that is without you, revealed in you, and brought home to you ; you have the whole of him first and last within you, according to what measure God hath appointed you in Christ, as you had the whole of himself given as a price for you, Eph. v. 2. It is the same Christ without us, and the same Christ within us ; only what he is, or did for us without us, the same is applied to us. And it is this Christ in application (which is the very word the schoolmen use, of this matter) I would make my subject. And as concerning that, the doctrine with which I shall centre in is, that Christ revealed in us comprehends the whole of that work of application, first and last. Or thus, that the whole bulk and sum of our practical religion, as you use to call it, is resolved into God s revealing Christ, and Christ s re vealing himself within us, from first to last, throughout our whole lives. Which comprehensiveness Paul surely intends here ; for, in saying, * when God revealed his Son in me, though his first calling was the first begin ning thereof, yet he withal took in what from thence he had gone on to do throughout the rest of his life, for the same end that at first ; for that revelation at first was, that he might preach what was revealed unto the Gentiles. God, as he had begun, went on still to reveal him more in me, that I, knowing more and more of him, might be enabled to reveal more of him to others to whom I was sent ; only then he began with me. This phrase, < revealing Christ within me, hath made a great deal of do among interpreters, as well as amongst us of late days. It is a stranga

344 A DISCOURSE OF THE [CHAP. VIII. thing that Hierome, so long ago, should unluckily stumble upon the verynotion of the Quakers, or that which in those days the Pelagians held, namely, that what light of God was in nature, or light of moral good in the conscience, was the grace of Christ, which is all one with what our Quakers foundation is. And he fell upon this in opening this text : When it pleased God to reveal Christ in me, saith he, doth imply and suppose that Christ was in him before his calling, and his calling was but a revealing, a disco very of what was by nature in him : Revelatur quod prius fuit in eo ; and plainly and boldly he saith, Perspicuum est, it is plain from hence, that by nature there is the knowledge of God, and that no man is born without Christ. This is the language that this man stumbled then upon. And truly, this interpretation of Hierome s so scared many interpreters, as it diverted them from the true sense (though it be plain enough), though not to his sense, to say, that Christ was revealed in him, this phrase they knew not what to make of it, taken in the plain expression

Therefore,

Some interpreted it thus : When it pleased God to reveal his Son by me. In me they turned to per me. Voluit per me ftlium cognitum facere, so Grotius took it. Brethren, there is an apparent contradiction to this in the text ; for he makes the end of God s revealing him in him to be, that he might preach him to others, which denotes that to have been the final cause of God s revealing him first in himself. Therefore there can be no other meaning than this, that God was pleased first to reveal his Son in him, when he called him, that is, in the person of Paul himself; that he having the experimental knowledge of this Christ within himself, in his own heart, and his own soul, for his own salvation, he might be able to reveal him to others the more effectually, suitable to that in 2 Cor. i. 4, < Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we might be able to com fort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me ; to make him known sensibly unto me, and to apply him experimentally in and to my soul. He did this, that I might (having the knowledge of him for myself as the truth is in Jesus) make him known to others. And the words afore, He called me by his grace, shew that he speaks of his first conversion, which was the fruit of his election, when it pleased God, &c. And it was then that God began to reveal Christ savingly unto him, or any man, as the main intention of God s calling a man, and as the chief thing above all others revealed, or to be revealed at a man s conversion ; though God reveals sin (you will say), he convinceth the world of sin, and ofjudg ment, and holiness. Yea, but he revealeth Christ ordinarily above all, and in all. But of all saints that ever were or shall be, God pitched Paul s heart upon Christ at first, though he saw his sin too, Rom. vii., and the sin of unbelief especially, as he saith in Timothy. And the knowledge of Christ was the eminent work of Paul s conversion, and gave him a com plete knowledge of him at first, because of the eminent present service God had for him to do. For immediately (he says) he consulted not, but fell to preach Christ instantly, whom he thus knew. l revealed Christ to me, which he would carry into the revelation of the doctrine of Christ in the gospel, whereof he had Calvin interprets it mihi, said, ver. 11 and 12, The gospel which was preached of me is not after man ; for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. And he and the former have their criticisms and Hebraisms for this.

CHAP. VIII.J GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 845

indeed admits of that reading; to reveal it to me, mihi (for so Calvin had afore expounded it :), but says, that it signified some further and larger matter ; and that from the like Hebrew propriety, being all one

) ^, and so signifies the grace of God to have come down from heaven into his very soul in the revelation of Christ. And Cornelius a Lapide, f among the papists, says, some indeed read it he revealed it to me ; but the word is, he revealed it in me, that he might with signify that his spirit drank in this revelation of Christ into himself, within the very intimacy of his heart ; so that Christ should be in him, and speak in him, when he preached to others. And he hath his Hebraism for this too.

The main sum and substance of Christianity then is, that Christ be revealed in us, and not only to us ; that you come to have Christ by appli cation in and to your souls ; Christ brought down into your heart. Yea, and this is the design of election : When it pleased God, saith he, separated me from my mother s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me. It was the design of God s good pleasure towards him from eternity, as the word imports.

But you will say, Why do you bring in Paul an instance to make this generally the sum of our Christianity first and last ? You will say, This instance shews it to have been Paul s condition in and after his conversion ; but what is this to us inferior Christians, to propound his example to us ?

Truly, because take but the substance of religion and of true conversion, and it is common to Paul and us. Indeed, Paul differed from us in some particular privileges about this matter. He differed from us herein, [1.] In the manner of having this revealed ; for he had it by immediate revelation, as the 12th verse tells you, * I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, i. e. by the ministry of men, but by the revelation of Jesus

Christ. Where of Christ notes not out Christ as the object of the reve lation, but as the worker. Christ himself converted him, and Christ him self revealed himself to him, and the Father likewise, as the text here hath it ; but as for us, we have it by man. Ours is by means of instruc tion ; and yet that knowledge of faith which we have of Christ is called a revelation : Eph. i. 17, speaking of ordinary Christians, he prays that they may have the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him, that is, of Christ. Thus, as Adam was made a man, flesh and bone as we have, but he was made immediately by God ; take other men, they have the same members of body and faculties of soul like, and answerable unto what Adam had, but we have them immediately by generation from man : so it was with Paul. Again, [2.] Paul and we differ in the measure ; Paul had it by wholesale, as Adam was made a perfect man the first moment, and Paul had the whole system of the revelation of Christ in himself to his soul. He knew whole Christ at first, more or less. He might know more of him by degrees afterwards, but at that present he had a whole knowledge of him ; and the reason is apparent from the end of it, which was, that he might preach Christ immediately. He had that in three days which others grow unto in many years. He was so fully instructed, and made the man of God so perfect, as in the 2d

Mihi sed tamen illud videtur quoddam eliam amplius significare ; quod apparet ex Hebrseorum idiotismo : et videtur eo dicendi genere significari, Dei gratiam ccalitus in animum ipsum illabi, ut Grscca etiam Scholia notarunt. t Dicit potius in me? qiuim mihi, ut significet spiritura suum intimo cordeimbibisse, ut Christus in eo essct, et per eura loqueretur.

346 A DISCOURSE OF THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. [CHAP. VIII. chapter of this epistle he says, that the other apostles, that were pillars, and had lived long with Christ, and had the Spirit come down upon them, to enlighten them in what Christ had taught them, added nothing to him.

All, then, that God works upon you savingly, from first to last, is a dis covery of Christ, some way or other, in you. It is either the knowledge of his person, or it is a conformity to him, or it is dispositions suited to what you know of him ; workings upon us, and operations of God upon us suitable to what is in him ; and this I call the sum or substance of our religion.

Even as to the first work upon a man when he is humbled for sin, my opinion thereof is, that in a man that shall be saved it is a different work from what is in wicked men, that have terrors of conscience, and shall not be saved ; and that accordingly there is in it a part of conformity to Christ crucified ; and I shall give you scriptures for it. Gal. ii. 19, he speaks of being dead to the law through the law, which is to be convinced of sin ; and it is effected by the power of Christ crucified, so as if you ask, How came Paul to be thus dead to the law ? he tells you, Kom. vii. 4, that it was by the body of Christ. The very work of humiliation is a conformity to Christ ; and it is a be ginning of revealing Christ in us. And if a man will look back upon all hath been wrought in him, he shall see that it is all Christ.

But however, that which is the eminency of Christianity, the bulk and substance of it, that, to be sure, is, all of it, Christ in us. It was Paul s eminency that Christ was the sum of all he had and did, to the end that he might know and preach Christ ; and it is the whole of Christ that God reveals sooner or later, more or less, in and to all Christians, whether they know it or no.

If any ask, Why, when he speaks of revealing Christ in us, he should rather say, revealing his Son in us ? my answer is, The word Son com prehends the whole of Christ.

I shall give you but an observation or two more.

1. Happy is that soul that in conversion or calling was pitched first on Christ, or soon upon his conversion. If you that are now converted had lived in our younger days, you would have seen that we were held under John Baptist s water, of being humbled for sin, and the work of sanctification. But now, happy it is with some whose lot it is that their conver sion work begins with Christ. Next after their humiliation for sin, they are pitched upon Christ. The work upon Paul was in this manner, who had the advantage of us this way, for Christ himself appeared to him, and yet he was humbled, and saw sin to be above measure sinful, Eom. vii., and therefore the work of humiliation is necessary unto faith in Christ.

2. Another observation is, that whoever of you will be preachers of the word, get Christ revealed in you, that you may preach him unto others, out of the experience of that revelation. John ate the book, and then wrote it, as you have it in Eev. x. 10.

3. Blessed is he that from his first conversion was pitched upon reaching out the experiences he had to others. Some men have, as Paul had, their inward motion to be ministers upon their being called ; as Paul had it con joined therewith. And as God separated Paul from the womb for both, so he hath separated such.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER,

AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST.

BOOK I.

Of the Godhead, and the three Persons within itself. That there is but one, God. That in the divine nature, or one Godhead, there are three Persona conversing with, speaking to, and glorifying one another. Which union and communion of the three Persons between themselves is peculiar to the Deity, and incommunicable to any mere creature.

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

1 COB. VIII. 6.

CHAPTER I.

That God is one in essence.

THAT God is but one, you have this declared concerning him by Moses, Deut. vi. 4, The Lord our God is one Lord. Also by God s own imme diate testimony you have the same truth pronounced, Deut. xxxii. 39, See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me. To which you may add Isa. xliv. 8, Is there a god besides me ? I know not any. Ho puts that last clause as the clearest evidence and the most ultimate de monstration of the truth of this, that God himself, the true God, and the God of truth, could give us. It is parallel for certainty and infallibility with God s adding an oath to his word, even such is this speech here, * I know not any. It comes in as upon second deliberate thoughts, after the former speech declared. And, to be sure, if there were another god besides him, he must needs know it. For, 1, He that is God knows all that are, if they be existent ; and therefore if there were another, he must needs be privy to it. Especially, 2, Another god: for if there were another god, he must be immense in extent of being, and so take up so much room for that his being to dwell in as he could not hide nor conceal himself from this

350 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK. I. one God, nor scape the omniscience of his eye, who is the true God. And, 3, another god would have been his compeer for our true God his God head ; the rivalship would have been for no less. Such is the interest of the very God in this matter, that his jealousy (who professeth of himself that he is a jealous God, in point of worshipping him as God, otherwise than he hath appointed), his jealousy, I say, would have risen to the height of it, and have provoked him to have seen to that, and to have searched out that of all things else. To have an equal (Pompeiusve parent*), a corrival for the Godhead, would have detracted from the glory of him who hath said

I will not give my glory to another, Isa. xlii. 8. Sole dominion is the it, essential point to every one that is a monarch ; and God s glory and bless edness lies in that very point of sole dominion: and therefore you find these two conjoined, viz., God s blessedness andsovereignty, who is the blessed and only potentate (says Paul of him, 1 Tim. vi. 15). You may therefore well believe him, and take it upon his word when he speaks it in this manner, upon his knowledge, I know not any. We need not seek out many reasons : one God, and one sufficient reason for it is enough ; and that is sufficient which hath been in a manner men tioned already before : that there is no room or space for two immense beings, diverse from each other. When therefore God says, in Isa. Ixiii. 3, There is none with me, his meaning must be the same with this in 1 Cor. viii. 5, There is no other God but one, i.e., no God diverse from him. The Godhead is but one, yet the persons in this one Godhead are more than one. We may safely say of each person, as of the Father, that he is God, and likewise of the Son, that he is God, and of the Holy Ghost, that he is God. And that there are three, each of whom is God, but still it is but one and the same God for nature, and that oneness, 1 John v. 8, in and by which the three are said to be one, is that they all three are one God alike. The Godhead is but one, and we must be wary of saying there are three Gods ; that would sound at least too much as if there were one God diverse from the other ; whereas one and the same Godhead is in all and each of the three, you may say it of each thrice over, the Father is God, the Son is God, &c. But that there are three Gods sounds harsh, and is condemned by Scripture language, yea, by the text, There are many gods, but to us but one.

And the reason of it is his infiniteness for perfection, as well as his im mensity ; for he comprehends all perfections within himself, or else he were not infinite, and his blessedness consists in it, so that there cannot be a God diverse from himself.

CHAPTER II.

That this God, one in essence, is three in persons, who jointly co-operate in all

God s external works.

To m there is but one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ. 1 COR.

VIII. 6.

Here are two persons mentioned in the text, the Father, and Christ the Lord ; and these two persons are made distinct in the Godhead. The * The reference is to the saying that Caesar would not brook a superior, nor Pompey an equal. ED.

CHAP. II.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

Father is a relate, and there must be a Son to answer as a correlate there unto, and an only-begotten Son, for he is that one Lord over us saints, and all other things, in the text. So great a Father would put no other person into that sovereignty with himself, but such a Son who is of as high a birth, and for substantiality of nature and generation, equal with himself, and who in his very person should greaten and fill up this office of Lord over all the saints, by whom we and all things else are, and do subsist.

There is a third person in the Godhead, the Spirit of God the Father, and of Christ ; who in my handling the point will fall in, and appear to be that only true God, as well as these other two named.

And this is a prime principle for me to premit, for it is influential into the most particular parts of this whole discourse. It runs through every vein of it, and we shall meet with it at every turn ; yea, whole treatises in it refer to the doctrine of the three persons in the Trinity ; and therefore it cannot be omitted here, but deservedly and necessarily claims a place amongst these principles I set first.

And further, there is this occasion of my inserting it. We may and cannot but know, that there hath risen up in this our age a generation, of all others the most presumptuous, that have affirmed all the whole creation to be but emanations of the Godhead, or, in plain words, to be materially God himself, though turquoised and translated by himself into so many lesser parcels of beings, which considered apart we call creatures. And that it is but the folly and ignorance of men to think themselves to be but creatures different essentially from God ; and that if men would but believe themselves to be God really, and; indeed (which, say they, we all are), they would be freed from that fond dotage of being in subjection to the law of God, and bondage to the fear of hell, and should instantly be enfran chised, and enter into all the privileges the Godhead hath. And because they hear of, and in scriptures find three spoken of, to be in that one God, as persons distinct, whom these men foreseeing to stand in their way to this their aspirement of each and every man to be as so many distinct persons enjoying the Godhead themselves with God ; therefore they make no more ado but throw down that blessed society of three in the Godhead, allowing them no other reality in the divine being, but as three manifesta tions, or else operations of God in us, and to us, doing herein like men that are ambitious, and would rise, they cast down those that are in rank above them ; so these would deal with the Trinity, as if they stood in their way to this high preferment. An high preferment indeed, which Satan (having first sinned himself by the like impious ambition) prompted our first father unto, Gen. iii. 5, You shall be as gods. And he has left the seeds of this aspirement in our corrupted nature, upon which God said, 1 Man is become as one of us. But the nature of God, blessed for ever, cannot admit of this, nor be able to raise a creature unto it, for it is utterly inconsistent. For evidence of which the man Jesus, though the Father loved him above all his saints and angels, yet all the power in God could not make him God in essence or in nature ; all that could be done for him was to be one in person with him who is God. This he might be, but to turn his human nature into the divine being was incompatible with it. A lower degree of accursed pride than this fell into the heart of the devil himself, whose sin in his first apostatising from God, take the height of it then, is conceived to be but a stomaching that man should be one day advanced unto the hypostatical union, and be one in person with the Son

852 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. of God, -which his proud angelical nature (then in actual existence the highest of creatures) could not brook. But the devil was modest in com parison to these men s pride, which usurps upon the whole of the three persons at once ; and will not endure them compeers with themselves. And truly these could have no better way whereby to step into these thrones in their imaginations, than to depose our blessed three by setting up a re ligion and opinion whereby millions of persons, instead of those three blessed ones, should communicate of the Godhead, in the same manner as these blessed persons do. This caused me to review the Scriptures afresh, for the disquisition of this great truth.

My method in despatching this great point must be brief and contracted. And therefore, though the Scriptures afford plenty of evidence everywhere, yet I was satisfied with one full passage of Scripture which I met with at first in the very first entrance of my disquisition about the trinity of the persons in the one Godhead ; and which is usually cited out of Moses for it, in several passages of his in that one book of Genesis. And I con sidered with myself that as he was the first penman of any Scripture, so he must needs have laid the foundation (though more darkly and obscurely) of such gospel truths, as this of the persons must be supposed to be, if it proved to be a truth at all ; and I finding that Christ in his concertations with the carnal Jew, professeth in preaching the gospel which seemed new to them, to witness and preach none other things than those which Moses particularly and the prophets did say; and the doctrines of the gospel bringing forth this great truth to light more clearly, and so positively and determinately, I judged that this great truth (if a truth at all) must be extant in Moses ; and Paul having appealed unto Moses to give evidence, unto Moses I did go.

And in the beginning of his first chapter I was accosted with his narrative of the creation, as it is in the first day s work set out, ver. 1, 2, 3. And after that, more particularly, with that renowned consultation which God had about the making of man, and his speech uttered concerning it.

Let us make man (the summary of all things that he had made) in our image, according to our likeness, ver. 24 of that chapter, in which Moses bringeth God in, speaking in the language of an us, Let us make man. Which its imports a plurality of persons to have been with God when he created man.* And we have the same us twice used by Moses, when in like manner he bringeth God in speaking of, and to himself, Gen. iii. 22, The man is become as one of us. And then chap. xi. ver. 7, at the confusion of languages, us go down. And at the overthrow of Sodom, it is said in Gen. xix. 24, * That the LORD rained fire from the Lord out of heaven. And though I find some of our divines somewhat difficult to admit those arguments, drawn from all the proofs out of the first chapter of Genesis, and are exceptions here and there against some of them, yet, finding in a search and study of other scriptures, which be alleged for the confirmation of the whole point itself, and so many of those scriptures usually brought for it out of the prophets, and the New Testament, do flow into this current of Moses, and speak the same things, and well nigh in the same phrases that Moses hath used, and all unto this one purpose and intent, that there are such blessed persons in the Godhead, God with God ; I thereupon re solved to content myself with those few allegations out of Moses alone. And finding them so strangely and strongly backed by those other scriptures

Irenseus in Prsefat. lib. 4. Homo per manus Dei plasmatus est, hoc est, per Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, quibus etiam dixit, Faciamus hominem.

that came in with their suffrages unto these of Moses, I then set up my rest in these citations out of him, to make them the rendezvous and centre of those other Scripture proofs, which of themselves, though standing severed and single, might each be a sufficient argument alone by themselves, yet marching under Moses s banner, and being farther explanations of his speech, they altogether have a joint united force, as so many twisted cords, or as so many smaller, they contribute their waters into the same great stream and channel.

1. For those words used about the whole creation, Gen. i. 1-3, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was with out form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the

Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. These words being prefaced to the whole of the creation, many judicious divines insist upon them as denoting the hand that each person had in the whole work of creation ; and this is no less backed by other Scriptures which follow. The Father is said to i create all things by Jesus Christ, Eph. iii. 9. And the Son is said to * Unto the Son he says, Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever, ver. 8 ; and God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the create, Heb. i.

And Thou, Lord, in the be oil of gladness above thy fellows, ver. 9 ; ginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thine hands, ver. 10. And the Holy Ghost is said to create, Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created ; and thou renewest the face of the earth, Ps. civ. 30. And the word Elohim being used of each person singly, though it be a word of the plural number, yet, as when magistrates are styled Elohim, I have said, you are gods, Ps. Ixxxii. 6, each magistrate may be called Elohim ; so, applied to each person singly, it may be said that Elohim the Father created, and Elohim the Son created, &c., creation being an action that is common to the persons jointly. Both the plural in the word DVJN, God, and the singular in the word N"O, created, are fitly joined then, when the great and materially the general work of the creation of the whole world, visible and invisible, made out of nothing immediately, is first spoken of, as this of creating both heaven and earth in the beginning was. And the creation in a singular manner is common to the three, without a special appropriation to any one of the three. And then the argument for this interpretation will run thus, that who created heaven and earth is that Elohim of whom Moses did speak ; but out of other scriptures it is plain that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost created heaven and earth, and therefore these words of Elohim are spoken of all three.

I will not utterly leave out that argument from the first words, God created, which many judicious and holy divines insist upon. That the word QTDN, God, is in the plural number, signifying more than one, and yet N"Q, created, is in the singular, because that the Persons were in a plurality, or more than one ; but the verb created was in the singular, to notify the unity and oneness of the Godhead. But there are so many ex ceptions against this, which have broken the wards of the lock, that it is difficult to find a key which shall open it. I confess I like not to say of the persons that they are Gods, in the plural ; to say of each person singly that he is God, that is safe ; but it is not so to say of them, that they are Gods. It founds a diversity of the Godhead, as well as distinc tion of the persons. The word DYTN, Elohim, therefore, though in the declension of it it be of the plural number, yet in the sense of it it is singular, VOL. iv. z

854 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. sometimes used to signify the Godhead, sometimes applied to each of the persons singly, and so no argument can be fetched from it.

But the argument I urge from these three verses is, that in them the three persons are distinctly rehearsed in the work of the creation. First, the Father, in that saying God created heaven and earth, which work of creation is more generally attributed to the Father ; as in our creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, &c. Then the Son, who is the Word of the Father, by whom he made all things, Eph. iii. 9, is hiddenly covered, and yet truly notified in the 3d verse, God said, Let there be light, &c. And this word is in the chapter repeated five times, in the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth days work of the creation ; and adds a confirmation, that the Son was included, and aimed at ultimately in Moses his God said, for in John i. 3 it is said, Without the Word nothing was made that was made. As in Moses, all was by the same, * God said, Let there be, created, as well as the light. And it is no objection to say, that the first day s work, the creation of heaven and earth, was without it, or that heaven and the earth was made the first day, before the light, which was the second day. For the heavens are said to be made by the Word of God. Ps. cxxxvi. 5, * To him that by wisdom made the heavens, not by the attribute wisdom, for in the Pro verbs Wisdom is the person ; and it is said, The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, Prov. iii. 19. They were therefore all made, both heaven and earth, and all things in them, by one and the same God said, and by his Word.

But finding the word us repeated again and again in Moses s story, denoting persons whom God speaks unto, as at the creation of man ; and again in matters of government about man, as at confounding their lan

Let us go down, Gen. xi. 7 ; and in the prophets the same, and so many other scriptures flowing in, compared with these of Moses, to guages, give evidence, I resolved to content myself with the testimony of Moses alone, as it came illustrated unto me by so many concurrent witnesses ; so that I will not divert, but will centre in this one proof alone, as the seal for all the other.

Gen. i. 26, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

First, It is God speaking himself, God said, and not Moses, as in the name of God. And there is no instance in the Hebrew that we or us is ever used of one single person, when God himself speaks of himself. And, Secondly, It is God speaking, not by way of declaration of what he could do alone singly, but uttered by way of conference unto and with some other persons. And not only so, but it is an excitation or calling upon them to do it with him, as if he should say, Come, let us make, as those that being * with God at that time were to join in that work also with him.

Thirdly, God speaks not to his attributes. No wise man ever thus speaks to his own abilities, Come, let us do such or such a thing ; which more especially appears in that other speech, Let us go down. It is a person or persons who are said to descend, as elsewhere the Holy Ghost is said

descend in the likeness of a dove, Mat. iii. 16 ; and the Son of God, often in the gospels, to come from heaven.

Fourthly, These spoken unto were not the angels (as some think), for they are never called our creators ; but God alone is said to create expressly, Job ix. 8, Isa. xlv. 18. And he is still said to create by himself, because he used no other instrument. So expressly in Isa. xliv. 24, Thus saith

CHAP, n.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 355 the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, and spreadeth abroad the earth by myself; and chap. xlv. 18 especially. The angels create not the souls of men, which God alone is the Father of, not angels, Heb. xii. 9. Nor are we said to be made after their image, but God s, Col. iii. 10. Nor are the angels meant when it is said, thy makers are thy husband, as Isa. liv. 5 ; or, Remember thy Creators in the days of thy youth, which style of Creators is yet in the plural used, when God is spoken of, in mul

* The Lord thy Makers. Yea, as Let us make is in the excitation to it, so in

* In his Makers ; Isa. xliv. 2,

: Ps. cxlix. 2, titudes of other places the next verse, which mentions the performance of this work, it is accord ingly said, so God created man, which was the thing done, it is thrice repeated: 1. So God created man in his own image; 2. in the image of God created he him ; 3. male and female created he them ; God, not angels. Nor did he use them as instruments, as when he gave the law he did, but not in the creation of the least creature.

But let us further consider things impartially, comparing the Old and New Testaments together, as to the explication of this one passage, Let us, &c.

1. Let us inquire whether it be not elsewhere in the New Testament said, when the creation is spoken of, that there were persons, yea, that these * with God ; yea, and that when man was made, John i. 1, persons were * In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ; and again, ver. 2, The same was in the beginning with God. Yea, and is it not as expressly there affirmed that that Word that was with God was at the making of man ? All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made, ver. 3. And if all things were, and nothing made without him, then man certainly. And doth it not follow also from ver. 4 that he was the life of man ? In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Again, we find another person, the Spirit of God, to have been with God at the creation, moving and upholding the waters : Gen. i. 2, And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the : and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And Ps. deep xxxiii. 6, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. The Psalmist interpreting Moses, and referring to the creation, speaks thus. And why should not we think then these to be the us ; even the Father, Word, and Spirit. This at the creation.

2. Again, in that other place, we find a consultation about a fact belong ing to the government of the world, to be done even as here, Let us make ; so, here, Come, let us descend. Now, let us see if more persons than one are not said to have been of counsel with God in these. It is certain he excludes all creatures to be of his counsel; Isa. xl. 13, 14, * Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, hath taught him ? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding ? but professeth of his Son, that he is his * counsellor.

Isa. ix. 6, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be called

Wonderful, Counsellor, Te mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of peace. And the same of his Spirit, 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11, But God hath

356 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. revealed them unto us by his Spirit : for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. And as here, in Genesis, when God was to create man ; so there, when he was to judge and exert a great act of government in the world. And it came to matter of fact, which when it is to be done, he speaks to those of counsel with him, as persons interested therein, and shews them what he is about to do ; even in like manner as he doth at the creating of man, * Let us make man, &c. Now then, when we shall read in the New Testament, and find that Word, who was * with God in the beginning, John i. 1, expressly called God at first dash, and to have been with God as a person distinct from him, and this person called the Word there, to be the only-begotten Son of God, in ver. 14 ; and shall further hear, that the Son of nmn, whom that word is said to be made one person with, is one with God ; and that in his person he says, John v. 19, * Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he doth, these also doth the Son likewise. When we consider this, it will be then plain to us, that God doth nothing without an us ; and that his Son was an original co-worker with him in all things, which he accordingly sheweth unto him ; for it follows, * That doth the Son likewise. God doth nothing, but the Son likewise ; he shews and tells his Son first, and by shewing it to him, consulteth with him about it. And mark the coherence, ver. 17. He not only consulteth with him, but they two are said to work together every thing that is done, from that first beginning of acting anything outwardly even from the creation ; * My father worketh hitherto, and I work ; and the Jews thereupon, ver. 18, seek the more to kill him, not only because he had broken the sabbath, but had said also, that God was his Father, making himself equal with God ; having a joint hand with him, and work ing all and everything as much as the Father, whom all acknowledge to be God. Whereupon such words of theirs it was that Christ pertinently replies, as you heard, ver. 19, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he doth, these also doth the Son likewise ; acknowledging they had spoken rightly according to his very true sense and intent. Now judge impartially ; you find this man, this person, speaks in the name of one that was with God afore the world was, John i. 1, one equal with God. Verse 18 of this 5th chapter of John, you find himself say, that God doth nothing, but he shews it to him, as one to co-work and join with him. And you find here in Moses, that God, when he was to make man, he consulted some or other person then with him, saying, Let us make, that is, join together in the same work ; Let us make man ; and shall we not judge that this his Son was here, and one of the us ? And there is a Spirit, who is of this cabinet-council, John xvi. 13, 15, who shews (as Christ s word of him is) and overhears all, and is privy to what the Father still says unto the Son. So then, here are three that make the us.

3. As in creating, these are joined as an us, so in governing and judg ing the world ; My Father worketh hitherto, and I work, says Christ, John v. 17. In such works also this us is used : in confounding the languages ; and in bringing vengeance on Sodom ; in bringing them out of Egypt we find the same ; Gen. xi. 7, Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language. The Holy Ghost descended to give tongues, and he descended to confound them. And, for the judgment on Sodom, I

shall insist upon it a little. Gen xviii. ver. 1, it is said, The Lord appeared. How ? Verse 2, three angels came, one whereof was the Lord, and the other two created angels, companions of him. Two angels went to Sodom, ver. 22, and the third stayed, chap. xix. 1, who was the Lord himself that communed with Abraham ; of whom it is said, chap, xviii. 20, 21 , * The Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, &c. And he stayed with Abraham. It is also said, ver. 22, But Abraham stood yet before the Lord. This angel was God, or bearing the person of one that was God ; for, Exod. iii. 2, the angel that appeared in the bush says, ver. 6, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; the same that as an angel appeared to the fathers : to Abraham, Gen. xviii. ; to Isaac, Gen. xxvi. ; and to Jacob, chap. xxxi. and chap, xxxii. 9, 24. Whom, Gen. xlviii. 15, 16, Jacob, in his blessings, calls both God and an angel ; as Hosea also doth, chap. xii. 3, 4, 5. This angel, who was betrusted with the govern ment of the world, and said he would see, ver. 21, was not the Father, for he is never missus, sent, as the word angel imports this was, and yet withal was God, though in the appearance and office of an angel. And we read of < God sent by God, in Zech. ii. 8, Thus saith the Lord, he hath sent me to the nation, &c. It is Christ s speech of his Father s sending him. So also Isa. xlviii. 16, 17, The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me, &c. He that is the Lord says, he was sent by the Lord ; even as, we read, the New Testament also speaks of Christ. Aiid he that is sent, must be distinct, and a person distinct from the sender. Now there are two persons that send him there, The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me. And he that was sent was God, and no less Jehovah than they ; as all the contexts afore and after shew. So then, you find three persons there ; and for this cause it is he is styled the angel of God s face, Isa. Ixiii. 9.

: And there you meet with the three persons too, as joining in that great work of redemption out of Egypt. First, the Father is spoken of in ver.

7, 8, I will mention the lovingkindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness towards the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie ; so he was their Saviour. The Son in ver. 9, In all their afflic tion he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them : in his love and in his pity he redeemed them ; and he bare them and carried them all the days of old. The Spirit in ver. 10, But they rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit. He that is called Holy Spirit in the New, is, according to the Hebraism, called the * Spirit of holiness in the Old. But it is Christ that was the angel of his presence, appearing afore God, interceding, and in whose face God shines, 2 Cor. iii. Exod. xxxiii. 2, My angel, in ver.

14, is interpreted, God s face, presence. John xiv. 9, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And he it was that saw the affliction of his people, Exod. iii. 7, who, ver. 8, is said to come down ; even as upon the occasion of Sodom you have heard it in like manner spoken. And it was this angel, in whom (God says) his name was ; that is, his very nature, Exod. xxiii. 20, 21, 22. And it was he that governed them in the wilderness. Now, this angel, or, the * Lord sent in that appearance, both to Abraham about Sodom, and to M "3es, Exod. iii., and to the people of Israel, was one and the same, as all places shew. And this was the Lord himself ;

358 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. as Mai. iii. 1, he is expressly called The Lord, and the angel of the covenant ; even Christ, the second person, whom they tempted. So Paul, Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were de stroyed of serpents, 1 Cor. x. 9. So Stephen expressly, Acts vii. 32, 37, 38, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ; ver. 37, This is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me ; him shall ye hear. This is he that was with the church in the wilderness, with the angel, which spake to him in the mount Sinai. And this person, who came down in the appearance of an angel to Abraham about Sodom, Abraham as expressly enstyles The * Judge of all the world, Gen. xviii. 25. All which consider, how it punctually agrees with what in the New Testament out of John v. hath been observed, as by comparing them will appear. For, as the Son

Lord, and hitherto had wrought in all works with the Father, as you heard out of John v. 20, 21, so, ver. 22 of that chapter, God hath committed all judg ment unto the Son. And it is answerably said by Moses, Gen. xix. 24, The Lord, or Jehovah, rained down fire from Jehovah ; that is, the Son, who was God, he did it by commission from the Father, that was God with him, as to whom he had committed the judgment of the world, and so was, by his office, the proper executioner of this vengeance upon Sodom ; he also joining in all works afore and since, together with the Father, who, * shewing him all he doth, the Son doth it likewise ; that all might honour the Son as well as the Father ; as Christ there infers, John v. 23.

4. That which fully added to my conviction that the us in Scripture language, when spoken of, and by God, intends these three in God, whom we call persons ; and that to be spoken more regio, after the manner and style of kings, is, that I further expressly find these three, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, each singly and apart, using it in the name of the other two, saying us and we.

(1.) The Father, he whom all grant is he that is to be understood when * God said, Let us ; and as speaking to the rest. it is said, (2.) The Holy Ghost, Isa. vi. 8, Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? If the question be, What person spake this us here, and what other persons he speaks of as involved in it ?

[1.] For the person that speaks it, it is the Holy Ghost. Eead Acts

Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias xxviii. 25, 26. Paul resolves it so ; the prophet unto oar fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, &c. Who is the same Lord that in Isaiah says, chap, vi., ver. 9, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not, &c. And he it is that said also, ver. 8, * Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? And the like speech and character of language, attributed to the Holy Ghost in the New Testament elsewhere, argues that he is the person. For, upon the very same or like occasion, we find him as a person brought in, speaking of himself apart, under the style of me. The errand or business whereof he here speaks, Who will go for us ? was the sending forth ministers, and teachers, and prophets ; as it is express in that of the Acts, and in Isaiah. Nay, when the same occasion or errand came afore him, we hear him another time expressly speaking, Acts xiii. 2, The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. It is the same employ ment of sending out ministers, Paul and Barnabas, and it is the same person,

CHAP. III.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHBIST. 359 the Holy Ghost, in both, and he a person ; for he speaks as a person, I and 1, me and me; and one that was God. Add to this that of Isa. xlviii.

17, And now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me. Thus much that he was the person that spake it. And, >";\[2.] For the persons in whose name he says us, they are the Father and the Son. In ver. 3 you have the angels cry, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. All that some would make of these holies is not in respect of the three persons, but to shew God is ter sanctus, ter optimum, most holy, which alone I would not urge. But when I considered that in this chapter there is such a presence and mention of these persons, I cannot but affix even that also, and that the us, ver. 8, refers to it ; and that the Holy Ghost in that verse doth give that interpretation or gloss upon it. The Father to be Lord of hosts all acknowledge ; and that the Son Christ is particularly intended, the first verse of Isa. vi. compared with John xii.

37, 39, 40, 41, does manifest, Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, &c. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. What him? He of whom he had spoken in ver. 37, But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him.

Again, Those words in Isa. vi., ver. 3, are also Spoken of the Lord, who was that angel that was tempted in the wilderness, Num. xiv. 21, 22, which Lord was Christ, 1 Cor. x. 9, who also sat between the cherubims. Then the third person is the Holy Ghost, ver. 8, 9, whose work it is to deal with men s hearts by the word, softening or hardening.

So then there is an us of persons distinctly and apart mentioned and spoken of; and then the Holy Ghost at last, comprehending them all in this word us.

(3.) Then, thirdly, for the Son, we find him likewise speaking the same language. Sure I am, that word us, John xvii., is his speech to his Father, the first person, ver. 11, Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me ; that they may be one, as we are. And, ver.

21, That they also may be one in us. Thus you have seen I have prosecuted no other argument out of Scrip ture than what the us in Moses, in three places, hath led me into ; and alleged but such other scriptures as are complices, and of strict intelligence with those passages, and serve to the illustration of them.

CHAPTER III.

That these three persons in the Godhead are persons distinct one from the other.

Who would not judge them to be so, by what hath been already said ? But yet for further evidence it is apparent from this, First, That they are found speaking, not only us, as persons, but also ordinarily one to another, in the language of I and thou, as Heb. x. 5, A body hast thou fitted me, which Christ spoke to his Father as a person existing with him then when he took a human nature. And, Lo, / come to do thy will, Heb. x. 7. Again, the Father speaks to the Son, Ps. ex. 1, * The Lord said unto my Lord. And again, from heaven, This is my Son, Mat. iii. 17 ; and 4 he Holy Ghost, as distinct from both, descending as a dove.

360 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.

And, secondly, one speaks of another, as another person distinct from himself; thus, the Son of the Father, John v. 30, I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. Yer. 31, If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. Ver. 32, There is another that beareth witness of me ; and I know that the witness which \ he witnesseth of me is true. Likewise the Son of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, John xiv. 16 and 26, And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. But the Com forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. And John xvi. 13, * Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth ; for he shall not speak of himself ; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will shew you things to come. He, the masculine, is put with a neuter gender, in the word cmD/a-a, Spirit, which would never have been, but to design a personality in him.

Thirdly, You have each speaking of himself as a person. Thus the * Separate me Barnabas and. Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.

Holy Ghost, Acts xiii. 1, 2,

Fourthly, There are works proper to each assigned. To instance but in one scripture, 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5, 6, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. All three are mentioned, and as having, to distinguish them, several works : and the Spirit there is said to have his own things proper to him, as the Son and the Father s ; and, ver. 11, he is said to distribute them as he will, which to say, is proper only to a person.

Fifthly, These persons are spoken of as distinct, when also they are * Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever. . . . Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity called God, Ps. xlv. 6, 7, : therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And there also we meet with all three persons too, for the Spirit is the oil he is anointed with.

Lastly, There is this most evident demonstration, that the man Jesus being assumed and taken up into one person with the Son of God, that he, the Son of God, existing in the man as one person with him, should speak of himself as a distinct person from the Father and the Spirit: in John x. 31, I and the Father are one. Here he speaks of himself and the Father as persons distinct, and yet both but one true God ; as ver. 33, the Jews understood him, That thou, being a man, makest thyself God, one God and two persons of the three ; and yet it was not the man, as man only, that was that person, but it was the Son who was truly God with the Father, and the man being made one person with the Son, speaks this of himself, so thereby evidently declaring, that in the Godhead there was the person of the Son distinct from the Father ; and so, in his defence of * Say ye of him whom the Father hath sancti himself, he declares, ver. 36, fied and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest ; because I said, I am the Son of God ? And again, ver. 88, Know and believe that I am in the Father, -and the Father in me ; as two still (as I and the Father imports), enjoying one Godhead. And elsewhere, he professeth his manhood not to be alone the person. And it was not God the Father that was incarnate, and in that respect is styled the Son, as some have wickedly affirmed ; for

CHAP, in.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST. 361 if the Father had been one person with this man, this man could not have said, I and the Father ; or elsewhere often, / and thou, speaking to his Father.

And, indeed, I have judged one great end and issue of God s ordaining this personal union of the man Jesus and the Son of God, to have been to demonstrate and ascertain us, that there is this distinction of persons in the Godhead, in that the man now assumed talks at that rate of himself as of a person with God, and yet distinct from his Father ; and, that he was so, he refers unto all his works to believe and know it by ; for that, whilst lie so spake of himself, he should do such works, this invincibly argues the truth of what he so spake, as in that John x., in defence of himself, and those speeches of himself, ver. 87, 38, he argues, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe me not, believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. Had the Scripture declared this distinction of persons over and over, in a doctrinal assertion, it had not been so great an evidence as this ; to hear the man who, when become one person with the Son of God, should himself still use to say, I and my Father ; and when he speaks to his Father, to say, I and Thou ; himself came by this singular way and means to declare it so invincibly, as nothing could have been more satisfyingly done. That I may say, as the apostle to the Hebrews doth of other reve lations of divine truth, so I of this, that after God had, at sundry times and divers manners, spoke this mystery of the distinction of persons, he hath now spoke it to us by the Son himself personally, as now incarnate and made man ; who, though he appeared to the fathers, yet never per sonally united to those appearances as now he did. So that put but these things together ; 1. That he that was the Son of God existed before the assumption of man s nature, as a person ; and that, 2. The man he took up was not a person of himself, but it was the Son that was the person taking up that man into one J, or personality with himself; which that speech of his own, when he came into the world (Heb. x. 5, A body hast thou prepared me ), evidently shews. The body, or his human nature, was not the me, or person, but he that assumes it was the me, A body hast thou prepared me. And then, 3. That hence he should then speak unto the Father, as a person dis tinct from the Father s person, as those their words me and thou do evince. And that he, even after the man so assumed, that he should speak as the person when once so united, in the language of thine and mine, I and thou, and the like, this invincibly argues what I have driven at, viz., that the Father and he are distinct. And then, that he should speak of another, or third, distinct from both, another Comforter, the Holy Spirit; And he shall take of mine, &c., John xvi. 15 ; whilst himself says, * I the Son, and therefore alius, or another, from both Father and Spirit, and not alius, or another, by having become man, but as Filius Dei, in whose person the man speaks it of himself.

Use 1. Is to exhort you to retain and hold fast this plain and funda mental truth, and by faith to receive it (if you have been diverted from it) as from the Son, and not consult with reason in it, which yet is not con tradictory to it. This I am sure of, that if the Scriptures speak any thing, they speak this great tnh ; and of all other it hath been the most and longest tried of any other. It began to be questioned in the first age of

862 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.

Christianity, and, at times, hath been so ever since. Reason contributes little to it, but remains unsatisfied ; and yet God hath still cast the spirits of his people, and won them over to it. Receive it, I say, by faith. Christ puts them upon bare believing it, John xiv. 10, 11, Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me ? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me : or else believe me for the very works sake. And when they only required a demonstrative argument, or rational evidence of it, Christ only affirms it, and having affirmed, refers them to his works, after he had said it, as was observed before, out of John x. 38 ; for if he had not said true, such glorious divine works would not have followed such a doctrine and profes sion. And thereupon he calls for faith from that evidence, John x. 37, 38, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. David is said to be in Spirit when he brings in the Lord speaking to the Lord. By which speech was disco vered both these persons to be in the Godhead, and distinct as persons, speaking thus one to another, The Lord said unto my Lord, Ps. ex.

1 David in Spirit, says Christ,

said this, Matt. xxii. 43, 44 ; and I remem ber not that phrase spoken of David upon any other occasion, but this ; although it be said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me ; and this was necessary, for reason would, of all else, never have revealed it, nor enter tained it as it is revealed. Heaven opened when there was the first open distinct discovery of the three. The Father spake, This is my Son, and the Holy Ghost descended ; for but by opening heaven, and upon occasion of discovering the Son, was this distinctly revealed.

CHAPTER IV.

That the three persons in the Godhead have an union and communion between themselves apart, and incommunicable unto us.

The assertion which I undertake to prove is this, That God and Christ, and by consequence the Holy Ghost, have an union and communion of a higher kind than what we are ordained ever to receive ; and therefore I call it the supreme sovereign union. In a word, the creatures are not God veiled under the appearance of creatures, and so hidden as under a veil, which is the impious falsification of many of the ranters of our late age, as appears by their writings, and which put me upon writing this dis course.

I. To prove that there is a sovereign, supreme union between the three persons in the Godhead, peculiar and proper to themselves alone, and which cannot be communicated to any mere creature, I have chose those passages in Christ s prayer whereon to found my discourse, John xvii. 21, 22, 23. That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; andjthat the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Whatever use I have

CHAP. IV.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

made of this 17th of John, in discoursing of this union to another purpose,* my scope now is to shew, how all the ancients have judged this very thing, (which I have asserted) with clear evidence of reason, from Christ s manner of speech, both negatively and affirmatively, as I shall allege their testimonies by and by.

This alone of itself will evidence it, that an eternity of time did pass when there were no creatures at all ; but the three persons wholly enjoyed themselves all that time without interruption. And this also will further be demonstrated in the second head of this discourse, which will be a de monstration of the differences and distances of that communion which is between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that which we have with those persons.

But to return to the exposition of John xvii. That the union of the three persons in the Godhead is of a higher kind, and not communicable to us, is evident from the manner of Christ s speech in that his prayer.

1. Negatively, from what he forbears to say in it. He does not pray, that we all may be one with them, (as if speaking of the Father, and him: no ; but that we all may be one in them, and so with a differing union from theirs. Thus Austin, he prays not that self, and the saints altogether) they may be one with us, but one in us.f

2. Positively. He speaks of an union of him and his Father, as stand ing apart entire from that of the saints with them ; and which, though it admit this addition of that union of the saints, yet still remains inviolate in itself notwithstanding, no way intermingled with, or intercommoning with it. He repeats that union of his and his Father s five or six times, from verse 11 to the end ; and every time with a character of such a difference as this. (1.) He speaks of the saints and their union as at a distance from himself and his Father, and of their union also between themselves, that they all may be one, as we. Of the ice he speaks, as of those who are of a superior order, and are one by a superior union. But of them as with a distance, that they, that these undersort creatures, this vulgus creaturarum, utterly differing and separated from us of themselves, that they yet may be * one in us. (2.) In his repetition of it a second time, ver. 22, that they also, there is an emphasis in the word also as to this purpose. [1.] Also, that is, over and besides that union which we have and keep within among ourselves, even then when they are supposed united to us, One in us. The MS still remains in a separate association apart, and retains a consortium, an association as a superior, we. [2.] It is a speech of diminution of their union in comparison of the us, and sounds thus ; as if Christ, looking down from an higher orb, sphere, and throne of union, whereon himself and his Father sits, upon these poor things infinitely below, who are void of such a condition in their native proper state ; upon them Christ, looking down in love, prays, Let these poor things also partake of union with us, little ones who of themselves are so far below us, no way worthy to attain, aspire to any such thing, and yet by grace are capable of in us. [3.] In his saying, that they be one, as I in thee, and thou in me, verse 21, observe, he says not either, ut sint in te unum, sicut ego in te unum sum,l that they may be * Vide Discourse of Election, Book ii. c. 6. 7. f Non enim dicit Christus ut nobiscum sint unum, aut simus unum ipsi et nos, sicut nos unum sumus : Sed ipsi in*natura sua sint unum, sicut nos in nostra unum sumus. Augustinus, tract 107, in Johannem. Nos quidem in illis esse possumus (and I add unum in illis, fo the text affirms it) sed unum cum illis esse non possumus. August, ibid. J Atkauasius Oratio 4 adver. Arianos.

364 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. one in thee, as I am one in thee. No ; but that they may be one in us, as I in thee, and thou in me, he therein entertaining and reserving still an union as peculiar to himself. Nor he says not, that thou mayest be one in us, as involving and reckoning himself but as one of them and their < As thou in me, and I in rank, and we all one in thee. No ; but he says, thee (ita se d creaturis separans*}, and they one in us ; whereby he manifestly separates himself from them, and betakes himself to a peculiar union and interest with God above them.

The repetition of it a second time, verse 23 (which I most observe), is put there by way of caution, and as with a wariness that that union of himself and his Father be kept inviolate ; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; as if he had said, when they arrive to their highest perfection of union, yet let them know, (1.) their distance, that I am above them in it, I in them, and thou in me ; (2.) their dependence and derivation of it from me, I in them, and thou in me. And this still

that so they may be perfected in one ; he speaks it not, nor would allow it them upon any other terms. As if he should have said, when they are at their height of union, thou art not, nor ever canst be in them with that immediate union thou art withal in me, and I in thee ; I must come in as a middle between them and thee, when they are with us continueth, in glory. The descent is, The glory thou hast given me, I have given them, ver. 22 ; they hold of me even then, I in them, thou in me, and this is their highest perfection. Yea, at the last verse, when he prays his Father s love might be in them filling them, his prayer, you see, is not only that God s love may be to them, but in them, for the height of our union is the fulness of God communicated in love ; as Eph. iii. 19, And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. There is first love, then all the fulness of God men tioned, for heaven is but a communication of God in love ; yet even there

Christ will needs step in between, even God s love in the communication of it, and I in them. The love of God is not so in us, so that we become the love of God ; nor is God or Christ so in us, as we become God or Christ ; nor is Christ left out when God communicates himself in the highest manner. But as Paul saith, herein is your calling, so say I of this, here is the descent of that union on them, God one with Christ, and you with God in Christ. Yea, I observe further his caution in this great point to be such, that if, in praying for our oneness, he mention himself first, he will needs bring in his Father s being in him ; so ver. 23, I in you, is not that enough to make them perfect in one ? No ; but thou in me. Again, if he mention his Father s love first, as verse the last, he comes in himself for a share also, and I in them. He turns it every way. So that whether God be in us, it is because Christ is in us ; or Christ be in us, and so we one, it is because God is in Christ. Lastly, which is Ambrose his note, nos unum erimus, sed Pater et Filius unum sunt. He speaks of that union of himself and his Father as already in being and perfection, yea, as that which he then needed not to pray for, and which never needed praying for by him ; but he prays that we may be one. He prays not that his Father and he should be one, for they were as fully one already as for ever they could be, to be sure as second person naturally, and as man, it was so bestowed at once for ever, as it needed no praying for anew ; for though it was a grace at first, yet to the divine person that the man was now one withal, it was none, yea, it was a condescending in him, the second person, * Ambros. lib 4, de fide. c. 2.

CHAP. IV.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHKIST

to match so low as his own speech, when he was to assume it, imports, Heb. x. 5, a body hast thou fitted me. He speaks diminutively of it, and yet assumes it. But that the saints shall be one with this high and mighty us, this us, this is, and was with Christ, a matter of, and subject for, prayer; and this at this time, when yet they were united unto Christ already, as this text implies ; for this of ours depends for ever on grace, not so that of Christ s human nature. But once the union being made, transit in jus, it then becomes a right, though at first it was the highest grace to that nature. For why ? He is thereby advanced to be the natural Son of God.

And whereas the word xaQo*$, that they may be one, as we are one, is urged by some for sameness or oneness of union in kind, it is evident by all that hath been spoken, that it is but unwn similitudinis of imitation and similitude, or perhaps of causality, because we are one. The instances of which latter are so frequent I need not mention any of them ; as, perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect, forgive us, as we forgive, as we use the speech in the Lord s prayer.

II. There is not only this superior union of the three persons, so far above that union which we poor creatures have with God ; but there is also a supreme and independent communion between those persons in the God head, having an entire abstracted converse among themselves, and incommu nicable to any mere creature ; and this communion, which they had one with another from all eternity, consists, *

1. In that divine eternal life of the three persons among themselves.

2. In the mutual interest, or propriety, which they have in the things of each other.

3. In a mutual communication and enjoyment. 4. In a mutual knowledge and acquaintance one with another.

5. In a mutual communication, and imparting of secrets, a discovery of each other s mind.

6. In mutual love and delight. 7. In their possession of one common and equal glory and blessedness.

1. As to the first, the life of the three persons among themselves. That excellent man in his age, Bishop Usher, in a sermon before King James, expressed the dependence which the best of saints, the apostles, held upon the supreme life of Christ, considered as second person in the Trinity ; John i. 16, * And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. There is (said he) plenitudo fontis, the fulness of the fountain ; Ps. xxxvi. 9, With thee is the fountain of life, spoken of God much more, and there is plenitudo vasis, the fulness of the vessel, which is but the pittance of the best of saints, and that but received, which is soon dried up if not supplied, and they receive but grace for grace, glory for glory, all from Christ. We have our grace and glory by measure, but Christ had the Spirit without measure.

Life is an excellency added to being. And the divine life of God is a pure activity and quickness, which never ceaseth nor abateth. All three persons therefore have the title of living. Of the Father there is none that questions it; Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, Mat. xvi. 16, and that imports he is a person of the same substance and nature with God. And as man begets his like, so God begets his like, and he is his only * Non est sicut aequalitatis sod modi et similitudinis : imitatione non perfectione, Brugensis. Ut lisec volun iria unio naturalis istius in Filio et Patre unitatis imago videatur. Cyrill.

366 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEK, [BOOK I. begotten Son. The Spirit is said, to the same purpose, to be the Spirit of the living God, 2 Cor. iii. 8. And as Christ is compared to the Son of a living Father, as being begotten of his substance, so the Spirit is com pared to the soul that dwells in a man, which is his life. 1 Cor. ii. 11 is express for it, What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? And the life of all three is God, and the enjoying of the life of God, and exercising all the acts of life among themselves.

This is for their life abstracted, such as they had in eternity, when no creature was.

Now to the point proposed, the difference and dependence of our union, and the life thereof, upon this of the three persons that has been specified, take that place in the 6th of John, with the rest that are to follow, when at the third verse Christ had declared of all believers, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and then had explained himself, and founded that communication of life, ver. 56, upon our union with himself, wherein he speaks of that sort of union which is between his divine and human nature, and also of our union with himself, as the next words of the verse shew, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwcllet/i in me, and I in him, which union of ours with himself, the very similitude of eating and drinking doth alone import (for what we eat or drink becomes one with our bodies). Yet his adding

dwelleth in me, and I in him, doth explicitly declare it in the letter. This done, as if he could not pass over this declaration of our union (as neither in that 17th of John he doth, as may be observed), without superadding how it was that it was communicated from that his superior union with his Father ; and that from thence it is, that life is first communicated to himself, and also from him to us, as it expressly immediately follows, ver. 57, As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father ; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

Yea, and withal, to give a clear and evident instance that this union of his with the Father, and ours with him, are of a differing kind, yea, and infinitely differing, let us but add to this what himself had said of this com munication and descent of life from his Father to us, by virtue of his own union, in the former chapter ; John v. 26, the words are these, As the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given to the Son to have life in him self. The sense whereof is (as I understand it), that his very subsistence as a Son is from his Father, as he is the only begotten of him. Can this be said of us, or of our having life, though spiritual and heavenly, that it is given us to have life in ourselves, as Christ hath, or as the Father hath in himself independently, and with power to give life to others ; so as to be the lords of life, and to be able to bestow it as we please ? But thus doth

Christ, ver. 21, For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them ; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. And this power to give life to others he declares to this end, ver. 23, that all men may honour the Son as they honour the Father. May this be said of us, poor things that we are ! Alas ! we are so far from having lifethus in ourselves, or to be lords of life, that it is well for us (take us as we are fallen), if as con demned persons we have that life derived unto us at all, nay, that we have our lives, it is well if we scape so. This infinite grace, as I have thus set it out, the 24th verse indigitates, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life ; thus low and flat do we fall when his life and union with his Father are

compared with ours. To gather up this ; our tenure of life is but a copy hold of life, in respect of our whole dependence for it, by way of influence, from him, and as it is derived from him, and from his life. Tenants at will I may not call us, in regard he hath endowed us with an eternal donation of it (why else called

eternal life ?), and estated it on us for ever; yet still in regard both of the original of it at first from him, and his continual

keeping our souls in life, which is the veryinfluential maintaining it, and phrase the psalmist expresseth our life by, there appears an infinite dif ference and distance between us and him, in that eternal life which is his and ours ; but upon a differing tenure, for he is the lord paramount of life, to have life in himself ; but we are to hold all from him, from first to last, though for ever. And if our dependence on him for life be so vastly different from his in himself, then our union is accordingly answerable thereto, distant in inferiority and subordination ; and so in like proportion differing; for life, as the effect, flows from union as the cause. Therefore, good souls, set your hearts at rest, know your own imum, your own bottom, and lowness you stand in, in the best condition as saints you could have been set in. Be not deceived neither, to soar or aspire too high upon con ceits of unions which are above you, nor of which indeed you are not capable. You must needs acknowledge that the setting these mutual unions of Christ and the Father in their ovwyiai; from that of the saints, and first theirs, and then ours apart by themselves, that they hold forth at least this to you, that though by means of your union with Christ you] have a union with the Father, yet that Christ hath a union separate from your union, apart by himself, with the Father, and the Father with him, which you can never attain. Would you be all Christs ? Then let us see you redeem your lost brethren of the sons of men, whom Christ died not for effec tually, or who of them have not as yet taken hold of his death to save them selves from sin and hell. The psalmist speaks thus, None is able to redeem his brother from the grave, and to quicken whom he will; no, nor is able to raise up himself at the day of judgment, as Christ did. And are you hypostatically united to the person of Christ then ?

You might see this truth of the infinite disproportion between these two unions of God and Christ, and us and Christ, in a thousand other like effects, which you might make demonstrations, that argue it, if a man had time to gather them, or indeed to utter them. I come to a second instance like to this.

2. Mutual interest or propriety, which the three persons have in the things of each other.

Mutual interest and propriety in one another follows upon union. Now there is a vast subordination of the mutual interests, the one of Christ in and with the Father, and that other of Christ with us ; and such therefore must there also be in the several unions. Will you see your pedigree em blazoned ?

All things areyours, and ye are Christ s, and Christ is God s. -Here is the interest, the propriety and right of a Christian to God, Christ, all things, yet in a chain of subordination set forth thus ; therefore it must be so in the union also. Christ is in the Father, and the Father in Christ ; and this their mutual inbeing, as the ground of their sharing in the same common stock, causeth answerable interest in the things of each other, even of all things. If you take a view of this, in the first and highest supreme union of all, between Christ considered simply as a second person, they are one in the Godhead, and all things therein, or belonging to it, are thereupon equally common to both. All things the Father hath

368 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEE, [BOOK I. are mine, John xvi. 15. And John xvii. 10, All mine are thine, and thine are mine. And how is it that they have this equal mutual interest in all things ? It is because they are one, as the next verse hath it, ver. 11. And their union and their interest runs parallel. But we cannot speak thus as Christ doth, we must lowly and humbly acknowledge all things are ours, because they are Christ s, and Christ is God s. And again, that the man Jesus hath a personal oneness with the Son, and so with God ; hence it is, that all things are committed unto him of the Father ; and he also may say, All thine are mine, &c. And now we are Christ s, and Christ is God s ; and so all things become ours derivatively, as our union is but a secondary union. As the unions have their subordination, so answerably the interests.

3. As to their communication and enjoyment mutual. You may view these gradations and descents in the communications and enjoyments mutual that pass between God and Christ, and Christ and us. Union is for mutual delight, and communication, and knowledge each of other. As the Father and Son have an union superior and entire to them selves (with the Spirit) which is immediate, and differing from that of ours with them, so they have an entire communication of themselves one to and with another, distinct and apart from us ; and they had it ere ever any communication of themselves did descend unto us ; and when they have communicated a suitable share to us like theirs, yet theirs still continues incommunicable to us, apart by themselves.

4. Compare the communications of them in mutual knowledge one of another, and acquaintance.

Where there is a union of persons, there is, or shall follow in the end, a making each other known one to the other. So it is in our union, which is inferior, At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you/ John xiv. 20. And because these of Christ s and the Father, and ours are unions of a differing order, you shall see he speaks of their knowledge still in the same style of transcendency as he doth in parallel language unto what he doth of union in those texts, John xiv. and xvii. chapters ; making one sort of knowledge, and so converse by knowledge, proper, and peculiar, and entire to the Father and the Son, distinct and apart from us, and infinitely above ours ; and a lower of ours, passeth be tween God, and Christ, and us. Thus, John x. 14, I am the good shep herd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. Here you see first there is an intercourse between his sheep and him expressed, as his union with them here ; but still he having another sort of intercourse, which, as Son of God, he drave with his Father (and Christ had the experience of * As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, ver. 15. You see he could not both), which was the cause and pattern of ours, he adds, pass by the mention of one sort between him and his sheep, but he must withal mention that other sort between his Father and himself.

5. And together with this knowledge, there passeth a communication of, and imparting of secrets, a discovery of each other s mind.

Now, as there is that superior order of union, and a transcendent singular affection that accompanies it, between the Father and the Son, so the mani festation of the Father to the Son is answerable : The Father loveth the Son, and shews him all things that himself doth, John v. 20. He shews them all unto his Son, as one that is a co-worker with him in all the * Whatso things himself doth ; as the words afore and after shew, ver. 19, ever things he doth, these also doth the Son likewise. Thus high is this

original union, that is proper and alone between themselves, even to an equality ; for this speech of his comes in to justify himself against the Jews who accused him, in ver. 18, that he called God his own Father, 75/ov Target, making himself equal with God ; which he justifies against them, ver. 19, Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he doth, these also doth the Son like wise. But as for us, as our union is far remote, so the manifestation both of Christ and God to us is also very far off from this. They shew us indeed, and reveal many blessed secrets indeed to us that concern our own salvation ; but what we have thus discovered to us, is but at second-hand of what they speak about us among themselves. The Spirit tells us again what they say, as John xvi. 15, * The Spirit shall take of mine, and give it unto you ; and ver. 13, Whatsoever he (speaking of the Spirit) shall hear, that shall he speak, namely, to you. He speaks of him as a mes senger sent, who conveys to us the mind of them that send him ; but we have it but as from another s hearsay. And hence also, whilst Christ speaks of his communication to us by his Spirit, by virtue of our interest in him, he doth withal insert the mention of that his own interest in and union with his Father, as the supreme original union, so to shew the descent of ours, ver. 15, All things the Father hath are mine : therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shew it unto you ; that is, thus it comes to pass, that you have all manifested to you from me, in that I have all things that my Father hath, and so the Spirit reveals from us both. But still to shew that their union is entire of Father, Son, and Spirit, apart and incommunicable, kept up among themselves, he tells us that their communication, conference, and consultations are thus in private held among themselves, apart from us ; that they hold a private, secret council, which we are never immediately admitted into. What the Father hath the Son hath, and the Spirit heareth both; and as none knoweth what is in man but the spirit of man within him, so none knows what is in God but the Spirit, who searcheth the deep things of God, and revealeth them, 1 Cor. ii. 11, 12 ; and the Son, who, as in John i. 14, is in the bosom of the Father. These three drive an intercourse and intelli gence in secret, into the bosom of which we never enter ; but the Spirit reveals, and Christ declares, as is said in those places. And thus, but at * For who hath known second-hand, we have the mind of God and Christ, the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him ? But we have the mind of Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 16. And but how little (as in Job) do we know thereof !

6. Take and compare the communications of mutual love, breathings forth of affection, mutual delights, and mutual pleasures in each other, which follows union.

They are represented to us in the very same gradation as union here, Prov. viii. 30, I was, says Wisdom, the Son of God, daily his delight ; his Son in whom he hath alone considered an entire, complete delight, an immediate delight in him ; and I was always also rejoicing afore him, and so in him again, so that there was a communication of mutual love, or inter changeable breathings forth, or casts of love each to other. Mutual love is the consequent of union ; and the Father being united to the Son, with a supreme union (transcendent in comparison of that of ours), loves the Son with a transcendent, primary love, who therefore is called

the Son of his love, lug rye, ayccT/js, Col i. 13, as he that engrosseth the whole of VOL. iv. A a

370 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. it all to himself; likewise, This is my well-beloved Son, Mat. iii. 17. As the Son hath life in himself, so the Father loves the Son for himself, with a natural love, as that is wherewith he loveth himself. But his love to us is secondary and collateral, which shews our union is at second hand, but as we are in Christ, and Christ in us. And from thence the care of the Father is derived to us, because Christ is in us, and we are united to him ; this you have John xvii. 26, And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it ; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. An original, primary union hath a love answerable, a derivative union but a love proportionable. Our union is immediate unto, and with. Christ Jesus ; so as he and we are the immediate termini, or correlates united. And thereby it is we become united to God, namely, through him. And therefore God s love is said to be to us in him, Who shall separate from the love of God in Christ Jesus ? Rom. viii. 39. These were their proper, natural, incom municable delights each in other, as their union is, and was, afore the world was ; I in my Father, and my Father in me, John xiv. 10, as dwelling in one another, so rejoicing in one another always ; and these continue proper to themselves, and will do for ever, and cannot be com municated to us otherwise than by way of similitude and likeness. But then they intended to make creatures, and so to have their made artificial accessory delights, as I may so speak. The Father shewed the Son a platform of a world below, in which men should dwell, which Christ calls

habitable earth, and therein the sons of men, his elect, given to him to be one for ever with him. Now, as he was God s delight, and God his immediately and naturally, so these were made for Christ s delight. He therefore subjoins, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men, Prov. viii. 31. Observe the sub ordination still, as he is in the Father, and the Father in him, so he was his Father s in his Father s delights, and he in his ; and then, as we say of men, we in Christ, and Christ in us. And the union is more direct and immediate between us and him ; so we were primitively his delights, even as afore you heard Christ was God s, and we Christ s. The chain of interest, and of delight also, have the same parallel subordinate links.

7. Come we last to glory, and the communication of blessedness (as we began with that particular of eternal life), there is therein found the like subordination and descent, Rev. iii. 21, Christ hath with his Father a * As I am on his throne ; to which throne we never ascend (mark that). But there is another, which he calleth his throne, in those words, throne, and which considered as man, he admits us to a share in our pro

To him that overcometh, I will grant to sit on my throne.* There is still a differing rank and order, thrones higher and lower, even as portion : of the unions also ; and xawg, or As I with my Father, so they with me/ you see, hath run along through all ; for some parallel likeness will be found in all these unions that are thus subordinate, though of so differing a kind, that they have their infinite distance and disproportion proper to them, which must be taken in and considered if we will know the nature and condition of each.

Uses. Christ here, John xiv. 20, tells his apostles, for their comfort, that there was a day coming in which they should have a clear, and full, and intuitive knowledge of this their union, and its descent to them from the Father ; and the parallel of it with his own union with the Father, In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in

you. This being a matter of so great moment for all Christians to know, and to discern in their own selves and hearts, and accordingly reserved as the proper work of the Holy Ghost, when he should come as a comforter, that though this union itself is wrought when we are regenerated by him, yet the sense, the knowledge of it, is reserved to the last, after Christ s resur rection and ascension ; yea, and as others would interpret it, until after our resurrection and the day of judgment. The uses of which knowledge are :

1. For our comfort; for this knowledge Christ here intends is, that which the Spirit as a comforter, ver. 16, was to bring ; and it conduceth much to our comfort to know and meditate our genealogy and alliance that we have and derive (by reason of our union with Christ) from the Father, and how it holds of him, that although our union be of a lower degree and kind, yet it is the offspring of the highest and noblest union, even of that between God and Christ ; a second person first, and then of the man with the second person.

By which also we shall perceive the sureness, the stability of our union with and standing in Christ, when we understand how it is founded ; that it is so riveted into, and indented with, that supreme union of the Father and the Son, that as that of theirs is indissoluble, and cannot be broken, so nor shall this of ours.

It is counted a matter of great moment unto noble families, if but for honour s sake, to know their descent from houses more ancient and sove reign (as of the king of Egypt, the prophet speaks that he was descended of ancient kings ) ; that they have sprung from such and such marriages, and conjunctions of sovereign princes ; although they be in alliance very far removed from them. So is this here to us ; the saints they are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, as Peter speaks, 1 Pet. ii. 9, the royallest family heaven or earth affords ; and that in respect of the descent thereof, which is here heralded, My Father in me, and I in you; and Eph. iii.

14, 15, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.

2. As for our comfort, so for our satisfaction to our knowledge in this great mystery. As in lower matters, when we see the rise, the dependence, and derivation of things, running along in the channel of, and from their causes, it uses to be a great contentment to us. Then here much more to see how our union hath the union among the three persons for its founda tion, and pattern, and original ; and to hear the story how union is let down to the man Christ Jesus first, and in him conveyed to us ; to know and behold the union of three persons in one divine nature, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, one God blessed for ever, producing, in imitation of them, an union of the two natures of God and man in the person of Christ Jesus ; to whom be all glory for ever ; and then, that occasioning a third union, yea, the next that could be, though more removed ; an union of persons (though not personal), yea, of multitudes of persons united unto one Christ Jesus ; to make up one body, yea, one man, as Eph. ii. 15 hath it, Hav ing abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments con tained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, to the end we may be one spouse unto Christ as our head and husband ; and then to see the derived influence the first hath upon the man Jesus, and both upon this union of ours ; As I live by the Father, so you by me, John vi. 57 As also the parallel and correspondency that, is held between the one and the other, that same xa Swj jae/g, inculcated

372 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. by Christ, John xvii., again and again, As we are one, let them also be one. As also, to close, how the one illustrates the other. And, 3, this is chiefly necessary for our knowledge in the doctrine of it, until we come to have experience of it ; to the end to fix, determine, and state the true bounds and condition of our union with God through Christ ; the right proportion of ours in their distance from God and Christ, of which there have been too many mistakes in these times : some soaring too high to identities and sameness with God, at least with Christ (whom they think they may be better bold withal) ; some falling too low, to unions only by grace and assistance, and presence to assist, or in outward relations to Christ. For when we shall come but to see and acknowledge the preroga tives and privileges of those unions above us, that are between God and Christ (incommunicable to us) descending downwards towards us in a sub ordination, we may the rightlier judge what is left us to be our lot and share, that we are but mere creatures still, notwithstanding our union with God and Christ.

CHAPTER V.

Of giving glory to God. That it is a duty incumbent upon us, proved by numerous instances in Scripture. That we are to glorify God, not only nor chiefly for the benefit he bestows on us, but for the glory of his name, and the excellence and blessedness of his nature. Some reasons given, that grace in us may be raised to this high strain.

To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 1 PETER v. 11.

Ere I raise that observation I wholly intend out of these words, I shall first desire you to consult with me the multitude of parallel passages unto this which we find up and down in the epistles, which do arise to a great bulk.

I shall not barely refer you to the chapters and verses, and so pass them over, but to the end to lay the more ample foundation to that doctrine I intend, and withal to make the deeper impressions of it upon your hearts, I will single forth those passages out of the epistles.

I fear the high and glorious elevation that filled the apostles spirits in these doxologies, as they came from their hearts, have not their due weight upon us Christians, for the imitation of them or aspiring thereunto : their commonness in so many epistles, at the close of them, causeth but a common formal regard of them in us ; even such as their salutations of Grace and peace (being made but as to those men they wrote to) use to have with us, as if we were not concerned in them.

But we are to consider that the reason we meet with them frequently in most of the epistles was, that their hearts being full of the glory of God, their pens and mouths were enlarged accordingly ; and the virtue and example of them lasting to all ages, they thereby do excite all that shall read their epistles afresh to join with themselves therein to give glory to God, as they did, it being expressly said, Eph. iii. 21, Unto him be glory in the I church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. And in almost every such a doxology, for ever and ever is added ; and in | Jude, Now and for ever. This premised, I begin to enumerate the several instances.

CHAP. V.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

1. In the epistle to the Romans, how often, by digression, doth he still veil to God in the midst of his discourses, with an Amen set to his blessing of him, as we also should occasionally in our speeches do the like. In Rom. L, discoursing of the heathens changing the glory of the incorruptible God, ver. 23, and ver. 25, changing the truth (or the true divine nature) into the similitude of the creature, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator, he, with an indignation at the relating of * Who is blessed that dishonour done to the great God, comes in with this, for ever. Amen. Which is a solemn glory given to God, in transitu, by the way passant, as we say. The form of Amen, that is in the close, speaks how his heart did give, and rejoiced to give, all blessedness to him, as rejoicing that he is so blessed a God. You find the like, chap, ix., speak ing of Christ asserting of his divine nature, ver. 5, Who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. In like manner, at the end of his discourse about election and reprobation, in chap, xi., which he had finished with the end of that chapter, he breaks forth from ver. 33 to the end, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his counsellor ? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. And lastly, in the conclusion of the epistle, chap. xvi. 25, 27, Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ (according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith), to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.

2. That to the Galatians hath it at the beginning, Gal. i. 5, having last spoken of God the Father, he stops to give glory to him ere he goes any further, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

3. In that to the Ephesians, his heart was full, and he begins with it as soon as he began to speak, chap. i. 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c. But he takes occasion with more solemnity to intermix it, chap. iii. 20, 21, Now unto him that is able to do exceed ingly abundant above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

4. In that to the Philippians, chap. iv. 20, Now unto God and our Father, be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

5. In the first epistle unto Timothy, upon occasion of narrating his own conversion, chap. i. ver. 17, Now, unto the King eternal, immortal, invi sible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. Then at the end of chap. vi. ver. 15, 16, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor can see : to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

6. In that to the Hebrews, chap. xiii. 20, 21, the God of peace, &c., * to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

7. Peter, in his first epistle, was so full with it that he begins with it, as Paul had done, chap. i. 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, accorc

1 ng to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

374 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.

And chap. iv. 11, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ : to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. And then, thirdly, at the close again, chap. v. 11, the God of all grace, &c., to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. In the second epistle, chap. iii. 18, he doth the same to Christ the Son, Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To whom be glory both now and for ever. Arnen.

* To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and

8. Jude, ver. 25, majesty, dominion and power, now and ever. Amen.

9. And John s passing it by in his epistles makes amends for it in his Revelations, which abound therewith. First, himself annexeth it to his own salvation, wishing grace and peace from God the Father, the Spirit, and from Jesus Christ, &c., chap. i. ver. 5, 6, And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first-begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father ; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Then throughout the whole book his ears are filled with it, with voices from all hands. l.tThe saints and redeemed of men in their several congrega tions (their officers being their leaders and speakers for them, and in their * And they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, names), chap. iv. 8, holy, Lfxrd God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. Again, 2, in chap. v. there is the same laudation performed unto Christ : (1.) By the saints of the sons of men : ver. 9, 10, * And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. (2.) Then by an innumerable company of angels

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders : and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands ; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. (3.) By all creatures, unto both God the Father and the Son: ver. 13, And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, honour, glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. (4.) Unto which the saints on earth do give their amen: ver. 14, 4 And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever. And what they do here at first, is to shew what they did perform upon all occasions of praise, as they are given throughout this book. For they are here brought in as the settled chorus, such as in interludes used to be.

And accordingly you find them at it again, chap. vii. (1.) An innume rable multitude of saints, clothed with white robes, and palms in their * with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to hands, and they cried, ver. 10, our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Then, (2.) all the angels, ver. 11, first say Amen unto what the church of men had spoken ; for though they have no interest in that salvation of us men, yet for the glory that thence ariseth unto God, and out of their love to us it is they say, Amen. And it speaks but their own very hearts. And then, (3.) themselves add, de novo, a new praise of their own, ver. 12,

CHAP. V.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHBIST. 375

Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. And again, chap. xi. 17, and xvi. 17, when the kingdoms of the world shall become Christ s. And lastly, chap, xix., after the ruin of Rome : ver. 1, 4 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Halleluia ; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God. Then of the beasts and elders : ver. 4, And the four and twenty elders, and the four beasts, fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen ; Halleluia. And then you have the voice of a greater multitude : ver. 6, And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings, saying, Halleluia : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. That only point which I advance from all these, is, That as it is a duty, so that the grace in us may, in this life, be wound up to a living glory to God, in an abstracted way, from all the glory which is in himself, and which in himself he possesseth, or for what ariseth to him from his works of grace or providence, and revelations of himself, and for the review of praise, which all others in all ages have, or shall give him, even for whatever doth in any way accrue to his praise, as well for what he doth in, and to, and for our own souls, but also in, or towards all or any other of his saints or creatures.

Unto this ample extent do many of these passages extend, as upon a bare review of the passages themselves doth evidently appear. For the materials in most of these doxologies (although occasioned by the remembrance of benefits bestowed, and those also, as in common to others with ourselves) are pure glory, praise, and honour given unto God simply, and not thanks only returned as for benefits, nor chiefly for them ; for that is mentioned but in a few of them. But the objects for which the glory is given, rise unto what is in God himself, as dominion, majesty, power ; the King im mortal, invisible ; only wise God ; King of kings ; the blessed and only Potentate ; Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can see : to whom be honour and power from everlasting. These are all abstracted from benefits, and on these I shall in the applica tion particularly insist, as also that in the Revelations, chap i. 4, John to the seven churches which are in Asia : Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come ; and from the seven

Spirits which are before his throne ; that is, unto Jehovah, as he is ever lasting, and hath fulness of being in himself.

In a word, this comprehends all the glory due unto his name ; which * Give unto the Lord, ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord expression you find in two psalms: Ps. xxix. 1, 2, the glory due unto his name ; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Ps. xcvi. 7, 8, Give unto the Lord, ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name ; bring an offering and come into his courts. In the Hebrew, it is the honour of his name, that honour which from you his whole name is worthy of. And unto such a frame of spirit, I would provoke you all.

1. To aspire to the obtainment of it. 2. To comfort you if you have attained it. And 3. To exhort you to seek that it may not flag in your spirits, but be fixed in you.

This high and holy frame and temper was certainly in the apostles hearts when they indited these doxologies, and thereby excited others to the like.

376 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.

And my grounds (besides what hath been said, and which carries its own evidence with it) are,

1. Hallowed be thy name is the top petition in that gospel prayer Christ hath taught us, and the height and top of desires, and of aspirements to hallow it, are therefore in some measure in some of the souls of them that are taught to pray so. And that petition is of an higher key than Thy kingdom come, that follows ; and yet in that we pray that his manifestative glory may be set up above all, in all his works, and over all his works, and in his giving his church all benefits, and in his confounding his enemies, &c. But, * Hallowed be thy name, is far above all this, and therefore therein the soul in the highest place desires that itself and all others may give glory to God for all that is due to his name any way, and principally for what his name is. His glory and his blessedness is in himself, and they are to glorify God on this behalf. Now, therefore, some strains of this are attainable in this world ; for we are taught to pray it, and so are to have some dispositions of hearts suitable that accompany those prayers.

2. Cartainly Old Testament grace rose not up higher than now New Testa ment grace will be found in some Christians to have done, and to do ; nor did any of their spirits aspire higher, in any of their givings of glory to God, than the apostles in these of theirs. The prophecy of gospel times, Zech.

In that day he that is feeble among you shall be as David, &c. Therefore David s grace was, at least to the highest, acted in them, as it was xii. 8, is, in the primitive Christians many of them.

Now if you consult David s Psalms, in which we have his spirit and his heart expressed, the Holy Ghost being witness thereof, in that through him and his grace he penned them, we find he was raised to this elevation in multitudes of passages in his psalms ; in which he doth abstractly consider God in his greatness, power, and wisdom, &c. And then his works in all the world, and towards his creatures ; then his revelations to his church, his gracious dealings with all his saints, and his glory that ariseth from all these, and upon these accounts gives glory, praise, &c., to him, and pro vokes all others to do so. That his heart was filled with a suitable frame of spirit, triumphantly, and from his whole soul to do this, appears in the very passages abundantly. There do occur so many records of this, as I know not well where to begin, or which to insist on most. I shall single forth but one for all the rest, which is the 145th Psalm, of which I shall give a brief delineation.

There is this one psalm of his which beareth this title, David s praise, or the * praise of David, so in the original, and although there are multitudes of other high strains this way in other psalms, yet the Holy Ghost styled this * David s praise, namely, of God. Now you will find the whole of that psalm to be a praising or giving glory unto God, either simply abstractly, for what is in his nature, or what he is in his works to all creatures, espe cially to his saints ; and you shall not find one word in it about any benefit proper to himself in that whole psalm. That in the 1st verse that he styleth this God his God was from hence : the exercise of so high a strain of grace carries so clear an evidence of this with it, that that God whom any one should extol so much (as his heart was enlarged to in that psalm) must certainly be his God that so extolled him. But yet besides, that as he is God is the principal of the two ; you have his heart elsewhere expressed for that; as in Ps. xliii. 4, I will praise thee, God, my God. God

in the chief place, and my God in the second. This is more abundantly seen in this psalm, and in many other psalms.

It is observable, that David entitling this psalm, The praise of David, that in the original no psalm else beareth such a title. It is appropriated to it, because this wholly consists of mere praise ; he was elevated therein to a frame of spirit merely made up of pure praise of God, without any touch of what was particular to himself. So as it was not thanks, but altogether praise, and wholly praise. To run over this psalm briefly. Himself, as precentor or leader of the whole choir, begins verses 1, 2, I will extol thee, my God, King ; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless thee ; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

And then in verse the 3d declares what it was which above all he had in his eye, as provoking him to this praise: even the great and infinite ex

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised ; and his greatness is unsearchable. This summarily comprehends all that cellency of God in himself. is in God, which David intuitively viewed at his entrance to the whole. After this of his greatness in himself, he proceeds upon what God is in his works, and in that argument he utters, . 1. His own joy first, for this, that they all should with one mouth praise him throughout all times. Thus, ver. 4, * One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. And so that God will be sure to be praised to the world s end, and had been praised afore he was born, this joyed his soul exceedingly.

2. As that throughout all times, so that in all times, all and every of his works do praise him. First, men, verses 6, 7, And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts ; they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. And secondly, all of his other works besides, verse 10, All thy works shall praise thee, Lord. But thirdly, with a greater emphasis and exultation for this, that THE SAINTS THEY BLESS HIM, so in the same verse.

But that which I would desire you in a special manner to observe withal, that whilst he brings in all those (which added unto his joy) thus praising God, he himself thought within himself, whilst he was bringing in this general contribution of their praise, that I will not be left out at so glorious an exercise, but I will bear my part ; so as he abruptly puts in with them, and rudely (as it were) interrupts them, intermingling his own in the midst still of theirs. Thus in ver. 4, after he had said, one generation to an other, &c., in ver. 5, himself breaks in, I will speak of the glorious hon our of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. Which is as if he had said, I will crowd in mine, and bear my part, and he doth it whilst theirs was but begun. And then in the next verse, ver. 6, whilst he brings them in again chanting out the same in these words : And they, namely, one generation to another, this referring to ver. 4, they shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts. Himself as one that could not hold (no, not till their praise had been half spoken out), puts in again, I will declare thy greatness. Then ver. 7, when he had brought them all in again, They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness ; himself again (as if striving to outsing them), riseth np to the highest and loudest note and matter of praise, ver. 8, 9, * The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. This was proper to him as a saint to utter, and so together with them

378 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. fall a magnifying that God which was the cause of all, namely, his mercy ; and, as a source of that, for which all his works do praise him, The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. Which having said, he then commits and leaves this matter wholly unto them, even to all his works, especially unto his saints, to speak what they could or would further say. 1. To his saints; for his mercies to them are above what to all his other works, ver. 10, All thy works shall praise thee, Lord ; and thy saints shall bless thee ; and so leaves it to them to speak out the rest, for he alone was not sufficient : ver. 11, 12, They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power ; to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majest}^ of his kingdom.

The rest, unto the 21st verse, is a setting forth that kingdom (in some branches of it) which they so much celebrate ; and you may take it either to be his own, or their celebration of it, or rather, of both jointly. It begins, ver. 13, Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon thee ; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thy hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him : he will also hear their cry, and will save them. The Lord preserveth all them that love him : but all the wicked will be destined. Which containing the principal parts of his dominion, I divide and consider thus : First, The everlastingness of it, for which it is so much celebrated : ver.

13, Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.

In which words is especially aimed at that glorious kingdom he shall for ever exercise in heaven, with all his saints magnifying him gloriously, of which, as it is often said, there is no end. And although in this lies the height of his dominion, yet, Secondly, He takes in the exercise of it, as it is in this world, throughout the many generations thereof, from first to last. And the parts thereof are,

1. His dispensations towards his saints in their miseries, which is shewn especially in raising and recovering them from falls, and exercised for them, and on their behalf, as they are oppressed

The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. A most glorious work. But withal,

2. Also, that which is extended to all creatures that, having a sensitive life, are to be maintained by food, as fishes, fowls, beasts. God takes it upon him to be the father of this great family of the world, and to take care of all the several kinds of them that need, and accordingly provides and gives forth variety of several sorts of food proper to each. As (1.) to give each their several meat and diet ; and (2.) fails them not ; (3.) in the due season, wherein they need it; and moreover, (4.) his own immediate hand is said to give it them ; and they, (5.) as expecting it from him, are said to come about him, as fowls use to do about those that use to feed them. Yea, and (6.) he not only feeds, but satisfies their desires. All these you have distinct, ver. 15, 16, The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desires of every living thing.

CHAP. V.J AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST

3. That special part of his providence and kingdom exercised over and towards the eminent of his creatures, viz., the sons of men in common, wherein he sets forth the manifold administrations and dealings with all of them, both good and bad. First, in common to both : ver. 17, The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works ; that is, in all the variety of trials, chastisements, judgments upon both wicked men and good men ; and it is not in some or a few of his ways, but in all that fall out to either ; and therefore let us adore him in all.

4. But especially to the righteous, his choicest ones. And that peculiar care and love to them he again returns to set forth: ver. 18, 19, 20, The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him : he will also hear their cry, and will save them. The Lord preserveth all them that love him.

These are mighty sayings, that we should have him to cry unto, and he to be nigh and quick of hearing, and his eyes to run to and fro over us ; that God in the issue one way or other should fulfil these sayings unto all his saints, even to every one, especially those latter ; to hear and consider all their prayers, fulfil all their desires, and after, and above all that, he will make sure work of it, infallibly to save;them at last, and preserve them to the end effectually. Of all things he will be sure to bring them to salva tion. What can be more ?

All and every of these, through want of not searching them out, even the saints themselves observe not, and therefore God loseth of his praise ; yet we should believe them to be exactly true, and at the latter day we shall have an account of the fulfilling of them ; but it is. with us as Job acknowledgeth, Job ix. 10, 11, God doth great things past finding out, yea, and wonders without number. Lo, he goeth by, and I see him not: he passeth on also, but I perceive him not.

You find at the close of this, that part of his kingdom added, But all the wicked will be destroyed, namely, in hell; for of other dispensations to them in this life he had spoken, ver. 17, and this is a matter of as great praise as any other, but only that towards the saints, and which next thereto does bring in the greatest and justest revenues of glory to him. And yet even in doing this he shews himself righteous and holy, as he had said afore, ver. 17.

These things done and gone through, look as he had begun with himself, so he ends, ver. 21, My mouth shall speak the praises of the Lord, namely, for all these things, and yet not a word in all these things that was proper to himself, but of common concern to others. And then having said, he, as * And let all a leader of the choir, provokes all flesh to do the same. flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever ; that is, every creature (as sometimes flesh is used) to be sure, of all the sons of men.

Truly he might worthily entitle this psalm, David s praise, namely, of God, whom elsewhere he gives the attribute of the praised God unto; as in Ps. xviii. 3, I will call upon the praised God. So in the original there. Ainsworth observeth the same word here, ver. 3. The meaning in that place is (to make it the highest encouragement to beget confidence in one that prays), is this, that God never denied prayer, and that is the thing for which he comes to be so famed and renowned a God, and that makes him to be the praised God ; that is it the saints do praise him for, as that coherence shews. And it is as if David had said, I will call upon him, and I shall be sure to speed ; for he is renowned for this, and bears

380 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. the title of the praised God, for that still he continually hears them that call upon him. And we may be sure that God will not lose his praise, and therefore will hear every one that calls upon him ; according to that in Ps. xxii. 3-5, But thou art holy, thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee : they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered : they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. And this makes it no wonder that David else where further styles him The God of my praise; thus Ps. cix. ver. 1. Whereupon give me leave, in order to expound it the better, to expostulate a little. What, David, were there no saints but thyself that gave praise to God ? Why dost thou then seem to appropriate and engross God unto thyself, as the God of thy praise, as if none praised him else but thee ? It is because his soul had devoted all the praise he was able to bestow on any, unto the Lord alone ; as whom he had set himself to praise, and praise alone. As of a beloved son we use to say, the son of my love. And further, it is as if he had said, If I had all the ability of the spirits of men and angels wherewith to celebrate him, I would bestow them all on him, he is the God for my praise. And as he was his, so he should be ours.

Yea, further, hence it is that he is entitled, The praise of all saints, Ps. cxlviii. 14. It is one of his titles, whereby (as God) he is set out. Give me leave to understand that passage of God himself, which others have diverted from him ; for the Psalmist afore had said, He also exalteth the horn of his people. And therefore he it is of whom it follows, the praise of all his saints.

My brethren, you that have grace understand in some measure what metal the grace in your hearts is made of ; and unto what that divine metal or nature in you may be sublimated by the more than chemical operation of the Spirit unto.

There are these reasons why your grace may be intended or raised up unto this strain.

Reason 1. The divine nature in us, as in Peter it is styled, is the perfect imitation or image of God s own nature ; and all true holiness doth consist in its being such. It is, as they observe of a loadstone, that, cut round, is the perfect imitation of the earth, though in a lesser volume, a terreUa (as they call it), so as all the lines, the poles, the variation of the compass, &c., may be exactly drawn upon it, and found out, and discerned by the motions of a needle put upon it, which will shew all these exactly, as I myself have seen. And thus sympathetical, in the make of it, is grace, the divine nature in us, unto what is in God, or his divine nature.

However, this I may truly affirm, that grace is framed, either to be the resemblance of, or applies itself unto, all that is in God.

It is true, divines do rightly make this distinction in the divine attri butes.

1. Of some that are communicable in this respect, that the likeness of them may be stamped on us, as goodness, wisdom, holiness, &c. And of them the case is clear, that therein consisteth an image of God s divine nature.

But, 2. Some that are incommunicable, as sovereignty, eternity, absolute dominion, majesty, &c., likewise his glory, which is not to be given to another. Now observe, that those attributes wherein our graces are not capable to imitate him, that yet we have grace to apply ourselves to them, some way or other, so as to give the glory due unto them. As to his sove reignty, and absolute dominion, and majesty, grace in us can and may be

brought down (shall I say), or wound up rather, to submit to it, to fall down to the dust afore it ; not simply in a reverence or adoration of it, but in an absolute resignation of itself unto it ; as in David we see, 2 Sam.

But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee ; behold, here am I, xv. 26, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him. Yea, unto a casting all away unto the glory of it. And truly, as such acts of submission are a throwing away (shall I say), or rather a giving up one s self, and all our own concern ments, both unto and for what purely is in God, so there is a giving glory to him, by way of exalting him, for what is purely in himself.

Eeason 2. The tendency of grace in us is to have but one common inte rest between God and our souls, to make his interest wholly ours, and ours to be altogether his. We are imperfect in it indeed, but, so far as we have grace, we have but one interest common to God and us. It is that which grace would be at ; but corruption keeps us down. Christ expresseth his being one with his Father, as in his nature and essence, so as he and his Father, having both but one will, and so one interest ; John vi. 38, x. 29, 30, and v. 30 : For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. My Father which gave them me is greater than all ; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father s hands. I and my Father are one. I can of mine own self do nothing ; as I hear, I judge ; and my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

Now as Christ s interest and God s are but one, so by our union with Christ (and so with God through him), Christ s interest and ours is but one. Therefore, 1 Cor. vi. 17, He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit, namely, with Christ, of one and the same disposition, ends, and aims ; for in all these respects, and much higher than I can express, it is * one flesh, to be one spirit with Christ. Man and wife, that are but yet we all see and know, where love between them is, that there is one com mon interest of both ; and it is such and so near a conjunction, through God s ordination, as it is, as if they were one, both as unto what concerns the good of each other, as Eph. v. 28, He that loveth his wife loveth him self ; and also in what concerns the common good of the family, of the children, &c., and they mutually rejoice in all those alike. Oh, but Christ our husband and we are one spirit. Even the saints among themselves, so far as gracious, are said to.be of one heart and of one soul, &c. Acts

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul : neither said any of them that ought of the things he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common. And they were to rejoice and suffer in one another s happiness and misery ; 1 Cor. xii. 26, iv. 32, * And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. For as, ver. 12, the body is one, and hath many members ; and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body ; so also is Christ. Thus is Christ in his body among themselves ; how much more is it thus between Christ the head and each member ? I may well say, Even so is Christ of the one part and the other, much more Christ and they are but one, and have but one interest in common ; for Christ is the foundation of that among saints. Now what doth the virtue of such an oneness of interest tend unto, but that we should rejoice in all the good, happiness, and blessedness that is in God, or that Christ enjoys ? And that this is the power of true love, and of our being one spirit with Christ, that speech evidently shews, John xiv. 28, Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you.

382 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.

If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto my Father : for my Father is greater than I. And who therefore is so able to make me happy ? And therefore that you are so cast down, and that the joy for my happiness and advancement swallows not up your sorrow, is, because you love yourselves inordinately. But still the power of grace lies therein, you may see, and the foundation of all is oneness of interest. Look therefore, as Christ s interest was one with his Father s, to seek his glory, and to de light in it, John vii. 18, He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him : so it is of grace in a Christian, when wound glory up to what the height of it tendeth unto. And therefore, as God delighteth in his own glory for itself, so may a gracious heart be brought to do. It is in his grace whereby to do it: and as God s blessedness lies in his enjoying himself and his own glory, so the height of ours should be to apprehend that he is so glorious in himself, and accordingly to rejoice in it. Reason 3. You will allow that grace may be wound up in some spirits to as high strains for God and his glory (take the sorts or kinds of the one and the other), as sin and self-love are in some sort of sinners against God and his glory. I do not say in the same degree (because such as I shall instance in are wholly wicked and full of all evil, as the devils are, and no man s grace is full for the measure of it), but for the kind ; and there is no kind of wickedness, but is in the genius and disposition of it equalled by the grace in some saints that love God. Now, self-love in them that sin against the Holy Ghost, and in the devil, doth rise up directly and imme diately so high, as to oppose and fly in the face of all the glory that is in God, or that in any way he enjoys, grudging at it, hating it, blaspheming it immediately, as it is in itself, as it is in us, and in him ; this is the devil s sin, and also of some men put into the devil s state and condition.

Now then, I say, and argue from this, that the same contrary disposition may be, and is driven forth in grace, ever to love the glory of God imme diately as it is his, and because it is his, and to rejoice therein, more than in its own blessedness ; and to have an amplitude of heart this way, so as to delight in all the glory God hath, or any sort of way accrues to him. Yea, and I add this, that there is reason it should rather fall out on grace s part, that grace in a saint should, rather of the two, be supported, to be elevated unto this high pitch, rather than the wickedness in men or devils unto the contrary ; in that grace is a principle capable of loving God for himself, as the chiefest good, but no creature can hate God simply and absolutely for himself, because he is himself the chiefest good, as the schoolmen argue it, but yet they are found to do it only because God is an enemy unto selflove in them, and so in revenge they are provoked to oppose God, and to fly in his very face, they being acted by a spirit to do despite to the Spirit of grace (which is the very spirit of that sin against the Holy Ghost). But the creature having the image of God s own holiness stamped upon it, it may love God for himself, and true love to God is not founded upon self-love merely in the creature ; and, if it were, it were not the image of God. And if it be a principle of grace to love God as God, then it must needs be capable to rise up to this, to glorify him as such. I further add, that as that forementioned desperate frame of spirit befalls some men in this life, as well as devils, so this high and holy frame of heart (though more imper fectly for degree) is raised up but in some gracious saints hearts in this life ; and yet as all evil men s wickedness is not wound up to this height of renown in sinning, but only in a few, so nor is the grace of all saints

CHAP. VI. J AND HIS SON JESUS CHKIST. 383 intended or elevated to this other extraordinary pitch. Which stating of it thus may conduce to clear the thing in hand, and to the comfort of such souls as want the energy or working sense thereof.

Reason 4. It is certain that grace elevated works thus in the saints hearts in heaven ; that is, to glorify God for himself, and their own happi ness they consider not ; for it is hut a result or consequent of their joying in the amplitude of God s glory which they are wholly swallowed up into ; for God becomes

all in all in them and to them, 1 Cor. xv. 28. Now, as some communications of the joys that are in heaven are vouchsafed unto some saints in this life, some immediate drops (not to say dews only) are let fall into their souls, of the same kind that are in heaven in a fulness ; therefore also, by a parallel reason, some lesser participations of the intenseness of that grace that is in those blessed souls made perfect ; . for some have the earnest of the Spirit, and of that inheritance, and an ear nest consists of the same kind with the whole that is yet behind.

CHAPTER VI.

A more punctual explication what it is to give glory to God in himself or works, set out by a comparative with all the other ways of glorifying God, which it far exceeds.

Our next inquiry shall be, What this grace and duty I so commend unto you are ? I put them together, for the one may be known and discerned by the other ; and that where in Scripture we find the duty spoken of, we may thereby understand what the grace, that is, the root thereof in the heart, is and ought to be ; as also what is the duty when the grace is spoken of, or the increase of it specified. To find out the true elevation of both, I shall proceed by comparative steps, whereby it will appear how far this exceeds other ways of giving glory to God.

In general, we may consider that to give glory to God is a matter of a large extent, comprehending many ways of doing it. As, 1. We are to glorify God in every thing and action, 1 Pet. iv. 11, that in every thing God may be glorified. And this is done by the holy ends we have in communications, either put forth immediately, or though mediately, yet ultimately aiming at God s glory in them, 1 Cor. x. 31, Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do it all to tho glory of God. And the apostle Peter adds, over and above such a way of glorifying God, * to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

2. We give glory to God in such good works as directly in themselves do tend to the glory of God. Mat. v. 16, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven ; which Peter seconds, 1 Pet. ii. 12, Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may, by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation : which is as if he had said, Though at present wicked men will not acknowledge any goodness in you saints, but, on the contrary, speak evil of you, yet little do you think how every holy action lays up matter against the day of judgment, in the consciences of the wickedest men, by which God will be glorified at that day in their acknow ledgments, when Christ shall have set his gloss upon these actions, and in

384 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEK, [BoOK I. the mean time, afore that day, these holy works do give an occasion unto

redound holy men to glorify God in your behalf, which these works do by a ing to the glory of God (as the phrase is, 2 Cor. iv. 15). Yet so to praise God, as I exhort you to do, is higher. The angels, although their charac ter is, that they do God s commandments, and that they be the highest instance of it, as in the Lord s prayer, Thy will be done, as in heaven, &c. ; yet they are called upon, by David, farther to bless God, as a mat ter beyond their doing his will otherwise, Ps. ciii. 20, Bless the Lord, ye his angels that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Nulla angelis prastantior est exercitatio in qua se occupent ; Calvin on the words. There is no higher way of glorifying God than this, for them to be exercised in. It is beyond their doing all other commandments. Likewise in Ps. 1. 23. Although ordering our con versation aright is so acceptable to God, as he will shew his salvation to them that do it, yet the height and top of glorifying God is set upon the head of praising God as the crown ; * Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me : and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I shew the salvation of God.

3. In performing duties of worship, public or private, and being conver sant in ordinances ; this is a further degree of glorifying God, than in holy actions, in ordering our conversations, &c. Ps. Ixxxvi. 9, All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, Lord, and shall glorify thy name. Yet this way of giving glory to God excels being conversant in ordinances, although having communion with God therein.

1 Peter iv. 10, 11, As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God : if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ ; to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Which is spoken of the ministration of ordinances. As to speak in the church, or to contribute to the saints, is a way of glorifying God in the way of ordinances and worship, yet still this duty of giving glory to God exceeds it, and therefore is over and beyond (superadded and exhorted to, after the other), as distinct from them ; to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

4. It is more than to praise God for benefits vouchsafed and received to ourselves ; which yet is an high way of glorifying God. We generally say, that thanksgiving is a nobler and more divinely generous duty than prayer, for self-love puts us upon that, praying for benefits ; but thanks is a more free, defecate, and pure act, and yet is out of a sense of God s goodness unto one s self; * Bless the Lord, my soul ; and forget not all (that is, not any) of his benefits. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, and healeth all thy diseases, Ps. ciii. 2, 3. And Ps. Ixxxvi. 12, 13, I will praise thee, Lord my God, with all my heart ; and I will glorify thy name for ever more. For great is thy mercy towards me ; and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Yet we see there is a deep touch of self-love in this both praise and glorifying of God ; for great is thy mercy to me.

Well, but this way of glorifying God is yet more high and generous, being for what is abstractly considered from all benefits ; that is, simply con sidering what glory and excellencies are in God himself, or in his glory unto others of his creatures. It is to give glory to God, for what he is or doth any way to his church, or to all others in the world, and not only for what he is to us, &c. Look back upon the places cited, and you will find the

CHAP. VI.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

most of them speak this abstractedness. In the Revelation you find both the church and men to give glory and honour, distinct from thanks ; Rev. iv. 9, And when those beasts gave glory, and honour, and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever ; upon this account, ver. 11, that thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power ; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Likewise the angels run upon the same strain, Rev. vii. 12, Saying, Amen : blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our Lord for ever and ever. Amen.

5. It is more than to glorify God for his love to us, for the assurance and hope he will glorify us ; Rom. v. 1, * By faith we have peace with God, and a standing in grace, and the favour of God ; so ver. 2, And not only so, but we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations ; so strong, real, lively, powerful, are those hopes of glory in us, as to rise to this ; thus ver. 3. But then, ver. 11, he riseth: Not only so, but we also joy in God, and make himself the yet higher top of our rejoicing, far beyond our being glorified by him, and our hopes thereof. Why ? For in our being glorified by him, we are passives ; loved, rather than love ; glorified, rather than give glory. But in the exercise of this grace and duty the soul is active, and casts glory upon God s acts, and upon him, reverberates all the glory that shines upon them back again upon him, and that for what is in himself, as a God in himself so glorious, dwelling in light inaccessible, immortal, only wise, &c. Yet this must be added, that withal the soul considers, that this God, that is thus great and excellent, is also his God. He rejoices to put that in all/though still the top of his praise, and his solace therein doth rise and reach far higher. Therefore you find praising God, and my God, so often in the psalm joined, and in the prophet Isaiah, chap. xxv. 1, 2, although his praise is for his glorious counsels and judgments in the world, which wholly concerned the glory of God, and not himself, yet he puts in, I will exalt thee, my God ; that is, he reflected upon this withal, that God, who was so great a God, was his God, in that high and near relation.

Use. Let us next view the high privileges and divine dispositions of such a soul, when raised up unto this blessed frame. I so state the terms of what is now to follow, in calling them his privileges, as well as the divine out-goings or dispositions of such an heart. But I shall not handle these two apart, or accurately sever them, but, as one and the same, speak pro miscuously of them.

It is the high privilege of such a soul to have all it doth, or can compre hend, to be in God himself, to give glory to him for ; and in doing so, therewithal themselves to glory and rejoice also therein, as that he is such and so great a God, so blessed, so glorious in himself; and although they cannot see his glory, and live in this life, yet all those descriptions of him, whereby he hath made himself so wonderfully known, they have these afore them, as far as in this life they may or do comprehend them : Eph. iii. 18, * able to comprehend, and to be filled with all the 19, there is a being made fulness of God, prayed for by the apostle. And it is evidently spoken of what the saints may attain in this life ; for it is whilst

Christ dwells in their hearts by faith. And that place shews, that beyond the apprehension of the love of God in Christ, and of Christ s love, there is a being filled with the fulness of God himself, in such a proportion and sense as this life is capable of; yet so as such a thing there is to be attained, as shall justly bear the title of this. And because they he writes to (as generally VOL. iv. B b

386 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.

Christians do) find this to be too high (as indeed it is, if they reflect upon their ordinary walking and common experiments it is) ; therefore he con cludes his prayer with this, * Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, &c. For indeed the experience of such a frame of spirit, is an height above what we are able to ask or think, and yet is attainable by the power that now worketh in us, as it follows. And because the genuine product, end, and tendency of such an elevation of heart is to wish and to give all glory to God, therefore it is he so solemnly adds, ver. 21, Unto him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world with end. Amen. For any one s being filled with all the fulness of God, doth constrain the spirit in whom it is, to give and wish this glory to him. As likewise he that is raised up to that frame of spirit, thus to give glory for what is in God himself, that soul hath all the fulness in God afore him, to give glory to him for.

Now to incite us all to the seeking this high disposition of spirit, I shall, for your encouragement, spread before you many instances of saints, who have had hearts to glorify God for all the fulness which is inhimself.

see the glory of God, Exod. xxxiii. 18, and, Moses, you know, desired to says God, ver. 19, I will make all my goodness pass before thee ; and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. And God caused his glory to pass before him, ver. 22. And accordingly, chap, xxxiv. 5, 6, 7, God proclaims his name and divine nature, in those attributes of merciful, strong, true, and just. Upon which Moses, being filled with this glory, adored God ; ver. 8, Moses made haste, and bowed his head towards the earth. He made a return of worship unto all this glory he had seen and heard ; though likewise he put up a prayer with all, ver. 9. But he adores him purely, for that glory which God had manifested to him, to be in him self, and in his nature.

We find many psalms made to glorify God alone by his works. But in some other psalms besides, over and above, and before they come to cele brate God for his works, the psalmist began first to celebrate him for what is in his nature, what is in himself. Ps. civ. 1, Bless the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, thou art very great ; thou art clothed with honour and majesty: who coverest thyself with light as with a garment. And then he sets him out by his works in the rest of the psalm, in so glorious a manner, as in no Scripture more. Likewise Ps. cxlv. 1, 2, 3, I will extol thee ; I will bless thy name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless thee. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised ; and his greatness is un

I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty. And ver. 8, he sets out the graciousness of his nature, The Lord is searchable. Ver. 5, gracious, and full of compassion ; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The rest of the psalm is taken up with the praising him for his works, and a setting forth the glory of his kingdom. Calvin did observe this also upon Psalm cxxxvi. 1-3, give thanks unto the Lord ; for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever. give thanks to the God of gods give thanks to the Lord of lords : for his mercy endures for ever. He sets out first (saith he) the height of his deity arid sovereign kingdom ; and then the following part of that song sets out his works, To him who alone doth great wonders, ver. 4.* Likewise, Psalm cxlvii., a psalm of praise, so it begins, ver. 1, Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing

Priusquam ad celebrationem operum Dei veniat, summam ejus Deitatem summumque imperium commendat. Calvin, in loc.

praises to our God. At the 5th verse he sets out what God is in himself, by three things, as the principles of all his works. First, By his greatness and immensity, Great is our Lord. Secondly, His power, and of great power. Thirdly, His wisdom, his understanding is infinite. Elsewhere it is said, In wisdom hast thou made them all, namely, his works, Ps. civ. 24. But here his wisdom is that which is in himself, for which he celebrates him, though he had never made any work.

This soul, thus wound up, can sit down in God, and with God, and bless him, and rejoice in all the blessedness that is in him, and for that it is his, that he is so blessed, and that in such an infinite God there is such infinite blessedness, and can say Amen to it, when he hath gone over it in all his thoughts of it. As Paul, Rom. i. 25, upon occasion of a dishonour done to God, by worshipping his unworthy creatures more than the Creator, he

who is blessed for ever, and puts amen in indignation of spirit adds, to it. He speaks of what he is in his divine nature, in himself, which in ver. 20 he calls his eternal power and Godhead ; in ver. 23, the glory of the incorruptible God ; and in ver. 25, the truth of God, that is, the true being of God. Now, God considered as such, it is that for which he

* amen to

who is blessed for ever ; and I say pronounces him blessed, it (says he), that is, I congratulate it to him ; for what is amen but so be it, or, Oh, let it be so ? And if one amen be not enough, you shall have it doubly set to our blessing of him, Blessed be the Lord God, and blessed be his glorious name for ever ; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen, Ps. Ixxii. 18, 19. And whom do you think he speaks of ? Of Christ, and God in Christ. Men shall be blessed in him ; all nations shall call him blessed, ver. 17. Wherein Christ in the whole psalm, under the type of Solomon, is set out. But you find the same amen set to the blessedness that is in Christ in the New Testament, where Paul, speaking of Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen, Rom. ix. 5. He says amen to the fulness of the blessedness of the Godhead that is in him ; yea, unto the man Jesus, taken up into the participation of that blessedness, through his personal union with the Son of God ; from which it is, that all that glory which he wears in heaven is his by inheritance or natural right, as Heb. i. tells us. Now, in Psalm xlv. he sets him out in the excellency of his person as such ; Thou art fairer than the children of men ; grace is poured into thy: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. And because" God had lips thus blessed him, the psalmist goes on to bless him too, and to wish well to him with all this his honour. So far is he from envying of it, though it might have been the lot of any other man, or of a man s self, to have been taken up into that union, and kept from the fall. But he wishes it all to him over and over again, and is glad that God hath such a Son, and himself such a head ; and as Christ passes along by him in his glory, he cries out, Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, most mighty, with thy glory, and thy majesty ; and in thy majesty ride prosperously. These are words of one applauding, and blessing, and wishing all happiness and prosperity to him, with all his honour : ride prosperously, or, as the Hebrew hath

Gook luck have thou with thy honour ; yea, and as subjects use to say to the king (though often in flattery), as he passes by, Vivat rex, Vive le roi, Let the king lire

prosper thou, ride thou. The old translation had it, it, for ever, as in Daniel. And as they of Augustus, when themselves were dying, they would sacrifice for his life, and say, Let Augustus live, though I die ; so (would you think it) that the very like phrase should be in the

388 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.

The Lord lives/ as we translate it, psalms, and the meaning of those words, Ps. xviii. 46, * and blessed be my Rock, should be an optative, * Let the Lord live ; as we use to say to our kings, Vivat rex, so, Let God live, and be blessed, and live for ever.

Take we likewise the matter of those two doxologies of Paul, 1 Tim. vi.

15, Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light no man can approach to ; whom no man hath seen, nor can see : to him be honour and power everlasting. Amen. The other, 1 Tim. i. 17, * Now, unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. This latter he did break out into upon occasion of the story of his own conversion. But though that so great a mercy to himself was the occasion, yet his spirit soars far higher, beyond all of what God had done for him, to consider, purely and abstractly, what a glorious God he was in himself. Let us but open the particulars of it.

First, He gives glory to him for that blessedness which was in him, Who is the blessed, says he, < and only Potentate. What is blessedness but a confluence and fulness of all good to an infinite, complete within himself, so as God need not go forth of himself for anything ? as Acts xvii. 25, He needs not anything, seeing he gives life to all, and all things. Like as if a great man should have in his house, and in the compass of his grounds round about it, all kind of things of all sorts, within his own de mesnes, that he need not go forth for anything.

Secondly, He is the only Potentate, sovereign over all. He hath not only all happiness within himself, and fulness, but he hath sovereign and absolute power over all things. Now, when these two things shall meet, all inward fulness, and such an absolute power besides, he is blessed indeed that hath it. You shall find up and down in the psalms, the psalmist to bless him above all for a kingdom of his, Psalm cxlv. and other psalms, where you find it celebrated.

Now, that kingdom is, (1.) seated in himself, and then exercised towards his creatures ; you will find the psalmist praise him for both. First, Seated in himself, in Ps. xciii., which begins, in the first verse, with a celebration: The Lord reigns ; he is clothed with majesty, &c. He ascends higher there, to the exercise of it, in governing the world. At of his kingdom ver. 2, Thy throne is established of old ; thou art King from everlasting; and for this they praise him. His kingdom began from everlasting ; he reigned within himself, and in his own purposes, and contrivements, and orderings of all things. He disposes of all from then, as the word of old translated is in the Hebrew. And then it was that he did clothe himself with majesty, and did gird himself with strength, as a man uses to do before he begins to do any great matter; thus, ver. 1, for this his saints do praise him.

Then (2.) as it is exercised. First, As it is seated in heaven, Ps. Ixxxix.

5-7, The heavens shall praise thy wonders, Lord ; thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints. For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord ? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord ? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints ; and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him. He speaks this of the glory which he hath, and shews forth in heaven afore all angels and saints whom he hath round about him. He had said, in the 4th verse, of Christ, the spiritual David, Thy seed will I establish for ever,

CHAP. YL] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 389 and build up thy throne to all generations. And of that kingdom he treats from ver. 21 of that psalm to ver. 38.

Now, for this kingdom of his, the heavens are said to praise his wonders, which is spoken of the angels, who are often called the heavens, from their place ; as in Job it is said, The heavens are not clean in his sight. And these knowing the wonders of that covenant of grace, they, even they, are * The heavens shall praise thy wonders, Lord. In the Hebrew it is, said to praise ; * thy wonder, or thy miracle, in the singular number, which, in Eph. iii. 10, the angels are said to adore ; and in Luke i. to sing glory to the Highest ; for his grace to man is that miracle. Now, the material heavens do not praise the mercy of God, or the grace of God, or the covenant of grace, or the throne of grace that is established in the heavens. They understand nothing of Christ ; no, they do not so much as materially give occasion to man to praise God for these ; and therefore this is meant of the angels ; and most interpreters understand the next words of them : Thy faithfulness in the congregation of the saints, angels, and the holy ones made perfect, for there the great congregation is. For even in the heavens, who can be compared to the Lord, where all his angels thus do praise him ?

Who among the sons of the mighty, of all the powers of the earth, can be likened to the Lord ? for he is the * King of kings, and he is the Lord of lords ; a God above all gods, even angels themselves, as elsewhere the psalmist hath it. And he says not only, * There is none like thee ; but, Who is like unto thee ? his excellency so exceeds. And in the 7th verse, he is there presented with all his saints and angels round about him, as one that is greatly to be feared, or that is terrible in himself, by reason of his greatness, in this his council and assembly of his saints, and to be had in reverence of all that are about him. For saints and angels, they are of his council in heaven (as might be shewn), and en compass the manifestation of his glory there round about.

This kingdom of his is set out and magnified by those psalms. First, By his throne ; justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne, ver. 14. Then mercy and truth, they shall go before thy face. He com pares them to harbingers that he sends out before him ; Ps. Ivii. 3, He shall send from heaven, and save me ; God shall send forth his mercy and truth, that come down with commissions from him, as from the great King, when his saints stand in need thereof ; and these make strange work in the world. He need not send down angels, he need send but mercy and truth down, which elsewhere it is said he prepares in the heavens, Ps. Ixi. 7. He prepares commissions for them, and sends them down with them for execution. It is likewise said, that majesty is before him ; Ps. xcvi. 6, Honour and majesty are before him ; sing unto the Lord therefore (ver. 24), bless his name ; declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. For the Lord is great, greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods, angels, and kings on earth ; * honour and majesty are before him. And then his faithfulness is said to be round about him, encompassing his throne, Ps. Ixxxix. 8. For whatever he doth, he is mind ful of his faithfulness and covenant, before and behind, and on each side ; he can look no way, but that is in his eye. And though he employ angels, and send them down into the world, and they stand round about him ; yet he hath better harbingers than these, mercy, and truth, and faithfulness, that wait round about him. And for this kingdom of his, as thus set out, do the saints bless him , Ps. cxlv. 10, All thy works praise thee, Lord ; thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak the glory of thy

390 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, j [BOOK I. kingdom, and talk of thy power ; to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures throughout all generations.

Thirdly, The apostle celebrates him, and gives glory to him, that he is invisible; you have it in both places, 1 Tim. i. 17, and 1 Tim. vi. 16, and that purely puts it from God s being praised for what he is in benefits to a man s self, or from what he is to any creature ; for we praise him for what we do not see, for what we do not nor cannot see, and so cannot enjoy (for so .far as we cannot see, we cannot come to enjoy) ; and therefore purely for this, for what he is in himself and to himself, in the knowledge and enjoyment of himself. He blesseth him that he is so great a God, that the fulness of his glory can never be known by his creatures ; so ex cellent, that still there is an infiniteness we cannot know in him. Had it been out of self-love (this giving glory to him), it would have blessed him for what is seen and enjoyed. We see in this life but his back-parts ; yet by what we see of them, we glorify him for what we see not ; and how little do we know of him ! as you have it in Job xxvi. 14.

Fourthly, That he is only wise, his understanding infinite (as we heard out of the Psalms) and infinitely shewn in all his works. In wisdom hast thou made the heavens, Ps. cxxxvi. 5. Yea, * In wisdom hast thou made them all, Ps. civ. 24. But above all for his wisdom, that hidden wisdom manifested in the gospel in the salvation of men ; To God only wise, who hath revealed the mystery which was kept secret since the world be gan, To God only wise be glory, through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen, Rom. xvi. 27. Of blessing him for his decrees, I shall speak afterwards. In his ordinary works, his thoughts are very deep ; Ps. xcii. 5, * Lord, how great are thy works ! and thy thoughts are very deep. But, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! cries the apostle out, when he speaks of his contrivements of mercy in the gospel, Rom. xi. 33.

Fifthly, He gives glory to him for that he is eternal ; that he had all this blessedness, wisdom, &c., from everlasting. Such a soul can bless him then for that he hath been so blessed a God from everlasting, and enjoyed this happiness ; and then, to be sure, we enjoyed nothing from him, for he was alone. You have the same in Ps. xli. 13, * Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting ; and there is an amen for either of them, amen and amen ; an amen for what he hath been from everlast ing, and amen for what he shall be to everlasting. And it is here in the apostle s words likewise, that he is eternal, in the 1st chapter, as for time past. And only having immortality, in the 6th chapter. You have the same, Rev. iv. 8, The four beasts rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come, They praise him for his holiness and for his power ; they praise him for all he hath been, from what he was and hath been for time past, is for the pre sent, and is to come. One would think, what hath a poor creature to do to bless him for what he was from everlasting, all which is past? Yet they herein would shew their good will ; I will cast in my shot and congra tulation, saith the soul.

Sixthly, For that he only is, and hath alone all those blessednesses and perfections. This is three times in those two doxologies of the apostle, whilst he calls him the blessed and only Potentate, and that hath only immortality, and that is only wise ; to him be honour. Ps. Ixxxvi. 9, 10,

All nations shall come and glorify thy name ; for thou art great, and dost wondrous things

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only does wondrous things. Oh, says that soul, : thou art God alone. Ps. Ixxii. 18, let him have it, and he alone, and none share with him. This large and ample field hath this soul afore him to expatiate in. I might extend the amplitude of this soul. That he hath all in God s works ; all in his decrees ; all in his word, to give glory to God for. First, all his works, past, present, and to come. We have this oft in the psalms ; Ps.

Ixvi. 2, Sing forth the honour of his name : make his praise glorious. Praise was too low a word ; Make his praise glorious. Say unto God, How terrible, or how reverend, art thou in thy works ! All the earth shall worship thee, and sing in thy name. Come and see the works of God ! &c. Ps. xcii. 1, 4, It is a good thing to sing praise to thy name, most High: for thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy works ; I will triumph in the works of thy hands. It rejoiced his heart to see what aglory shined forth in all he had done ; Lord, how great are thy works ! and thy thoughts are very deep. And this he doth with delight ; Ps. Ixxvii. 12, * I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings. He hath also all God s decrees and counsels afore him to rejoice in and to praise him for ; his counsels that contrived all about his works, both of judgments and mercies : Isa. xxv. 1, Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name : for thou hast done wonderful things ; and thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. As likewise that in * Lord, how great are thy works ! thy thoughts, that is, thy

Ps. xcii. 5, counsels, they are very deep. For his decrees of election especially, yea, and reprobation also. When the apostle had discoursed both these doctrines out, and justified God therein, Rom. ix. and xi. chapters, shewing how God had once chosen the Jews, but then cast them off; then, taken the Gentiles, whom before he had suffered to walk in their own ways, who in time past have not believed ; and then at last, how he will have mercy, both upon the one and the other, and the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in, as well as of the Jews ; but God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. For this counsel of his he cries out, Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! namely, in these his ways of * How unsearchable are his choosing the one and refusing the other. judgments, and his ways past finding out ; for of him, and through him, and to him are all things ; to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Repro bation itself, and the issues of it, upon the consideration of the hardness and obstinacy that is in man s heart, and the wickedness of men against God, causeth such a soul to take part with God, and to rejoice in the glory that accrues to him hereby ; his spirit will be stirred at the thoughts of all the obstinate sinners in the world, that they should remain such against so great a God. In the 104th Psalm, where he sets out God in himself, and in his works, as much as in any other psalm, after all his praises of him throughout, and uttering his own frame of heart thereupon, at ver. 33, 34, * I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live : I will sing praise to my God while I have a being. My meditation of him shall be sweet ; I will be glad in the Lord. With indignation he adds (his spirit being raised up unto the exalting of God, and singing of his glory), Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more, who should thus dare to lift up their heads, and ^orns, and souls against this God, so great, so good, so gracious : however, I have reason to bless the Lord (says he) whom

392 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. thou hast chosen, Bless thou the Lord, my soul, and all ye saints, praise ye the Lord. In Ps. cxlv., that psalm of praise, where he shews him to be good to all his works, and his mercy to be over all his works, &c., and what a gracious God and full of compassion he is ; what is the conclusion of his spirit from all this ? t The Lord will preserve all them that love him : but all the wicked will he destroy. This he was glad of; this soul can sit down at the day of judgment, and think of the glory that shall then come in to God from the condemnation of wicked men. As that poor woman, who having a most wicked son, whom she dearly loved, once upon occasion of a high wickedness of his said, Well, I shall one day rejoice that thou shalt be damned, and take part with the glory of God therein. And the conviction of so high a strain of grace to be in her soul, of love to God (while he knew how well she loved him), was the means of breaking that man s heart, and converting him to God.

He hath also all in God s word afore him, to glorify God for every word and passage of it : Ps. Ivi. 4, In God will I praise his word, says he. And again he hath it, ver. 10, In God will I praise his word ; for all his promises, for all his threatenings, and execution of threatemngs, though upon himself, according to his word. Good is the word of the Lord, when it was against him and his family, and the whole nation, said good Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 19. Above all, he loves God s salvation that is therein. Let all such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified, Ps. xl. 16. One would think that this should be self-love alone makes us love salvation. Ay, but they love it, because it is his, that love thy salvation ; as in Psalm xxi. 1, The king shall joy in thy strength, Lord ; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice. It is the character of a holy saint to love salvation itself ; not as his own only, but as God s, as God s that saves him.

Again, this soul can rejoice in all that is in God himself, and heartily rejoice ; and Oh what an infinite privilege, and how blessed a frame of heart is it, for the poor creature to be wound up so high, as not only to rejoice in hope of glory, but we rejoice in God, Rom. v. 11, to re joice therein, more than in its own happiness. And therefore you have it so often, when praising God is mentioned, that there is rejoicing also ; it does accompany it, Ps. civ. 33, 34, * I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live ; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. My medita tion of him shall be sweet ; I will be glad in the Lord. In Ps. xliii. 4, I will go unto God, my exceeding joy ; yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, God my God. In the Hebrew it is, the top of my joy, the joy of my joy. You find them also, when they are in this praising frame, to make their boast in God. Ps. xxxiv. 1, 2, I will bless the Lord at all times : his praise shall be continually in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast of the Lord. Likewise in Ps. Ixviii. 3, there they are also: let them rejoice before God ; yea, let him exceedingly rejoice. Then follows, Sing unto God, sing praise to joined, Let the righteous be glad his name : extol him that rides upon the heavens by his name JAH, and * To him who rideth upon the heaven of heavens, which were of old. rejoice before him. And, ver. 33, This soul, as those will rejoice in God, so exult in giving those praises to God. Ps. xcii. 1, * It is a good thing to sing praises unto thy name, Most High ; and he founds it upon this, For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy works. It is a good thing, that is, it is a sweet and pleasant thing, even praise itself is. Ps. cxxxv. 3, Praise ye the Lord ;

: sing praise to his name ; for it is pleasant, Ps. for the Lord is good cxlvii. 1, Praise ye the Lord : for it is good to sing praise to God ; for it is pleasant ; and praise is comely. David speaks it as the joy of his soul, that he should yet live to praise him ; and he yet shall praise him more and more, Ps. xliii. 4, 5. He expresseth it as his greatest ambition and delight of soul, that he should live yet to praise him.

He does this with his whole heart. Ps. ix. 1, 2, I will praise thee, Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee : I will sing praise to thy name, thou most

* Amen and

High. And therefore in praising of him, you find, they say, amen, as in Ps. xli. 13, and Ps. Ixxii. 19, which shews all heartiness. That soul can go over all ages past, and be affected with the praises that have been given to God by the saints and angels in all ages. To read the psalms, wherein David and the psalmists praise him. To read in the Re velation how the angels, the four and twenty elders, and the four beasts, and all creatures praise him. He can begin and sit down with the angels, those bright morning stars, that began so early to praise God for the creation of the world. Job xxxviii. 7, Then the morning stars sang to gether, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. And he can shout with them that they then did so. He canthen sit down in the ark with Noah, and glorify God with him, for that * the Lord sat at the flood, Ps. xxix. 10. So most interpreters render it, and interpret it, that he sat as a judge, taking vengeance on the old world, and ungodly, after so much longsuffer-: and sat on the throne of mercy, preserving Noah, that righteous one, and thus the Chaldee paraphrase on it. And that which follows confirms ing

Yea, the Lord sat king for ever. He did that great act once, and it ; ever since he hath held being king, and will do so to everlasting. This man can join with Miriam and Moses at the Red Sea, Ex. xv., and sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, as they do, Rev. xv. He can bear a part with Hannah, and all those psalmodists in their elogiums and high exalta tions of God; even as the psalmist, we find, did join with Moses in cele brating his praise for his wonders then done in Egypt, and in the Red Sea. His heart falls in with those angels song, when they proclaimed the birth of our Redeemer; Glory to God on high, peace on earth, good will towards men. Yea, as one well says, Awes habet ad audiendam ccelorum pradicationem.* He hath ears to hear the heavens declaring the glory of God, and his soul can make music on it ; for thus we read, Rev. v., when * every creature, ver. 13, that is in the heavens, and in the earth, &c., said, Blessing, honour, power, and glory be unto him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever, that the four beasts szid Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that lives for ever and ever ; they fell in with them. And as a further ground for this latter branch, we find the angels hearing the saints of mankind giving praise to God, and saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb. We find that all the angels that stood round about the throne, that they fell down before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen. They join with the song that the saints of men sung unto God, though they were not concerned in it ; not in salvation, for they

Amen ; and then they add of their own, * Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and fell not, yet they say, might be unto our God ur ever and ever. Amen. And where there is * Musculus on Ps. Ixxxix. 5.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. such a frame of spirit raised in the heart of a man filled with the glory of God, as the angels fall in with our song, we can fall in with theirs, and with that of all the creatures.

CHAPTER VII.

The glory of God ivhich appears in his kingdom and universal dominion, whereby he rules over all; as it is described in Ps. lxxxix.,/row ver. 6 to ver. 15.

Here begins a magnificent description of God as King, and his kingdom ; for so expressly in the conclusion of this description he is styled, ver. 18, Our King. And the intent of this I have elsewhere shewn to have this end and purpose, of setting out what a king Christ his Son should be, and what a kingdom and throne his Father would estate him unto, for the grand promise of this psalm, so often solemnly made and repeated, being of a throne, under the type and shadow of David, and of Christ s being his seed, unto Christ his Son. It begins, Ver. 6. For who in heaven can be compared unto the Lord ? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord ?

He first sets out the incomparable glory and excellency of his person to be such as that he is a King above all kings, whether in heaven (for there are thrones, which notes kingly dignity as well as dominions among the angels, Col. i. 16), or whether on earth, and that he is worthily, for his personal excellencies, the only Potentate, 1 Tim. vi. 15 ; and his exalta tion of him as such is carried so high above them, as he will not deign so much as a comparison with them ; but that he surpasseth all, or the least comparison to be made with him. 1. So far above the angels that who in the heavens can be compared to him ? The heathen philosophers and wisest of them admired, worshipped the angels (as some pseudo Christians, induced by their doctrines, afterward did the like, as Col. ii. shews). Then, 2dly, on earth he brings in the sons of the mighty, by which I understand the great heroes and worthies of the sons of men, the potent mighty ones, as kings, and those that descend from them, whom men cry up as bene factors (Luke xxii. 25), whilst living, and when dead, the heathens did rank them among the gods, and worship them also.*

And then the Jews themselves had the persons of their heroes, as Moses, David, Solomon, &c., in too high an admiration (whose renown was also spread over the whole earth), and did too much boast of them, as the glory of their nation, and had relied too much upon David s house, that it would * I rather understand, with Piscator and others, by sons of the mighty to be meant the great ones of the earth, than of the angels, as others would, because of the like correspondent distinction held in the verse afore, of the heavens, and saints on earth, continued also in this. As also, because this style, sons of the mighty, or of the gods, is nowhere given to the angels, although they are styled the sons of God, as in Job, because they are such by creation (for which respect even Adam is also called the son of God, Luke iii. 38). Who though, because they excel in strength (as the psalmist of them) are therefore styled the mighty ones, Ps.lxxviii.

25, yet nowhere sons of the gods, or mighty, which is a phrase peculiar to men, connotating propagation from such men as are gods and mighty ones in the earth ; thus, Ps. xxix. 1, Give unto the Lord, ye sons of the mighty, &c. That is, you nobles, great ones, and potentates of the earth, descended from them that were such ; whereas the angels nature knows not propagation, for which they should be thus styled.

CHAP. VII.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST. 395 be answerable in future ages unto so happy beginnings of David and Solo mon, which the prophet here (living in Rehoboam s time) began to see to fall short. Thereupon says the prophet, whether among angels or spirits of holy souls in the heavens, or the sons of the mighty on earth, the best and greatest that ever were, there is not one, no, nor all of them put to gether, that hath the least shadow of worth, to be so much as named, by way of comparison, when God is spoken of: for so the manage of the words import. He says not, * there is no god like unto the Lord (as yet elsewhere we have it), but who can be compared and likened ? &c., God is so much and so infinitely beyond them all. I said, there is not the least shadow for them to enter into the lists of this comparison. And the Dutch have translated those words, Who can be compared ? thus, "Who can be shadowed with him ? that is, they are not worthy to be accounted shadows unto such a comparison with him.

The intent of which is to set forth how great a king in his own person he is that is our King, as God (as he is in himself considered) is understood to be ; as also to magnify that infinite grace and condescension of a God so great, to be the gracious founder of so wonderful mercies, and of such a covenant of grace to the sons of men ; for that is the argument he drives on all along.

This for the first, how great a God and King he is in his own person simply considered.

2. Ver. 7. From his extolment of him in his person so far above all kings, &c., he proceeds to his kingdom. And in the seventh verse he begins that with a delineation of his court ; and how he hath erected a palace, and so presents him as surrounded with courtiers, and attendants round about him. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him. This is exactly done in similitude to the mode and manner of kings on earth, and correspondent unto the scheme or description here. You find (if you compare it) that of God s throne set forth in the 5th and 7th chapters of the Revelation, where the Lamb had his commission given him, to be God s

King, or God s Viceroy, where you see how his angels and saints stand round about him. The like posture of this assembly you read in the Old

Testament, 1 Kings xxii. 19, and more fully and expressly of whom it con sists in the New, Heb. xii. 22, 23, 24, But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an in numerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. And that as from thence he administers the grand affairs of his kingdom the Scriptures do abundantly testify.

And by setting out this solemnity of his court in heaven, he declares how great a king he is, and how greatly dreadful he is unto those glorious spirits that are nearest to him. However he is disregarded by men on earth, yet in heaven he is greatly feared and in reverence of them that know him best, that stand round about him, beholding his face, being also ready pressed to execute his will when it is signified by the least nutus, or cast, and dis covery of his countenance.

And yet, though he useth these angels as ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation, Heb. i. 14, yet the psalmist further presents him as potent of himself alone, to execute and do

396 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. all whatever, which for these heirs of his covenant he hath a mind to do, and withal a faithfulness joined therewith to move him thereunto, as ver. 8 hath it, But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever ; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom; who yet is pleased to employ that glorious company of angels that are round about him, in the outward administration and affairs belonging to this kingdom, whilst himself by his Spirit works and doth all as to the inward effects in his children s spirits. But this external kingdom (visible to those that are with him in heaven) he manageth as kings, at and from their courts, use to do : which course and way, as for other reasons he chose to do, because his Son whom he would give it unto, being to be a Son of man, and a visible king, he provided for him, to shew his sublimity, the state and * Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God, angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject unto grandeur of a visible king him, 1 Pet. iii. 22. And hath put all things in subjection under his feet, Heb. ii. From hence, therefore, the psalmist descends to set out God s absolute dominion (as the only potentate) which he hath over all things that are in these lower parts of his dominion, which are his footstool ; as, namely, over these visible heavens, the suburbs of those higher, and over the earth, ver. 9, * Thou rulest the raging of the sea : when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine : as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. The north and the south thou hast created them : Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name. And in this latter passage he quarters forth the world, the north and the south ; and Tabor and Hermon, which two stood east and west, to shew that his power reacheth to every nook and corner of the world. And for a manifest invincible evidence of his power in these lower parts of domimion (this world), he gives instance of one sort of sovereign acts, which suf ficiently argue his power over all things else whatsoever here below. And those acts too, such as were done in performance of, and to make good his covenant promised to Abraham (for the mercies of his covenant are the thing he prosecutes) ; they are his wonders wrought in Egypt, and at the Bed Sea, rescuing his people from thence by an outstretched arm : ver.

9, 10, Thou rulest the raging of the sea : when the waves thereof rise, thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Kahab in pieces, as one that is slain : thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm. The psalmist still goes on to set forth the glory of this King and king dom by allusions answerable to what the pomp and state of kings doth lie.* And indeed the highest glories of the Most High (as he is a King) are yet to follow, which lie in this, that his own internal essential attri butes, and personal excellencies, are all-sufficient to constitute him a King, and then to support his greatness, and to hold forth and express a majesty and splendour, such as alone doth render him dreadful, and to be revered of all that are about him, so as he needeth not anything outward, no addi tional glory or ensign of majesty ; but himself and his own divine perfec-

Propheta ad regni insignia vel pompas alludens, dicit judicium et justitiam esse fulturam solii ejus: acsi diccret. Loco pur-: clemeniiam et veritatem esse apparitores purse, vel diadematis, vel sceptri, his insignibus ornari Deum, quod Justus sit, et scquus mundi judex, misericors pater, fidelis suorum protector. Nam quia terrenis legibus non suppetit intrinseca dignitas, aliunde earn mutuant. Deus autem, qui se uno contentus, nullis adminiculis indiget, splendorem imaginis suae in justitia, bonitate, et veritate sua nobis proponit. Calvin, in loc.

CHAP. VII.J AND HIS SON JESUS CIIKIST. 397 tions are instead and beyond all such foreign ornaments. That whereas earthly kings (their persons being mortal, &c., as other men) do therefore need accessory circumstances of state and grandeur, robes of purple, crowns of gold, enriched with most precious stones, with which Solomon was clothed in all royalty, sceptres also, and maces of honour, and swords to be carried afore them, also thrones and canopies of state, &c., and all to dazzle the eves, and beget a reverence and dread in them that are about them, or in others of their subjects. But our great God and King hath no need of any of these things, no outward thing to greaten or assist him. Now the attri butes he mentions are four, or of four ranks.

First, in ver. 14, you read that justice and judgment (that is, righteous ness and righteous administrations) are the establishment (as in the mar gin) of his throne.* He needs not, as Solomon, an artificial throne, lions, &c., as Solomon s throne had, and needeth not his subjects hearts, his own justice is sufficient to found and support his throne.

Secondly, Whereas kings have mace-bearers, and nobles to bear the sword, to go afore them, also messengers of state that stand ready to go forth to execute any design ; so, God, as in the same 14th verse, Mercy and truth are before thy face, either to carry the ensigns (which indeed themselves are sufficiently) or as ready to go abroad, tanquam apparitoretj to effect whatever he would have done in the behalf of his people. Thus elsewhere, when David was to be delivered, as in Ps. Ivii. 3, God shall send from heaven, says he (as from his court and palace). And whom will he send ? It follows, God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. Creatures might fail, but if mercy itself and truth be entrusted to despatch his decreed purposes, these will be sure to do it thoroughly and to pur pose, as we say, for the good of his chosen, and the making good of his covenant.

Thirdly, These came down armed with all the power that is in God, the Lord of Hosts, to assist them, and so can never fall short of ability for the : ver. 13 Thou hast a mighty arm, strong is thy hand, and performance high is thy right hand.

Fourthly, His faithfulness, that is, a constancy to his own resolutions, intentions, purposes, and promises of mercy, that in ver. 8 is said to be round about him. In allusion still unto a king on his throne, in the fore going ver. 7, the angels were said to be round about him ; as also the Revelations. But here his own very faithfulness is further said to be round about him. A tergo, a froute, d dextra, d, sinistra;\ afore, behind, and every way, faithfulness environs him round : no decree, no execution can pass from him, but it must pass through his faithfulness. And it is for all sureness to us, and our full security, that he is said to have placed it round about him as his guard, that so his faithfulness might watch and observe whatever passeth as in our behalf, that nothing should be done, or fall out, but in very faithfulness to his promises made to his. His fidelity hath an eye upon him in every thing, and he hath an eye unto it continually ; for let him turn his eyes which way he pleaseth, it is before him. Thus in like manner you find a rainbow round about his throne, Rev. iv. 3. The rainbow was mercy s remembrancer not to destroy the world, and it was * With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee ; for this is as the waters of Noah to me, &c. And this rainbow being thus continually round about him, he can look no way but he is put in mind of mercy in the midst of the most ireful typical therein of the covenant of grace, Isa. liv. 8, 9, * The like you have (speaking of his kingdom), Ps. xcvii. 2. t Calvin.

398 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. dispensations, as in the same place of Isaiah you have it. And therefore he also said, he will ever be mindful of his covenant, Ps. cxi. 5, and so of these mercies of his covenant.

Now all this which is said of God s kingdom is all true of Christ ; his own perfections innate in him (being God s Son) have an alike sufficiency in him ; his own glory and power, that flow from that union, have ability, majesty, &c. sufficient. The apostles say of him, We saw his glory, as of the only begotten Son of God, proper to him, and innate in him, as such. And the angels they cry aloud, Eev. v. 12, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

Use I. We should therefore praise andglorify God, that he is the King, the great King, blessedness in himself. You have them both joined why we should praise him, Ps. xcv. 3, For the Lord is a great God, and a great King, above all gods. You have them joined in the Lord s prayer, Hallowed be thy name, as he is God ; and Thy kingdom come, as he is King. In Jer. x. 6, 7, here, as he is God, Lord, thou art great ; and thy name is great in might ; and here as he is King; and though there be forty other reasons given why he should be King of all the world, here is * Who would not fear thee, King of nations ? for to thee doth it one, : forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in appertain all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee. Aristotle says, A superexcellency in a man was it that made him a king ; as if he had said, Lord, if thou lay down thy place, there is no wise man in the world can order and rule it as thou dost, to thee it appertains. And, ver. 10, he

the true God and the living God, and an ever tells you plainly, he is both lasting King. You see he blesses him, for that he is blessed in him self. Now, what is blessedness ? A confluence of all happiness and glory that he hath, and that wholly in himself, he needs nothing ; for this he gives glory to him. So Paul doth, Rom. i., when he had told.them how the Gentiles dishonour God, and abuse him, changing the glory of the uncor

Who is blessed ruptible God into, &c. Yer. 25, his spirit breaks out, for ever ; and what does he add ? Amen. What is amen ? So be it ; let him be blessed, let him enjoy it. Amen is a wish, so it may be. The like you have, Rom. ix. 5, speaking of Christ, Who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

N Use 2. As a King, we are to bless and praise him. Truly you will say to me, that his being a King relates to what he is to the creature, not unto what he is in himself. I yield it ; it refers unto what relation it hath to the creature : yet let me say, that to be the King of all is proper, it is essen tial to him. To me that Scripture argues thus much, Ps. xciii. 1, The Lord reigns ; he is clothed with majesty ; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself. Yer. 2, Thy throne is established of old ; thou art from everlasting.

1 From then (as the word is) thou art from everlasting. His throne was established from then, from of old ; and it is as old as himself. It is * Thou art from everlasting, that God is everlasting, but it relates to his throne. The same you have in Prov. viii. 22, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. The Lord was King before the world was. We use to say of a man of a not only when he says, great and high spirit, he hath a kingdom in himself. To be sure God had. Why ? He had frames and models of worlds, and could have made millions of worlds ; and what not ? He disposeth of all that he hath made ; Isa.

CHAP. VII.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

xliv. 6, 7, Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts ; I am the first, and I am the last, and besides nie there is no god. And who is like me, that shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order before me, since I appointed the ancient people ? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them. A king is not a king only in proclamations and executions, but in councils, in ordering things in his court. He was thus a King from everlasting. Antiquity of kings doth ennoble ; as it is said, Isa. xix. 11, How say ye to Pharaoh, * I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings ? This is a subject of a world of praise ; as also in the Revelations, that God is a King of kings, is a matter of great exultation to God. Look

Ps. cxlv., which is a Psalm of praise, the title is so ; it begins thus, I will extol thee, my God, King ; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. Ver. 10, 11, 12, 13, All thy works shall praise thee, Lord ; and thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom ; and talk of thy power ; to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. And therefore you find in the psalms, the psalmist bids them proclaim it : The Lord is King, and reigns in the world, as the best news they ever heard, or that ever could be told them ; as in Ps. xcvi. 10, Say among the hea ther** The Lord reigneth ; make proclamation of it, that the Lord reigns ; the world also shall be established, that it shall not be moved. Ver. 11, Let the heavens rejoice, that the Lord reigns, and let the earth be : let the field be joyful, and all that is therein ; then shall all the trees glad of the wood rejoice. Let the sea roar ; you fishes that have no tongues, you are mute, yet speak and roar out now, that God reigns ; as Christ

Let the floods clap their hands ; says, that the very stones would speak let the hills be joyful together, Ps. xcviii. 8. Or, as elsewhere, let them skip and dance, that God is King, that he is the King of kings, that he reigns. But especially let his church do it, Ps. xcvii. The church espe cially hath a share in this, thy judgments are made manifest ; as Rev. xv., Thou art King, and King of saints ; let the heavens declare his righteous ness, and all the people see his glory, ver. 6 ; worship him, all ye gods, ver. 7, gods or angels, and this because he is so high and great a King. And you poor souls that are here below, and under oppression, sowing tears, before this kingdom breaks out (says he), there is light sown for you

Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. ver. 11, Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous ; and give thanks to the remembrance of his holiness, ver. 12. This is because he is King. I will now explain to you the frame of such a soul, as is wound up to God, to give glory to God for what was in himself ; and will describe the many dispositions that soul hath.

First, Such a soul sees so much of the glory of God, as it is at a loss what praise to give him. It knows not how to praise and glorify him enough. As it is said of his benefits, which is a lower praise given to him, Ps. cxvi. 12, What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me ? Thus also Paul, 1 Thess. iii. 9, * What thanks can we render to God again for you ? But if the glory of God come in, it is above all your blessing and praise. Neh. ix. 5, Blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. That a soul is at such a loss you may see it in the psalms. 1. See the variety of expression the psalmist goes about to utter it by;

400 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEE, [BOOK I. sometimes he calls it praise, and then glorifying; Ps. Ixxxvi. 12, I will praise thee, Lord my God, with all my heart ; and I will glorify thy name for evermore. And sometimes singing. But he says it over, and over, and * Sing praises to God, sing praises ; sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth ; over, and over ; Ps. xlvii. 6, 7, 8, sing you praises with understanding. God reigneth over the heathen ; God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness. He doubles it, and doubles it, to shew the vehemency of his soul ; he could not sing loud enough, Sing, sing, sing, sing, four times in one verse. And sometimes, a new song ; Ps. xxxiii. 3, Sing unto him a new song. I have praised him formerly, and sung to him, but all my old songs are not good enough.

shouting for joy ; Ps. xxxii. 11, Be glad in the Lord, ye righteous

Sometimes he expresses it by: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in * Play skilfully with a loud noise. And extol him ; Ps. xxx. 1, I will extol thee, Lord. And magnify him ; Ps. xxxiv. 3, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. Some heart. Ps. xxxiii. 3, times, I will greatly praise the Lord ; and because praise is too low a word, says he, let us make his praise glorious ; Ps. Ixvi. 2, Sing forth the honour of his name ; make his praise glorious. Let us give him no other than glorious praise.

As he useth this variety of expression, which shews he knew not what to do or say, so he doth not know what to speak of God whilst he praises him, what words to use ; and therefore he carries it off in so great a superlative ; Ps. Ixxvii. 13, Who is so great a God as our God ?

Who shall not fear thee, Lord, thou King of nations ? Kev. xv. 4. And he hath it out of * There is none like unto thee, Lord : thou art great, and thy name is great in might. Ver. 7, Who would not fear thee, King of nations ? In Ps. cvi. 2, he puts all the creatures into a stand at it, Jer. x. 6, * Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord ? Who can shew forth all his praise ? Alas ! ver. 3, Blessed be they that keep judgment, that can be holy. W

Tho can shew forth all his praise ? Praise him we cannot. And sometimes he useth this language, * Be exalted above the heavens ; and let thy glory be above all the earth, Ps. Ivii. 11. And the God that rides on the heavens : Ps. Ixviii. 4, 33, Sing unto God, sing praises to his name ; extol him that rideth upon the heavens, by his name JAH, and * To him which rideth upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old. Praise him under that notion. Insomuch as in deed and in truth we find these strains in the psalmist, that he knew not how to rejoice before him. set him out with words enough ; he leaves it to his own self, for himself to do it, for the creatures cannot do it. Ps. xxi. 13. Glorify thyself in thy own strength, in thine own excellency, for the creature cannot do it. Such a soul as David was, is enlarged to talk high of God ; Ps. Ixxxvi. 12, will praise thee, Lord my God, with all my heart ; I will glorify thy name for evermore. Alas ! poor creature, how canst thou praise him for evermore ? A soul fired with desires to praise God, it burns after both more perfect things and more lasting than it is able to perform.

To will is present with it, &c. See but the Teachings and roomings of such a soul, how it swells in desires to glorify God !

First, That soul in such a frame does extend itself to praise God in all times.

1. In all seasons, that is, when any occasion shall be given ; Ps. xxxiv. 1, 1 1 will bless, the Lord at all times, that is (as I take it), at all seasons.

2. His heart goes further : His praise shall be continually in my mouth,

CHAP. VII. J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

he would be doing it continually; Ps. Ixxxiv. 4, They will be still praising thee, at all seasons of the day, morning, evening, and night ; Ps. xcii. 2, * To shew forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night; Ps. cxlv. 1, 2, I will extol thee, my God, King; and I will bless thy name for e?er and ever : every day will I bless thee ; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever. In other psalms, I will bless thee while I live, Ps. Ixiii. 4. Ps. civ. 33, * I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live : I will sing praise to my God while I have my being this is but for this life : but I will praise the Lord for ever and ever, says David, Ps. civ. 2.

I will make thy name to be remembered in all gene rations : therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever, Ps. xlv. 17. Such a soul is so enlarged, as, if it were possible for him to do it, he would contract all the praises due to God in all ages into an instant, and give him all at once, such are the enlarged rooms and desires of his spirit. that I could contract (thinks that soul) all the glory that is due to God, and that I can give to God to eternity, that I could give it him in one moment !

Ps. cvi. 48, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to ever

say, Amen. Praise ye the Lord. Thus this poor soul doth reach, and the reason is, because he is so great a God for ever, and therefore he would praise him as for ever. Thus in Eph. iii. 21, where Paul gives glory to God, To him be glory in the church through Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. So Jude also, : and let all the people, in the world, lasting

* To him be glory now and ever. Amen, verse 25.

3. This soul will rejoice that God hath been celebrated by others, in all

But thou, Lord, shalt endure for ever, and thy re membrance unto all generations. That he hath lived in their praises, Ps. xxii. 3, thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. More expressly, Ps. cxxxv. 13, ages ; Ps. cii. 12, * Thy name, Lord, endureth for ever ; and thy memorial, Lord, throughout all generations. This soul could sit down with angels, and take in all their praises, and rejoice that God hath been so celebrated and praised in all times.

4. This soul would extend itself, not only to all times, but to all persons, and things, and works of God, to praise him. Oft in the psalms he rejoices in God, and calls upon all nations to do it. Ps. xcvi. 1, Sing unto the Lord all the earth ; verse 7, Give glory to the Lord, ye kindreds of the earth, give unto the Lord glory and strength; verses 11, 12, Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea roar, &c. Alas ! I cannot do it, my heart is too narrow! Ps. Ixxii. 18, 19, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doth wondrous things, and blessed be his glorious name for ever ; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and Amen. Nothing will content him else ; if he could, he would fire all creatures to do it ; Let the people praise thee, God, let

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness ; and come before his pre sence with singing. Ps. cxviii. 1, all the people praise thee. So in Ps. c., * give thanks unto the Lord ; for he is good : because his mercy endureth for ever. He is King everywhere ; that they would praise him in all his dominions ! Ps. ciii. 22, Bless the Lord all his works, in all places of his dominion, in every nook and corner of the world ; verse 20, Bless the Lord, all ye his angels, that excel in strength, and do his commandments. Begin you to bless God ! What had he to do to call upon angels ? It is as if he had said, Alas ! poor creature, I have not strength ; you angels that excel in strength, do you bless the Lord ; it is better than to do his will, it is your greatest excelVOL. IV. C C

402 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I. lency. And ver. 21, Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts ; ye ministers that do his pleasure. And at last, * Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion : and bless the Lord, my soul ! and what a poor little thing am I to bless him, so he concludes. And again, Ps. cxiii. 1, 2, 3, * Praise ye the Lord. Praise, ye servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and for evermore. From the rising of the sun, unto the going down of the same, the Lord s name is to be praised. He is so full, that himself would (if he knew how) wish himself in the midst of a whole congregation of the upright ; Ps. cxi. 1, Praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation. Would I had a voice to reach the multitude of all nations ! Ps. cviii. 3, * I will : and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. Nay, before all the kings of the earth, and all angels, praise thee, Lord, among the people all gods ; he wisheth such an auditory. Ps. cxxxviii. 1, * Ifwill praise thee with my whole heart ; before the gods will I sing praise unto thee. Our Saviour Christ praised him thus in the midst of the church universal.

Ps. Ixxxvi. 1, 2, Bow down thine ear, Lord, hear me; for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am holy ; the word is, I am thy ser vant, or saint, or accepted. How does he praise God ? most mightily ver. 8, Among the gods there is none like thee, neither are there any works like to thy works. Here is a poor man in his need talks thus ; and thou that art so great a God, help me in a little* case. In Ps. Ixxxix. is an emi nent instance, ver. 52, * Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen, and Amen. Says Calvin, there are those that say this verse is foisted in. Why ? Because the man was in a great deal of misery in the verses before.

Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servant ; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people ; wherewith thine enemies have re proached me, Lord ; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed. How doth he praise God in this psalm !t and it is there made the fruit of his death. I will declare thy name unto my brethren : in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. You that fear the Lord, praise him : all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him ; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel. You know who said it. what glory does Christ bring to God ; ver. 25, My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation. The matter of his praise is fetched out of God, he fully knew him. And Paul wishes, Eph. iii. 21 , Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. In the whole church universal.

5. Again, this soul, let it be in the lowest frame that can be, in the greatest misery, worst condition, if this frame comes upon it, he will still praise God. I have known such as have been in the bottom of hell, and there praised God. In Ps. Ixxxvi., David praised God when he had been in a very pitiful condition, verses 1, 2, 3. Nowhere such praises, as from the 5th to the 15th verse of this psalm. And, as Calvin well said, might not this man as well bless God at last, as he did at first ? I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever ; with my mouth will I make known thy faith fulness to all generations, &c. When a soul is at the lowest, if the Spirit of praise come in upon that soul, he will cry out to God aloud in praising him. There is another eminent instance in Ps. xxii. Our Lord and Saviour

Jesus Christ hung upon the cross ; there he hung, and all the pharisees, the bulls came about him ; and says he, I cried to thee. W

That doth he corn-

* Qu. like ? ED, f That is, Ts. xxii. ED.

fort himself with ? Verse 3, But thou art holy, thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. The praises given to God are so delightful to God the Father, that they are called an habitation to him ; and the breadth of them, says Christ, this is that which supports me, Thou art holy, and in habitest the praises of Israel ; verse 6, I am a worm and no man, a re proach of men, and despised of the people ; but no matter, so thou art praised. When the world was overwhelmed with a deluge of misery, yet says the prophet, Wherefore glorify you the Lord in the fires, Is. xxiv. 15. In the midst of all the fires round about their ears, they glorified God ; some

in the valley, in the lowest condition they could be in. This soul read it yet rejoices that it shall live to praise him. My brethren, let us pray for such a heart as this, that the saints of the Old Testament may not shame us that are Christians of the New.

404 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II.

BOOK II.

Of the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity. What his person is, considered in himself. He is the eternal Son of the Father, one God in essence with him. The Son, the second person took the man Jesus into per sonal union with himself; and so Christ is God-man joined into one person.

And ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, by whom are all things, and we by him. 1 COR. Vin. 6.

CHAPTER I.

How greatly it imports us to have a true knoivledge of the person of Christ.

What his person is. That he eodsted from all eternity with God as a per son ; and was not merely a manifestation of the Deity in time, and then only existent when he first appeared in the world.

THERE are two things imported to us in those words of 1 Cor. viii. 6, And one Lord Jesus Christ ; I. His person, Jesus Christ.

II. His9omce and relation to us, and unto all the creation, One Lord, by whom are all things.

I. I begin first with the setting forth the substance of his person ; what it is, and of what made up is he, this Christ, the Lord, of whom all things are. And this is the more necessary (though it be largely handled by others), in relation unto those strange and monstrous opinions, which, as touching the person of Christ, this age hath produced. Satan being let loose, hath preached over his old sermons and notions, read over anew, and refined his old lectures, which he had read to those great heresiarchs in the primitive times ; who joining philosophical notions about Xoyo?, the Word (as philosophers had spoken of him), with what the Jewish Cabala had also said concerning him, made up another Christ than whom the apostles preached. And truly the bottom-cause of men s embracing errors about this, hath been the seducement of that specious and alluring principle unto man s nature, of being one with God himself, in the highest manner that man s vain heart could find ambition within itself to aspire unto. Mistakes of union have caused men to shape out such a Christ, as might serve to their attaining that high and incommunicable union with God, which they have fancied to themselves the creature shall attain ; and hence look, as we formerly observed, that to the end] they might make way for this, the most hellish blasphemy that ever was uttered, that the creatures were and should become all one with God himself, partakers of the divine nature ; they therefore throw down the three persons in the nature of God, as alone pos sessing that privilege, as those that stood in their way to this preferment.

CHAP. I.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

Which done, they think each of their persons may be God, as well as they have been voiced to be. So, out of the same principle, they in like manner serve our Lord Jesus Christ s person ; for there must be no preferment in heaven left, which they must not be capable of, and raised up unto. They must be Christ too, and ascend to the height of his throne.

Yet there being three persons in that divine nature, the man Christ Jesus was capable of being one person with one of these ; the personality, or to be one in person, might be communicated unto a creature, although to be one with God in nature could not, and that is the highest union with God the creature is capable of. And had there not been three persons in the nature of God, this high union with God had not been neither. And then this union with one of these persons is the foundation of all our unions, and by virtueof it it is that God descends to communicate himself to other creatures (the we in the text), even by uniting himself personally to one creature, the man Christ Jesus, and so setting him up the Lord and Christ, and choosing us in him ; and he in that his person undertaking for, and bearing, and representing our persons, thereby we become one with him, and through him with God, in our measure, and in a subordination to him, according to that, John xiv. 20, At that day ye shall know that I am hi my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Now in order to clear this distinction of union with God on Christ s part, from that of [ours through Christ. As I have shewed, God was an infinite, pure being, distinct from the creature, and standing out from those dregs of the creatures into which the fancies of men would drench him, and mingle him with their mud ; so we must now extricate the person of Christ also from the like entanglements, and vindicate the transcendency of his union with God, and distance of his person from ours. And then all unions left below him are left free for us to attain, and shall be obtained by us. And for the discovery hereof, I am first in pursuit of this, What the person of Christ is ; what he consists of.

The great weight and moment of the true and right knowledge of the person of Christ, will be evident by a consideration of these two texts of * Jesus said unto them, What think ye of Christ ? Whose Son is he ? compared with Mat. xvi. 13-18, When Jesus came into the coasts of Cesarea Philippi, he asked his dis

Scripture compared together : Mat. xxii. 42, ciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am ? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist ; some, Elias ; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am ? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

It is acknowledged by all that profess Christian religion, that Christ is the foundation ; yea, and that * other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. iii. 11. But let all know that it is as much a foundation, and as absolutely necessary to know and be lieve him that is true (as John s word is, 1 John v. 20), the true Christ, that is, the true person, who and what he is, and not * another Jesus ; that is, not to mistake his person. Which mistake, or error persona, is either, 1, When men knoi> not, or do not acknowledge, the individual per son, who he is. Or 2, understand not, but mistake what that person is,

406 TtE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. and what his person consists of; both which are alike necessary to be understood aright by us. The necessity first you may see by Christ s speech to the Pharisees, John viii. 24, If you believe not that I am he, that is, this my individual person to be the he, that is, the Messiah, * ye shall die in your sins.

And the necessity of the latter those two his questions, one put to the Pharisees, Mat. xxii., and the other to his disciples, Mat. xvi., do also argue.

1. To the Pharisees ; What think you of Christ? whose son is he ? Mat. xxii. Here he doth not ask them whether they would acknowledge himself to be the Christ, but what manner of person the true Christ should be ? And the dint and aim of his question is concerning his person, Whose son is he ? which is the true substance of the person of the Mes siah ; thereby to discover to them, and convince them that they erred as well in this, what the Christ they looked for should be, as in their not taking himself that was afore them to be that person ; and fatally in both.

2. He catechiseth his disciples, Mat. xvi. 13, Whom do men say I am ? Whom do ye say I am ? ver. 15. Which, ver. 16, Peter, in the name of the rest, gives answer to, and withal resolves that question which he put unto the Pharisees, * Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. In which he speaks home to both particulars.

(1.) That he, individually present with them, was the Christ, Thou art, &c.

* Son of

And (2.) What that Christ was, for the substance of his person, the living God.

And Christ, in his return to this, definitively pronounceth, that the faith of both these was the rock which he meant to build his church of the New Testament upon. So then, what the person of Christ is, is of the founda tion (being the rock), as well as that, that Jesus was the Christ.

And let me add, that this being the rock the whole church of the New Testament hath been built upon, you therefore may safely join issues in your faith with what hath been the faith and doctrine of the whole church in all ages, as touching this particular, what his person for the substance of it is. In this, I say, of all points else, that promise issues which is made to the whole church, answering to this declaration of Christ, Eph. iv. 13, that they should all come into the unity of the faith, and knowledge of the Son of God. They should all, that were in all ages saved, agree in the knowledge of this, in whatever other things they might be found to differ. This is the * Rock of ages. And therefore in this point be wary what you entertain anew, or how you vary from the catholic faith of former ages, or in what shall any way make his person differ from that person which all the saints have understood him to be.

I shall not go about setly to confute the errors that are abroad ; only positively set forth that person which the glass of the gospel holds forth. And I hope, in the end and conclusion, to give forth that challenge which Paul in the like case doth, in that 2 Cor. xi. 4, If he that cometh can shew you a better, or greater, or more spiritual Christ (I do not say, shall set out our Christ better, but shew you a better Christ), then you shall do well to bear with that man, yea, and receive him and his Christ also.

Again, in the setting forth his person, my scope is not herein to set forth the excellency and glory of his person, but the substance of his person. And in doing this I shall proceed by degrees, as our apostle John also did,

when he did set himself to describe him. He doth it by piece-meal, John i. 1, In the beginning was the Word, that is his first step; and that Word was with God, that is a second ; and the Word in the beginning was with God, that is a third ; and the Word was God, that is a fourth. He might have shut them all up in this sentence, * The Word was God, with God, in the beginning. But he puts it into so many several positive assertions ; yea, and begins at the lowest, namely, his having existed, 4 The Word was, and that * in the beginning. And then after that tells us what he is, a person distinct from God ; he was with God, and yet was God.

I shall proceed in the like method, and set him forth in so many several assertions ; whereof each, or most of them, are directed as opposite to some error or other about his person which are now abroad in the world. And I will begin, as John did, at his existence ; that is, his having been, when and how long. And John s first affirmation about him is terminated merely upon his existence : * He was, says he ; adding withal the circumstance of * In the beginning. 1. Of his existence. When? And how long ? Then of his person ; who, &c. And of his existence first, because the true understanding thereof the time of his existence, will conduce to the knowledge of his person, who he is.

(1.) He is a person who did actually exist before he came into the world and was made flesh ; and that had continued to exist all along the time of this world, both in the beginning of it, and before the world was, yea, from eternity.

It is strange that the Socinians should so impudently, in the light of this gospel and the Scriptures, say that Christ began but then to exist actually, when he was first conceived by the Holy Ghost in the virgin s womb ; and that before he had existed but in promise, as the day of judgment doth now. As also such who hold Christ to be but the manifestation of God in man s flesh. God indeed, say they, was afore ; but Christ, as Christ, being but the manifestation of the Godhead in man s nature, existed not until that manifestation of God in man s flesh. For the existence of that which is only and barely a manifestation, lies only in being the manifestation of something that existed afore, but itself not till then. And this is even as if a man should say and affirm that what all other men call the sun is all one with what we term day, and nothing else ; which you know begins but in the morning, and ceaseth at night, and is but the shine and manifesta tion of the sun, when it riseth and appears above our hemisphere, or this part of the world. But look, as the sun is a body of light, that exists afore it is day with us ; and the appearances of it is that which maketh day, yea, : so Christ the Sun of righteousness is not the bare manifestation of God. but a person that existed with God, yea, and was God, afore that manifestation of God made by him in this world. And he is not only the is day bringing in or manifestation of life and immortality which was in God ; but himself was that eternal Life which was with the Father, as distinct from him, and was manifested to us, 1 John i. 2, so as life and immortality are made manifest by his appearing, as of a person that brings it, and manifests it with the manifestation of himself, 2 Tim. i. 10. And who also is said to manifest himself unto us, as well as the Father, John xiv. 21. To confirm this our main assertion, let us trace his existence punctually through all times. The Psalmist says of him, Ps. cii. 24, Thy years are throughout all generation ^. Which psalm the apostle quoteth of him. Heb. i. 10. Let us go from point to point, and see how in particulars tho

408 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II.

Scriptures accord with it. The first joint of time we will begin that chrono logy of his existence withal is that instant afore he was to come into the world.

First, We find him to have existed just afore he came into the world, the instance of his conception, Heb. x. 5, in these words, Wherefore when he comes into the world, says he, A body hast thou prepared me. Ver. 7, Lo, I come to do thy will, God. Here is a person distinct from God the Father, a me, an I, distinct also from that human nature he was to assume, which he terms a body prepared. A person he is that speaks to God, as one knowing and understanding what he was about to do ; yea, and how it was written of him that he should do, In the volume of thy book it is written of me, ver. 7. Therefore besides and afore that human nature, there was a divine person that existed, that was not of this world, but that came into it, when he cometh into the world, he says, &c., to become a part of it, and be manifested in it.

Secondly, We find him to have existed afore John the Baptist, though John was conceived and born some months afore him. I note these several joints of time because the Scripture notes them, and hath set a special mark upon them : John i. 15, John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me ; for he was before me. This priority of existence is that which John doth specially give witness unto. And it is priority in existence, for he allegeth it as a reason why he was preferred afore him ; for he was before me. And therefore these latter words do not note out a priority in dignity, for that were to prove idem per idem. And this reason holds strong ; for he is such a person as existed afore he was made man or flesh, afore as man he was born ; and so must be more than a man or creature. And then again, he doth not say, He is before me ; but speaks in the time past, He was before me. And yet, ver. 30, he expresseth it thus, There cometh a man (the same John speaking of Christ) which is preferred before me ; for he was before me. Still he runs upon this priority. And yet as a man he was not afore John ; for John was the elder as man. Therefore as some other person, namely, the Son of God (as he had entitled him, ver.

14), or as the Word (as he had styled him, ver. 1 and so on).

Thirdly, We find him existing when all the prophets wrote and spake, 1 Pet. i. 11. The Spirit of Christ is said to have been in all the prophets, even as Paul, who came after Christ, also speaks, You seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, 2 Cor. xiii. 3. And therefore he himself, whose Spirit it was, or whom he sent, must needs exist as a person sending him. And particularly of the prophet Isaiah it is said, when he saw his glory, Isa. vi. 1, which, John xii. 41, is applied to Christ, and ver. 5, says Isaiah, * I am undone, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, which was Christ.

Fourthly, We find him existing in Moses s time, both because it was he

Neither let us tempt Christ, as some that was tempted in the wilderness, of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents, 1 Cor. x. 9 ; and it was Christ that was the person said to be tempted by them, as well as now by us, as the word xa), as they also, evidently shews. And it points to that angel that was sent with them, Exod. xxiii. 20, 21, in whom the name of God was, and who as God had the power of pardoning sins : ver. 21, Beware of him, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgres sions ; for my name is in him. And him that Moses calls Jehovah or God, Stephen calls an angel. And there is none to whom are given the

CHAP. I.J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 409 name of an angel, and of God, but to Christ. And Stephen says, Acts

Moses was a ruler and deliverer in the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. And in Heb. xii. 26 there is a com vii. 35, that parison made between Moses and Christ ; and Christ is there said to be he whose voice then shook the earth, ver. 26 ; and, ver. 25, he is termed the speaker from heaven, alluding to that place, Exod. xx. 22, God said, You have seen I have talked with you from heaven. fc So then Christ then existed, and also is God. Yea, further, it is he of whom it is there also said, that his voice then shook the earth. Even as he who now under the gospel speaks from heaven, and whose voice shakes both earth and heaven under the gospel. The same Jesus therefore then existed in his power that now.

Fifthly, We find him existing in and afore Abraham s time : Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am, John viii. 58. The Jews had undervalued him unto Abraham, Art thou greater than our father Abraham? ver. 53. And whereas he had said thereupon that * Abraham rejoiced to see his day, ver. 56, which Abraham had done by faith ; they [will needs cavil, and put this upon him, that he had meant he had seen Abraham, and had lived in his time : Thou art not fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? ver. 57. Christ doth not answer as he might, that this was a mere cavil as to what his former words did intend or hold forth ; but instead thereof, with a deep assevera tion, affirms what they thought he had absurdly said of himself, namely, that he had not only lived in Abraham s time, but long afore. And so their cavil and mistake drew forth from Christ this great truth, as errors use to bring forth truth ; and he utters it with the greatest solemnity and asseveration, Verily, verily, as being a wonder to utter ; yea, and speaks not in ordinary language, as that * afore Abraham was I was, but I am, in a correspondency to what God speaks of himself, * Before the day was, I am, Isa. xliii. 13. We translate it I am he, but word for word it is I am, signifying thereby that permanent, uninterrupted being of his, which is proper to God, as Ps. xc. 2, Before the mountains were brought forth, thou art. And Christ s answer in this place was opposite to their demand ; they speak of real existence, and in the same sense and respect doth Christ answer them.

Sixthly, We find him existing in the days of Noah, that preacher of righteousness, 1 Pet. iii. 19. He says of Christ, that he was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit. He evidently distinguisheth of two natures, his divine and human, even as Rom. i. 3, 4 and elsewhere (as I shall shew) ; and then declares how by that divine nature, which he terms Spirit, in which he was existent in Noah s times, he went and preached to those of the old world, whose souls are now in * in Spirit, are not put to signify the subject of vivification ; for such neither his soul nor Godhead could be said to be, for that is not quickened which was not dead ; but for the principal and cause of his vivification, which his soul was not, but his Godhead was. And besides, by his Spirit is not meant his soul, for that then must be prison in hell. Those words, supposed to have preached to souls in hell (where these are affirmed to be). Now, there is no preaching where there is no capacity of faith. But his meaning is, that those persons that lived in Noah s time, and were preached unto, their souls or spirits were now, when this was written, spirits in prison , that is, in hell. And therefore he also adds ( sometimes : who were sometimes disobedient in Noah s days. this word

410 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II.

These words give us to understand that this preaching was performed by Noah ministerially, yet by Christ in Noah ; who according to his divine person was extant, and went with him, as with Moses, and the church in the wilderness, and preached unto them.

Seventhly, He was extant at the beginning of the world, In the beginning was the Word. In which words, there being no predicate or attribute affirmed of this Word, the sentence or affirmation is terminated or ended

in the beginning. He mentions not his parents, or time of his birth, but simply that he was. He mentions not any king s reign, or such note or worldly time, but simply merely with his existence ; he was, and he was then, in the beginning. And he says not that he was made in the beginning, but that * he was in the beginning. And it is in the beginning absolutely, without any limitation. And therefore Moses s beginning, Gen. i. 1, is meant, as also the words after shew, All was made by him that was made ; and, ver. 10, the world he came into was made by him. And as from the beginning is usually taken from the first times or infancy of the world: And he answered and said \ unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female ? Mat. xix. 4. So Mark xiii. 19. Christ expounds it in the beginning of the creation which God created, For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation, which God created, unto this time, neither shall be. So then, when God began to create, then was our Christ. And this here is set in opposition (John i. 14) unto the time of his being made flesh, lest that should have been thought his beginning. And unto this accords that of Heb. i. 10, where, speaking of Christ, out of Ps. cii., Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth ; so as to be sure he existed then. But further, in Ps. cii. 24, it runs thus, Thy years are throughout all generations. We have run, you see, through all generations since the creation, and have found his years throughout them all. And yet lest that should be taken only of the gene* rations of this world, he adds (as Rivet expounds it), * Before thou laidst the foundation of the earth.

Eighthly, So then we are come to this, that he hath been before the creation, yea, from everlasting. Which, First, Is made forth, in that it is said, He was in the beginning (meaning of the creation), and therefore from everlasting. The consequence of which appears, Both because there was but that one beginning of producing things by God, and so what was then must needs be before ; yea, from everlasting, as having had no beginning. The angels were not afore that beginning mentioned by Moses. For it is said, Exod. xx. 11, * God made heaven and earth, and all that in them is, whereof the angels are part. And, Mark xiii. 19, it is termed the * beginning of the creation which God created ; and so of the creation of anything whatever that God made. So then Christ must needs have had no beginning afore, as well as that he existed then.

* from the beginning, is used to express

And, in Scripture phrase, in, or: From the beginning, when the day was, I am, Isa. xliii. 13. So they read it ; that is, from eternity. But if that will not carry it, you have it more express, The Lord pos sessed me afore his works of old, Prov. viii. 22; it is spoken of Christ. eternity

Now, to be sure, by that phrase of being afore his works, even God s: Before the mountains were brought forth, eternity is expressed thereby

or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God, Ps. xc. 2.

But, Ninthly, If you would have his eternity yet more express, see Heb. vii. 3, where mentioning Melchisedec, Christ s type, he renders him to have been his type in this Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life ; but, made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. Where his meaning is to declare that, look what Melchisedec was typice, or umbraliter, in a shadow, that our Christ was really and substantially. It is the manner and custom of all historians, yea, and of Moses in that sacred story of his, if they bring in any person more eminent, and as performing any more excellent exploit, to relate his parents, his descent, whom he came of, and what became of him. And this Moses had been careful and diligent to relate of all the patriarchs, telling us whose sons they were, rehearsing their genealogy, how many years they lived, and how then they died. Which is especially observable in that short catalogue, Gen. v. In the close it is added of every one, and he died, when he relates little else. But this Melchisedec was a man greater in dignity, in office, than any of the patriarchs (for whom would yourselves pitch on as the greatest of all that Moses wrote of, but Abraham, the father of all the faithful ?). Now (says the apostle, ver. 4), consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils, yea (as ver. 5), greater than all the tribes ; and so the whole nation of the Jews, and people of God that followed. For whereas all the other tribes paid tithes to Levi (says the apostle here), Levi and all the tribes paid tithes to him in Abraham s loins. Yea, and ver. 6, * This man blessed him, namely Abraham, who had the promises for him self and all his seed. And without all contradiction, the lesser is blessed of the greater, ver. 7. Now when Moses had in his story brought upon the stage a man thus heightened and sublimated, which would for ever set all curious thoughts on longing to know who and what this man was, what his original was, what his end, who his parents, &c., he causeth him, as it were, on a sudden to vanish, contrary to his wont concerning other persons, as if he had been a man dropped out of the clouds, telling (as we say) neither whence he came, nor whither he would go. Paul, that observed this, tells us plainly, that it was consultb, or on purpose done. There was a mystery in it, which was to signify the eternity of Christ s priesthood and person ; and whereas neither Melchisedec nor any creature was or could exist from everlasting, and so in the reality could not have wherewith to shadow out Christ s existence from everlasting, therefore it is signified by silence, or omission, there being nothing in the story that hints his original or beginning ; and so it was, as if he had had no begin: and it being setly and on purpose done, it had intentionally this ning secret mystery in it. There was nothing in Christ, but some type or other was ordained some way or other to shadow it. And when the matter was such as could not in the kind or reality be personated, it was done by that which might most nearly shadow it. As the sacrifice of his body was by the burnt-offerings of beasts, but for the sacrifice of his reasonable soul under the wrath of God, there was not any thing in the sacrificing of a beast, of like kind, which could shadow it out, yet God appointed that which was as near in resemblance as might be ; and that was the pouring forth of the blood, in which was the soul of life, signifying the pouring forth of his soul as an offering for sii,, as Isaiah speaks, Isa. liii. 10, 12. Now so here, there being nothing in respect of any real existence from eternity that any

412 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. man was capable of, therefore an historical eternity is given him, by way of silence concerning his birth, &c. So as he was (as the text there hath it) made like to the Son of God ; that is, rendered, in respect of what useth to be the course and manner of story, like to him in this respect. As in law things that appear not are in value as if they were not, 5 so here. Now in that it is said, He was made like to the Son of God, it imports him to have herein been the shadow, the picture of Christ, who is the body and substance. God having his Son, and all he was and should be, in his eye, did all along the Old Testament draw his picture in the examples of r in any person that was extraordinary and transcendent ; Christ being really the abstract of them all. Some pieces, or limbs, one all eminences patriarch affording, others another ; and this of eternity was Melchisedec s lot to hold forth, and that in the manner specified. Now that he shadowed out the eternity of Christ s person and priesthood for time to come, all acknowledge, Socinus himself. Therefore also in the eternity of his person for time past, for that is as well put in, * without beginning of days, as without end of life. And so these other attributes, * without father, as a man, without mother, as God. And who can tell his generation? saith Isaiah, chap. liii. 8. All which not only import what he was in respect of his priesthood, but of his person ; for the things he takes for him are such as are common to all men s persons, as they are men. As when he says he was without father or mother, insomuch that whereas Adam was without father or mother, yet we read of the beginning of his days, it is recorded, and his end of life, but not so of Melchisedec ; and so represented in all things differing from all the men that ever were or shall be. And further, if that had been his only type, it had not been material to shew the eternity of his priesthood, to say he was without father. For if Moses had set down his father s name, and withal had shewn that his father was not a priest, it had been all one as to that point. So as these are spoken chiefly in respect of his person, the subject of this priest hood ; yea, and if his priesthood were from everlasting, his person must exist from everlasting ; for these two are joined. Heb. v. 6, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ; and, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec. If therefore it signifies the everlastingness of the priesthood, d parte ante, or from time past, that that hath been for ever (and it must so signify, if that other opposite, without end of days, signifies the eternity of his priesthood for time to come), then withal it must import the eternity of his person, and himself to have been without begin ning of days.

Lastly, Add to this that in Micah v. 2, But thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting ; where he evidently speaks of two births Christ had, under the metaphor of going forth : one as man at Bethlehem in the fulness of time, the other as Son of God from everlasting. Which latter is added on purpose, upon occasion of the prophecy of that other, to prevent that thought, that he had not existed afore he was born or conceived at Bethlehem ; and his birth is expressed by that phrase of going or com ing forth, in both respects. His birth as man, Mat. ii. 6, is so expressed, * Out of thee shall come forth, which, ver. 4, is interpreted to be born. And, 2. As Son of God, his goings forth (that is, his birth) are from everlasting. And it is termed

goings forth, in the plural ; because it is * Non entia et non apparentia sequiparantur in jure.

CHAP. L] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 413 actus continuus, and hath been every moment continued from everlasting. As the sun begets light and beams every moment, so God doth his Son.

So then we have two everlastings attributed to Christ s person ; one to come, Heb. i. 10, and another past, here in Micah v. 2. And so as of God himself it is said, Ps. xc. 2, From everlasting to everlasting thou art God, so also of Christ.

And to confirm this existence of his yet more ; if you ask where he was all that while ? John resolves you, together with this his assertion, that he was; and tells you with whom he was. At the creation, or in the beginning, he was with God, when none but God and he were alone, and no creature with them ; * in the bosom of the Father, John i. 18. And in Prov. viii.

30, Then I was by him as one brought up with him. And accordingly, John xvii. 8, Christ says, I came forth from thee, speaking to his Father ; and ver. 18, Thou didst send me into the world ; and John xvi. 28, I am come forth from the Father, and am come into the world.

Now ask the manifestarians, that is, those that say, Christ, as Christ, is only a manifestation of God ; How was it when it is said, that he was * with God in the beginning of the creation, when there was no creature ? when, according to them, his sole being (as Christ) is barely a manifesta tion. I ask them to whom he was then a manifestation ? Not to God, for, according to them, he is the manifestation of God in us ; and to him he needed not be the manifestation of himself in their sense, but to us only. Now then we were not, nor any creature to whom he should be manifested.

Use 1. Let believers comfort themselves with this existence of their head and redeemer Christ ; 1 John ii. 14, he reckons it up a privilege to raise up their hearts withal, Ye have known him that is from the beginning, namely, Christ, of whom, 1 John i. 1, 2, he says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was mani. This was the great privilege John and the apostles boasted of; as it follows, ver. 3, That which we have seen and heard fested unto us) declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. When therefore he saith, We have known him that is from the beginning, it carries a great privilege, and confirmation, and establishment of them in their faith, and also an exhortation with it.

(1.) A confirmation of them in their faith, and to see and rejoice in their privilege ; and is as if he had said, there cannot be any Christ proposed to them that is more ancient, and therefore he is the best, the sole or only Christ. As the gospel coming after could not make void the law, so no manifestation can put down or excel that which is made of God himself in Christ, for it is he that was from the beginning.

And (2.) it hath an exhortation in it ; that therefore they should always, and to the end, that is, for ever, cleave to him. It is he that was from the * The same to-day, yesterday, and for ever, as Heb. xiii. Use 2. Embrace him as thy chiefest treasure ; for he is being and beginning. There can be no other Jesus ; existence itself. The world passeth away, and the glory of it : but the word of God endures for ever. If the truth of this written word, then much more this substantin 1 Word, the person of Christ, in whom all other

* by whom all truths are Yea and amen. He is, I say, existence itself,

414 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEK, [BOOK II. c exist, Heb. i. 13. And in the text, things consist, Col. i. 17, and 1 through whom are all things, and we by him. And it is faith in us that gives a subsistence to him in our souls, we thereby close with him ; Prov. viii. 21, Wisdom, that is, Christ exhorting us to embrace him, holds forth this promise, I cause those that love me to inherit substance. All other things are shadows. And how doth he confirm this to them, that he is able to give them substance ? but by this, that he existed before the world was ; which is the subject of his discourse for ten whole verses together next following, beginning thus : ver. 22, * The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old : I was set up from everlast ing, ere ever the earth was, &c. Then only I was ; but God himself accounted me as a treasure to himself. The Lord possessed me, ver. 22. And therefore I may well be yours. If God esteemed me such to himself, you may well do so to yourselves. When the apostle says, l He that was rich, for your sakes became poor, 2 Cor. viii. 9, it implies him to have been infinitely rich afore he came into the world, where it was he was made poor, and from his birth born to nothing. And to conclude, as he only is existence, so that being you have in him is alone true being. Of him ye are in Christ Jesus.

Use 3. You see how it came to pass, that we who existed not afore the world had yet then the promise given, 1 Tim. ii. : Grace given us in * chosen in him afore the world

Christ afore the world, 1 Tim. i. 9; and was, Eph. i. 4 ; even because that, Christ was a person who then existed, and took all the deeds of gift ordained us from God for us. Isa. vi. 9, he

The everlasting Father, which he had not been if he had not is styled existed ; for of all else, to be a father, implies existence at the time when he is said to be a father ; for it notes antiquity and priority. As Adam is said to be a father in time, so Christ from everlasting ; and as Adam must be supposed to exist, when he was a father, so must Christ be supposed also. And therefore if an everlasting Father, then he existed in that ever lasting.

CHAPTEE II.

Who this person was that existed from eternity. The two titles which are given to him, as existing before the world was : 1. That he is l the Word;

2. The Son of God. His first title, the Word, imports two things: his being eternally begotten of the Father, as the image of his essential glory; and that he is given to us by God as his word, whereby he manifests himself.

You have seen that Christ was a person who existed throughout all generations, and from everlasting, before he took flesh. The next inquiry is, who he was that had always so existed ; thus as yet I, proceeding by degrees, do limit it; for as concerning what he is upon the assuming human nature, that is to follow afterward.

There are two eminent titles given to Christ, existing before the world, and both of them in the first chapter of John: 6 Xoyof , the Word, John i. 1, In the beginning was the Word, &c. 2. The Son of God, ver. 14. Of whom as such John Baptist thrice affirmeth he was afore him, ver. 15, 18, 30, 34. And parallel to this in the Book of Proverbs he is styled ; 1. Wisdom, Prov. viii., from ver. 22 to 33. Then, 2. The Son of God.

What is his name, and his Son s name, canst thou tell ? Prov. xxx. 4.

CHAP. II. J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

I will not hear much dispute as concerning the first, whether that title of \6yog, the Wor4, be the title of his person simply considered in himself ; or whether withal, in respect unto his being ordained the manifestation and revelation of God to us ; yet something must be said. There are two opinions about it.

First, Some say it imports the divine substance of his person, simply considered, and so merely notes out that relation he hath to his Father, as begotten of him ; in respect of which he should be termed the Word. That look, what the inward thought, conceptus, conceit or apprehension of the mind, is to the mind, being the first-born thereof, and remains within the mind itself, and is the image of the mind to itself, though never uttered to any other : such, say they, and in such a respect, is the person of Christ termed the Word, unto God his Father. Now it is clear, that both in the Jewish and Greek language, that which we in English call Word, and which we apply only unto speech, doth with them betoken the inward thought*of the mind. Aristotle distinguished between Xoyo& e and Xoyoj svdu, the external of the mouth and the internal of the mind. Thus also, Job xxxii. 18, I am full of matter ; so we translate it. And he speaks of his mind or spirit ; so it follows, My spirit within me is full of matter. Now in the Hebrew it is, full of words. Thus, Dixit in corde, l The fool hath said in his heart, is put to express the inward thoughts of bad men, Ps. xiv. 1 ; as also of good men, Ps. xxxvi. 1 ; for words spoken are but thoughts appearing. So that, according to this, the whole object of God s inward thoughts and wisdom is here termed the Word, which comprehen sively is Christ. And this notion or ground, why he is termed Xdyos, the fathers and schoolmen have more generally and greedily entertained, as that which was most lively and really expressive of the eternal generation of the person of the Son of God. That as the mind, when it would under stand itself, begets within itself an idea or likeness of itself, in which it views and understands itself ; like as the eye, when it would see and view a thing without itself, takes in an image of the thing ; so the mind doth, when it knows itself or any other thing. And that thus God, in the know ing of himself, doth beget within himself the image of himself, as, Heb. i. 2, Christ is also called. And it is observable that his eternal generation, as the Son, should be expressed by the same phrase (and so they should so fitly agree) that the production of the thoughts or image in the mind is expressed by. The phrase used to express the generation of him as God s Son is, that he came forth from the Father, John viii. 42 ; xvi. 28 ; xvii. 8. And the same word is used to express the begetting of the thoughts and purposes by the mind, and in the mind, Mat. xv. 18.

But this import of it many of our reformed divines * have been and are shy of, as too curious ; and yet, as I have observed, the same authors are . in other following passages glad to make use of the similitude thereof again and again, to express the generation of the Son of God thereby, as most apposite and subservient thereunto ; and so might have been glad that the Scriptures speak so near thereto.

There have been two things, among many others, that have made them shy to own this, as the Scriptures intention in this phrase. 1. That the conceptus, or images in the mind, are accidents, and less than the mind itself, as also vanishing and transient, and not of the same substance with it, and equal to it, which is dangerous to hold forth of Christ.

* Zanchy, Professores Leidenses, and others.

416 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II.

But that is easily answered : (1.) That a full similitude, from things earthly, holding in all things like, could not be found of this mystery. And, (2.) Themselves say of the persons in the divine nature, that they being but various modes or manner of subsistings of that one divine nature, the Godhead ; that though those several modes in a creature would be but accidents, yet in the Godhead they are persons: so why not in the case in hand? That image which in the mind of man is but an accident, this in God, and of God himself, is a person equal to God. Especially, seeing otherwise, he should not know himself perfectly as he is in himself.

2. The second is, that to say Christ is the Word of the Father, as the thoughts or reason, or counsel is the word of the mind, vergeth and inclines too much into the notion of Plato, and other heathen philoso phers, who, acknowledging God the maker of this world, conceived of this Word of God in God to be no other thing in God than the idea or platform of all that which God meant to make. And so, as an artificer having the model of a ship or frame of building in his head, that model, or frame, or pattern of what he means to make is one thing, and his own being or nature as a man is another ; and, indeed, thus did these wise folks, philosophising of God s making the world, distinguish between God and this Word in God thus : that by God they conceived one person only that enjoyed that divine nature to himself, only he having all the creation in him, the pattern of all these, or idea of them, according unto which he made them, they termed this the Word, or Xoyoj, in God s mind; so making the whole of the being or subsistence of that Word in God to be wholly distinct from the nature of God as God, and to be only that in God which was the ori ginal and sampler of his creation, and so to be but the head of the creation, that is, the top and chief and original of it, and a mere respect thereto. This was Plato s Xoyog, or Word ; and I fear is all that others, bringing but up old philosophy for new divinity, do intend, by that which they so usually cry up and term the eternal Word. But that the philosophers meant by the notion of Xoyo, or the Word, no more but the model of the creation, needed not have deterred Chris tians from the owning of this phrase the Word, to intend the image of what was, and is, in God, and that as a distinct person that had the true nature of the Godhead, and as that which was not in God merely, or only the pattern of his creation.

(1.) If indeed the whole of the image of God s mind, or object of God s thoughts and knowledge, had been but the image of the creatures, in which God only foresaw what he would or could create, then indeed John s o AC/OS, or the Word, had been, nor could have been no other than this sampler of God s creation ; but the chief object of God s knowledge is himself in the first place, and thereby it is he knows all things else he can produce, and that at second hand, by first knowing of himself. And indeed if the idea or sampler of his creation alone were all the image or object of his know ledge he had in himself of himself, then he should only have but an im perfect knowledge of himself, and such as we have at the lowest of him. For to know God but in the creatures, is but that which was in Adam by the law of creation ; and we profess to look for a higher, to see God face to face, and in himself, which is our perfection. And therefore surely God s perfection is to see himself in himself much more. Neither indeed can God know himself perfectly, but by such an image of himself as is as perfect as himself. We creatures indeed know nothing perfectly, because

our understandings penetrate not into the things themselves, and so we know them only by such images as fall short of the substance of the things themselves. But God s knowledge is perfect, especially that which he hath of himself must be equal to himself. So then, if the import of this phrase, * the Word, relates at all unto God s inward thoughts and apprehensions, and the object of them, it must more especially carry in it Christ, he being the immediate image of God himself.

3. It is certain, that Christ himself (who himself knew best what himself was) doth speak of himself as of a person unto whom his Father doth shew, or make known, the pattern and model of all his works he means to do ; and therefore the substance or being of his person consisteth not in his being the idea or model of the creation that is in God s mind, but he is the person to whom God makes known those platforms of all. Thus John

Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he doth, these also doth the Son likewise. For v. 19, 20, the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doth : and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.

(1.) These words suppose the idea of what he means to work, to be in common between the Father and the Son, and in the Father first ; as in him the being or essence of God is first, and so communicated or shewn unto the Son (as indeed all the platform or form of God s works is common to all three persons, in that they are alike God). And therefore it were absurd to say, that the Son himself is nothing else but that platform itself of what God means to work.

(2.) These words suppose a person whom God loves, and a person of understanding and knowledge, such as to whom the idea of all God means to effect is shewn. Now as it were absurd for a carpenter to say to that form in his mind, I will shew thee all I am about to do, so here there would be the same absurdity.

And (3.) In ver. 17, Christ says he is one that works, and hath a power ful hand to effect all that is done, as well as the Father ; and therefore is himself a person distinct from this idea of all things, and not the bare image of them. And lest it should be understood of him as Son of man only, he puts in that word hitherto. My Father works hitherto, and I work. That word takes in all God hath ever done since the creation. For that hitherto must relate to some time afore, either eternity, or a beginning ; and we know that that beginning of God s working was the beginning of the creation ; and (from that time hitherto, says Christ) I work. And be it what it will that the Father hath done at any time, the Son hath done the same ; for verse 19, Whatever things the Father doth, these also doth the Son likewise.

4. These two expressions, (1.) That he is one begotten of the Father, elsewhere used ; and (2.) this here, That he is one to whom * the Father Bheweth all he doth ; do imply two differing things ; even as for a Father first to beget his Son, his substantial image, and then to teach and instruct him in his trade, and shew him what he is to do.

Yet I may add this, that God the Father, communicating the form of all things to his Son, so vieweth his own thoughts and purposes thereabout, as they shine forth in his Son ; as a man doth his own thoughts in his friend s mind or judgment. Hence Christ the Word, may in a more eminent manner be styled the idea of all things, in comparison with the other persons. Yet so as this is, because he is the image of God himself ; and so, because he VOL. iv. D d

418 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. of all persons in the Trinity bears the title or character of being the image of God. Hence he doth in like manner, together with the image of God s being, bear the platform of all things else that are in God ; as in whose breast God the Father views over his own thoughts and designs, and in whom they are presented to him.

5. Lastly, Whereas it may be said, that the philosophers having used that phrase afore John, in this or the like sense, that therefore John taking up out of choice the same title, and giving it to Christ, that therefore he should use it in their sense and intention. Answer is, (1.) That John originally used this word from the Old Testament itself. For the Jews expressed their Messiah, or Christ to come, under this notion, the Word, and the Word of God, as appears by the Chaldee paraphrasts (who are at least as ancient as Christ) often, when God the Son is men tioned and spoken of, they translate it the Word. So Hosea i. 7, I will save them by the Lord their God ; they render it, * I will redeem them by the Word of the Lord their God. So Ps. ex. 1, The Lord said to my Lord ; the paraphrasts expound it, The Lord said to the Word. And so Isa. xlv. 17, Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salva tion ; they read it, by the Word of the Lord, namely Christ. And this phrase not the Jews only, but the Scriptures themselves, do use, as 2 Sam.

For thy Word s sake, says David, that is, for thy Christ s sake. For 1 Chron. xvii. 19, it is rendered, For thy servant s sake.; and is all one with that, Dan. ix., For the Lord s sake. Philo (a Jew never turned vii. 21, Christian, and not long after Christ s time) in his writings calls him o Xoyog, as before did Plato and those heathens who stole their knowledge from the Jews, and vended it as their own.

Yet, (2.) That the occasion why John, when he wrote his Gospel, used that title of the Word, which no other evangelist did, was that which was mentioned, namely, that the Gnostics of those times he wrote in, profess ing Christianity, formed up such a Christ, according to what the heathen philosophers had set him forth by ; he therefore gives him the same title (the Old Testament having given it him) ; but in full and direct opposition to them, and what they said of him, he at first dash affirms, both that his Xoyof, or Christ, was God, and also equal with God, and a person distinct from God, in those other words, He was with God ; the contrary to which was their doctrine of him.

Thus much for the first opinion, why he is called

the Word. The second opinion, why Christ should be termed Xoyoc, < the Word, is that it imports what God had afore all worlds ordained Christ to be, and Christ himself undertook to be, even his Word, whereby to utter or mani fest himself to us. And indeed, although the person whom John calls Xoyof did actually then exist, yet it cannot be denied but that this title of Xdyog, the Word, doth withal connotate or import what Christ undertook to be, and God designed him to be, namely, the revelation of God unto us. Which is made forth, 1. Because the inward thoughts themselves are usually termed the word, but in relation to their being uttered ; and therefore in such a respect may also this be supposed given to him, seeing he is the manifester of God unto us, Et interpres voluntatis divina, the interpreter of God s mind unto us, Heb. i. 1. And, 2. In that Christ is said to be the Wisdom of God, namely, manifestative, and as he is made wisdom unto us, by whom we know God in the form of Jesus Christ. Thus 1 Cor. i. 24, * But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, compared with verse 30, But of him

ClIAP. III.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 419 are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteous ness, and sanctification, and redemption. And in this sense it is that Solomon calls him Wisdom, which is all one with this of John, X6yo$, the Word, which the English or Latin reach not. And it were easy to parallel John here, and Solomon there, in Prov. viii., which I have elsewhere done. So then, Christ as he is the power of God in the creation ; God said, and it was created, Gen. i. ; and as he is the power and the wisdom of God to us in redemption, in whom and by whom we know God, in this respect it is he is termed the Word : and so, although John and Solomon affirm the person that was thus ordained to be thus to us was then existing, yet the title given him imports what he was to be when the world began, and after the world began, unto the world and to the saints. And thus John himself, in his first epistle, chap. i. ver. 1, 2, explains himself, That which was from the beginning, says he, and which our (the apostles ) hands have handled of the Word of life, namely, Christ. This life was manifested, and we shew to you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us.

So then Christ the Word, in order to manifestation to us, is termed the Word of life. And as he is termed the Word in both these respects men tioned, so also that other title John gives him, of eternal Life, is in like manner given in respect unto what he was ordained from the beginning to be to us, 1 John v. 11, And this is the record, that God hath given unto us eternal life ; and this life is in his Son ; as well as what he is in his person, even the fountain of, or life itself, in himself. So, ver. 20 of that chapter, he speaks of him, This is the true God, and eternal life/ To conclude this. When God exhibited him first unto the world by a voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son, he adds, hear him. And it is as if he had said, As he is my Son, so he is my Word and interpreter unto you, the speaker from heaven ; as, Heb. xii. 25, he is called. And see these two titles of his Son and of the Word met in that one proclama tion made of him by his Father.

Which of these two accounts given, why he is termed Xoyoc, or the Word, is most to be received, I will not dispute ; because indeed I take in both. In doing which there is no more inconveniency to be found than in inter preting other styles and attributes of his in a double sense, and taking in both ; as in that of being styled The image of the invisible God, Col. i., which Pareus and other divines (whom he to that purpose cites) in his Opuscula, upon Col. i. 15. I now come to that other title, more frequent in the Scriptures.

CHAPTER III.

That he was the Son of God, who existed throughout all ages, and from eter nity. This proved by all those instances of Scriptures wherein his eternal existence is asserted, and wherein the title of Son of God is also ascribed to him.

This most eminent title of Son of God doth simply express what and who the second person is in himself, and in relation to his Father, and so singly speaks the substance of his person ; and, it is certain, was that more general and renow, jd title the first primitive times knew him by. Under which Christ himself and all the apostles unanimously represented

420 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. him unto the church, which all believers then professed to helieve in, and concerning which that promise is made and uttered unto all the saints in * That all should come to the unity of the faith, and knowledge of the Son of God. The other of Xoyos, the Word, was succeeding ages, Eph. iv. 13, (if used by any other apostle than John, yet but covertly) by John sparingly mentioned after all the apostles were dead, and but thrice by him. And though it was a known title to heathens and Jews, yet received but upon occasion of heresies, which took the advantage of the use of that title among philosophers, to deform the person of our Jesus.

And further, he was acknowledged and declared to be that Son of God by all sorts of witnesses, either in heaven, or earth, or hell.

1. By those witnesses in heaven.

(1.) The Father, Mat. iii. 17, And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; and chap. xvii. 5.

(2.) The Son himself, in every chapter of John, and Luke x. 22.

(3.) By the Holy Ghost, who (besides that his testimony is included in all the scriptures that speak him the Son of God, because he wrote them all) personally appears in the likeness of a dove, to join with the Father s witness of him. This is my beloved Son, Mat. iii. 16, 17, And, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him : and, lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And so the Baptist doth interpret that signal place, John i. 32, 33, 34, And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not : but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit de scending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

(4.) The same was witnessed by the angels.

[l.J The good, Luke i. 35, And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.

[2.] The bad, Mat. iv. 3, 6, and chap. viii. 29, And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God ? art thou come hither to torment us before the time ? Mark iii. 11, and chap, v. 7; Luke iv. 3, and chap. iv. 81.

2. On earth. (1.) Wicked men, as the centurion, Mat. xxvii. 54, Of a truth, this was the Son of God.

(2.) The apostles all jointly by Peter, John vi. 69, And we believe, and are sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

(3.) Lastly, the whole church, Eph. iv. 13. So that we may boldly assert ; Assertion 2. That our Christ, for the substance of his person, is the Son of God ; so styled, not in respect only of God s taking man s nature, but as existing as such afore he took man s nature. And this is one of the great foundations of the gospel, and universally acknowledged by believers in the first times. This general assertion will require many particulars to explain it.

1. That he that thus existed (as hath been proved) through all ages, and from eternity, was this Son of God, and so styled afore ever he assumed man s nature.

2. How and in what manner this title is given to him.

CHAP. III.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

1. For the first; That he that thus existed through all ages was the Son of God, and so styled afore ever he assumed man s nature.

For the evidence of this I shall run the same race I did in the former assertion ; when I proved his existence, I went through all ages, even up to everlasting. And so I shall do in this, step by step, demonstrating that it was the Son of God that as such is said in all ages to have existed.

(1.) He of whom John the Baptist affirmed that he existed afore him (as was shewn), his person by him is styled The only-begotten Son of God ; John i. 15, 18, John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him ; compared with ver. 30, 34, * This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me ; for he was before me. And I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of God.

(2.) He, as the Son, was over the church, as his own house, in Moses s time. To him, as the Son, was Moses a servant in his house ; so then he must exist as the Son. Thus you read expressly, Heb. iii. 5, 6, Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, but Christ as a Son over his own house, even then. Even he that then said, in Num. xii. 7, Moses is faithful in all my house ; he was this Son, says Paul, and therefore existed as such ; for it was he spake those words in Num. xii. 7.

(3.) Again, it was proved in the first assertion that our Christ was a person that existed at the creation. Now he that then existed, and so afore man s nature was made, and four thousand years afore this man was made, is then called the Son. Of him, as the Son, it is said, Heb. i. 1, His Son, by whom he made the worlds.

4 ) It was shewn that he was a person existing throughout all genera tions from the creation. And this was the Son : John v. 17, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work ; that is, hitherto my Father hath wrought from the creation, both on Sabbath days and every other day. It was spoken to justify the healing on the Sabbath. And it was not his own working only virtually or instrumentally ; for his word is 6/xo/wj, in like manner, ver. 19. And he that then is said to work must be acknowledged in the highest manner to exist. And it is the Son that did this : ver. 19, Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he doth, these also doth the Son likewise. And as in the words, ver. 17, it is manifest, My Father works, and I that am his Son.

(5.) He who was without beginning of days, and end of life, of whom Melchisedec was the type and shadow (as was shewn out of Heb. vii. 3), he is expressly termed the * Son of God in that place. For thus the words concerning Melchisedec run : Having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but was made like unto the Son of God ; who therefore, as Son of God, hath this in a real and substantial manner true of him. And therefore the Son is not only in respect of this man Jesus his being united unto God, but, (6.) In Kom. i. verses 2, 3, 4, Paul says, that the gospel was promised by God before by the prophets concerning his Son, whose person he thus describes, Who was made of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, or human nature, and declad to be the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness, or a divine nature, (as shall after be shewn). Now that Spirit,

422 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. or divine nature, in which, a Son of God, he existed, and was now declared, is called the eternal Spirit, Heb. ix. 14, by whom also he offered up himself, as there.

(7.) Seeing this place hath mentioned how the prophets speak of him as God s Son, let us see how they spake thus afore of him as the Son ; whereby will be decided, whether or no they styled him not such, over and above the consideration of that human nature ; in regard to which only, say some, it and its being united to God, and God manifested therein, it is, say they, that he is called the Son of God ; and not as a distinct person from the Father, who in himself is the Son of God, and who took the human nature into the same sonship of his person which he had with out it.

[1.] Ps. ii. 7, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee. God s

Hodie, or to-day/is the style of eternity. Verbsand adverbs of the present time do best express eternity.

Before Abraham was, lam, John viii. 58. And I AM hath sent thee, Exod iii. 14. So, * To-day have I begotten thee.

To-day with God is no to-morrow, nor yesterday. As God was always God, so always a Father ; and so he is a Son always unto God. Neither had he been God s Son by generation, by begetting, if only he had been his Son, as man, by union. So he had been the Son of the Holy Ghost, and he his Father, rather than God (whom the Scriptures only term his Father), be cause this man was by the Holy Ghost conceived, formed, and united unto God. And the Spirit was not the cause of his being a Son, for this very

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Gal. iv. 6, And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into Spirit is termed the Spirit of this Son : Rom. viii. 9, your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. And sent by him, John xvi. 15, All things that the Father hath are mine ; therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. And although this Scripture of Ps. ii. is applied to the resurrection of Christ, Acts xiii. 32, 33, yet it is evident, by Paul s quotation of it, Heb. i. 5, and his denying unto all the angels, that so transcendent a generation intended in that second psalm by the psalmist.

Neither by the resurrection was he first made the Son of God (as man), for he is termed so all along in the evangelists before. But it was then declared, as Paul s phrase is, Bom. i. 3, Declared the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead. For thereby it was shewn that he had life in himself, and was that eternal Life that had been from the be ginning, 1 John i. 1 ; whom therefore it was impossible death should hold, Acts ii. 24. And unto this sense it is, that those words of the psalmist are applied by Peter to the resurrection, Acts xiii. 32, 33. God, by Christ s being raised up, had confirmed the truth of that promise made, to give his Son for us, whom he had from eternity begotten, and did by his resurrec tion declare him to be such.

We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son; this day have;I begotten thee ; thus, or thereby proving him to be the Son of God, whom God had from everlasting begotten, who was promised to be given to us. Yea, his incarnation and conception as man (which was the first foundation of his being man), was but the beginning of the manifestation of the Son of God : John i. 14, The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we

CHAP. III.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST. 423 beheld his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father. And therefore this was not the constituting him a Son. So likewise it is termed, 1 Tim. iii. 16, G-od was manifest in the flesh. Likewise 1 John iii. 8, The Son of God was manifested. Now manifestation is of what was extant afore ; but production is the bringing forth of a thing from a not being to a being.

[2.] Agur speaks of a person distinct from God, then -existing, whom he calls God s Son ; Prov. xxx. 4, What is his name, and what is his Son s name, if thou canst tell ? He demands of the one, as well as of the other, known to the Jews, whose name or being was ineffable.

[3.] Isaiah, in chap. ix. 6, To us a child is born, a Son is given, which is applied to Christ, Mat. iv. 15, a child ; that title only is given to one that is of mankind, and in that respect he is said to be born. But that title of a Son is in a further relation given him. For else that first title of child had been enough. And in that he adds thereto, as a further thing, and distinct from child, that is, A Son is given, this argues his existence as a Son afore, for that is given which first is. And then, the angel coming to Mary, a virgin, points her to the prophecy of Isaiah : Behold, thou, a virgin, shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son ; which you have Isa. vii. 14, Behold, a virgin, &c. Now Isaiah had prophesied two things

First, That a virgin should bring forth : Isa. vii. 14, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign ; Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Second, That he that was so brought forth should be the Son of God : Isa. ix. 6, For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counseller, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace.

Mary doubts of the first, and the angel resolves her in that, in the first part of his speech, ver. 35, Then the angel answered and said, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.

And then, from this wonderful conception of hers, the angel doth infer, that he that should be thus conceived and brought forth by a virgin, should undoubtedly be the Son of God, which the same Isaiah had spoken of in his 9th chapter, To us a Son is given. And so it follows in the latter part of the verse, in Luke, Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. This particle, therefore, refers not to his conception, as a cause of this effect, as if that therefore, because conceived by the Holy Ghost, he should be thereby constituted the Son of God. But it is an inference or demonstration, that therefore she might be assured he was that Son of God that Isaiah had spoken of, that should be so born of her. Yea, and that child should be called the Son of God ; that is, owned, reckoned, and acknowledged, to be the Son of God, by personal union with him, as he is and hath been by the believing world to this day ; and called, that is, really made the Son of God by that union. Or, it was he that was to be declared the Son of God, who was afore Deus absconditus, God that was hidden, as Isa. xlv. 15. Arid so Matthew also interprets the : Mat. i. 22, 23, Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name prophecy

Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us. So then this Son in Isaiah is the Son of God, by the angel s interpretation ; God united to man s nature, and so dwelling amongst us. And the angels they had known him, and conversed with him all along afore during the Old Testament, and

424 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. appeared together with him unto Ahraham, and others, and so were meet witnesses of him, what and who he was, when he came into the world.

[4.J And to this head may be referred that in the story of the fiery fur nace : The form of the fourth, appearing with the three children, says Nebuchadnezzar, is like the Son of God, Dan. iii. 25. Thus far we may more than probably conclude, that this appearance was of the person of Christ himself, the Son of God, who had formerly appeared to the fathers in the shape of man ; and so with these three children, to comfort them, and strike dread into the tyrant. And so he was then extant as the Son of God ; yea, and possibly this prince, though an heathen, might have re ceived some glimmering notion of God s Son. And he now seeing one appearing in so great and so superlatively differing a glory from the rest ; and such a glory as struck him, though so great a king, as outshone his, and had overcome him ; he concluded that it must represent God s Son, who by inheritance was Lord of all ; of God, I say, whose kingdom, as after he confesseth, is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion from generation to generation, chap. iv. 3. And the scope of that prophecy is to discover that there was a kingdom to come after the four monarchies ended, which appertained to the Son of God. And God having been pleased to vouchsafe to this king the knowledge of that kingdom itself, as in the former chapter, chap. ii. ver. 34, 44, 45 ; so here in this, which was the next occurrence, he gives him the knowledge of his Son (in this appear ance), to whom this kingdom appertained, expressly calling himself the Son of God, whom Daniel, in his vision, chap, vii., terms the Son of man : who, as then existing as Son of God, appeared in a differing glory with these three children, comforting of them, countenancing, owning them, and being then present with them in their afflictions, as, Isa. Ixiii., it is also said, he was with the church in the wilderness.

To conclude this. If he existed afore the world was, when he was not man, and during all the times of these prophets, afore he took man s nature, it must be supposed that such a person so existing must have some emi nent known title given him, between God and him, the import of which should be to speak his relation unto him. And if so, then surely it must be this, which is thus afore given him by those prophets, and as uttered by God, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee, Ps. ii. 7. And what is his name ? speaking of the Father ; * and what is his Son s name ? So then he was called the Son, Prov. xxx. 4.

He is not termed a Son, as if only made such when he was conceived or made man ; but, on the contrary, being and existing the Son, he is said to be sent and made of a woman: Gal. iv. 4, But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.

And unto this purpose it is further observable, that Christ, in his dis courses to his disciples, affirms himself not only to be one sent into the world by his Father (which sufficiently imports his existence afore), but further, to notify to us his eternal generation, and proceeding from him as a Son, and as such existent afore. He therefore distinguisheth and sever-

I came from the Father, so first ; and then, And I came into the world ; or eth these two things (as appears in several speeches of his) ; thus, And he hath sent me. This is not only oft repeated, but this very order observed as oft as repeated: John vii. 29, I know him : for I am from him, and he hath sent me.

CHAP. IV.] AND ms SON JESUS CHRIST. 425

CHAPTER IV.

What kind of Son he is to God, or in what sense he is the Son of God. He is the proper Son of God in a special peculiar manner, such as no other person can be said to be. He is styled the only begotten Son of God, which can be affirmed of no creature. This imports that his eternal generation is the foundation of his sonship. He is called the Son of the living God ; that he is begotten of him in his own likeness ; and is of the same nature and substance with him. That he is God by an identity ; of one and the same essence of the Godhead, and not by union only, or office.

To demonstrate in what sense Christ has this title of Son of God, I shall herein also proceed by degrees.

1. It is given him by way of singularity, in comparison of all others that have the title of sons ; this all acknowledge. As God the first person, by way of singularity, ordinarily is called the Father, one God, the Father ; so frequently in the same way of singula rity is Christ termed the Son, in relation unto this God as the Father. And it hath been observed by some, that whereas viog (dsov, that is to say, A son of God, is common to others, that is, to us with him ; yet 6 viog roD

&ioi>, The Son of God, is never given to any but to him.

2. God the Father himself, by way of a special appropriation, sets him forth and exhibits him as his Son, with difference from all others. He said it himself from heaven, This is my beloved Son, Luke ix. 35. This person, this is the very He, he of all others individually, and alone he and none other ; and then he adds, let all else hear him. Thus when he pre sents him to the world, hear him, acknowledge and receive him, as he who hath power to make you sons to me ; John i. 12, But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

But this general is far short of what the Scriptures speak concerning what, or wherein his sonship consists. Even the Jews seem to conceive and apprehend that he who should be the Christ, should have the title of the Son of God given him by way of eminency above all others, yet all that while conceiving of him, as to the substance of his person, that it was but only a man that should transcendently have God s presence with him, and that God should appear in him in a more glorious manner than in all men else. And not the Jews only, but the Gentiles, were struck with a sense of some one special person s being the Son of God, as in this sense under stood.

Thus far, and in such respect, Pilate had apprehensions that Christ pos sibly might be the Son of God. For when the Jews had told him that one Jesus made himself (or took upon him to be) the Son of God, John xix. 7, * he was the more afraid.

When Pilate heard that saying, saith the text, It cannot be imagined that Pilate s divinity reached to convince him to be the substantial Son of God, but he thought he might (for all that he knew) be some eminently divine man from God, such as their poets spake of, and attributed to Augustus Caesar, magnum Jovis incrementum, which struck fear into him.

I am doubtful, I confess, whether to refer to Nebuchadnezzar s speech, in Dan. iii. 25, who when h. saw one appear in a differing manner with those * The form of the fourth three children in the fiery furnace, he cries out,

426 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. is like the Son of God ; and surely it was an appearance in such a glory, as was far beyond what creatures, even angels, appear in, that made him speak thus. But that which makes me doubtful is, that he had not any notion of this Son of God to come, unless, as I afore challenged it, for Christ s existence as God s Son under the Old Testament, he perceiving his glory such, and so superlatively different, acknowledged him to be the Son of that God whose kingdom was to be an everlasting kingdom, Dan. iv. 3. But it is yet more observable to prove the present assertion, that when ever Christ spake of the Father afore his disciples, or others, he never said

Our Father, which yet he taught us to say, even when we pray in private, to the end that we should come to God as such a Father to us, as he is also to all others of his elect. And so the Jews were taught and instructed to * We have one Father, even God, John viii. 41. But his own usual say, style was my Father, and therefore so a Father to him as to no other, nor to all or any of the sons of God. And this appropriation was so much his wont that the Jews observed it, and took him at it, and were offended, John v. 17. Whereas he had said, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had said God was his Father, which is but slenderly so translated : for in the original it is, because he had called God his own Father, that is, so and in such a manner his as not others ; and so the Jews themselves understood him, whilst the words were yet fresh in his mouth. Yea, and he speaks not this amongst a wicked company of Jews, who were the children of the devil, ver. 44, as any other ordinary son or child of God alone among a company of wicked ones might by way of separation so use it ; but further, Christ doth the very same when he had an occasion to speak to and of his disciples, and of himself (who were the chiefest saints then alive of the sons of men, and representing the rest for ever to come), how God was Father both to him and them, yet he carefully makes this separation, * My Father and your Father, John xx. 27. You see he mentions their relation apart, yea, as separate and aloof off from his own. He putteth the sonship or relation of all them into one common relation, your Father, and sets against it, and severs from it, as at a distance, his own, my Father. And that, to shew their relation of sons to God, is not of the same rank or descent that his is. There is moreover, an us all, Horn. viii. 32, * He that spared not his own

Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things ? namely, us, the saints. God gave him up for us all, says he, and these all, we find, had been afore termed the sons of God, in the 16th verse of that chapter, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our * heirs of all spirit, that we are the children of God ; and so declared things, because joint heirs with Christ, ver. 17. And again, ver. 29, he had called them the brethren of Christ, and him the firstborn among many brethren.

And yet, after all this, by way of difference from these, he entitles Christ, God s own Son ; * If God spared not his own Son, ver. 32. To have said his Son, by way of singularity, when mention is made of many other brethren, had been enough to have signified his eminency unto them, especially to say the first-born, as ver. 29, he hath done. But he adds hereto over and above all, his own Son ; as thereby signifying the different kind or sort of sonship and fatherhood that was betwixt God and him. This is therefore an eminent distinction of two sorts of sons which God had : his own Son, proper, genuine, true Son, and others that were not his own, but either by marriage or adoption. As strangers and aliens, in

CHAP. IV.J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

their original descent, use to be to a father that afterwards takes them for his adopted sons ; and it is evident that this is his meaning. For ver. 15, the apostle had given this other part of distinction of sonship of this his us l We have received, says he, * the Spirit of adoption, by which we, that are Jews, cry, Abba, and we, that are Gentiles, Father ; And if all. children, then heirs, ver. 17. Now God in this speaks as plainly to men in their own language as is possible to express it. Come to a man that hath both sons by marriage, and also a son out of his own loins, and you hear him call them all sons. But particularly ask him what son is this ? My own son, says he. And are these so? No; they are my daughter s husbands, and so my sons-in-law, or my wife s sons, or whom I have taken to be my sons by will. Well, and what doth a man mean when he says, This is my own son, especially when with a distinction from others that are adopted ? All men understand a son that is of his substance, naturally be gotten of him, of his flesh and blood. Then in its infinite proportion it ought so to be understood here.

A second expression, to be added to this, is, that of his being styled The only begotten Son of God so often, John i. 14, 18 ; iii. 16 ; 1 John iv. 9, and therefore so begotten as not others. Quasi prater eum nullus ; as if besides him no other were begotten. And if any would quarrel, that others are said to be begotten of God, 1 John v. 18, yet to be sure, when God says this of him, Thou art my begotten Son, he means it of such a begetting as hath not been communicated to any creature of the old creation, which that place is express for, To which of all the angels hath he said, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee ? Heb. i. 5. So instanc ing in his highest sons, of the sort of mere creatures, that are nearest to him ; in excluding them he excludes all the rest.

In which speech we may observe two things. 1; That a generation, or begetting him, is the foundation of his sonship, as it is of all true and natural sons else among men. For so he joins them, Thou art my Son ; I have begotten thee, as the ground of that his sonship. If it were but a metaphorical or similitudinary genera tion, as when he says of the ice and the snow, Job xxxviii. 28, 29, Hath the rain a father ? or who hath begotten the drops of the dew ? Out of whose womb came the ice ? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it ? then his sonship were no other. But doth God speak poetically here (as there he doth), when of the generation of his Son ? Then indeed he were but metaphorically a Son, and God a metaphorical Father to him. Whereas he is the true Son of God, as John calls him, I John v. 20, and therefore as truly begotten.

2. Then that his generation is such a begetting, and he such a Son in that respect as is denied of the angels, or of men, is evident. Thou, and thou alone, art my Son ; I have begotten thee, and thee alone. So that otherwise, let the Scripture speak what it will of men s being born of God, begotten of God, it is with an infinite distance of sense from this. Theirs is but by his operation, not generation, by renascentia, a new birth of God s image on them, which are but divine qualities in the soul, not by a gene ration that is proper to a substantial person.

Then, thirdly, add to these two expressions of one Son, and of begotten, that other, Mat. xvi. 16 ; as also John vi. 69 ; whee, both by Peter s and all the apostles their confession, he is professed to be the Son of the living God. And :i both those confessions, the conglomeration, or gathering together so many articles in the Greek set afore every word, are as so

428 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. many stars that call us to behold this eminency of his sonship and genera tion. For they putting an emphasis on every word in that small sentence, Thou art that Christ ; that Son of that God, that living God ; the like indigitation is never used but for some special intent, according to the nature of the matter spoken of. And that which makes it the more observ able is, that John (who wrote long after the other evangelists, and avoideth to mention what other evangelists had recorded, and so mentions this confes sion of theirs as uttered at another time, and upon a differing occasion from that which Matthew relates) should yet, in his rehearsal of this confession, not only punctually keep to the same words, but hath as carefully added the same articles afore every word as Matthew had done.

Yea, further, whereas it is observed by some (as was said), that the article

6 viog, the Son, is given to none but to this Son ; lo, here it is also put to every word besides, when his sonship is solemnly proclaimed. And so the meaning will be this, That Son of the only true God, that living God.

"Which emphasis, the God, and which attribute, the living God, are purposely annexed to set out the greatness of this so great a Son. And to shew that if we do suppose the great and true God to have a Son, and but one Son, and him begotten by him, as he is the living God (as put this and those former things mentioned of him together, and it appears), then what manner of a Son must this be ? and what manner of generation, but such as living fathers have proportionably of their sons ? A generation such as is proper to things living when they beget their kind. Generation, pro perly taken, says Aquinas,* and experience shews it, is of things that are living, out of a living principle, and is improperly applied to production. And further, it is then said to be generation properly in them, when they beget in their own likeness, and that likeness consisting in their own kind, nature, and substance.

And thus living things properly are said to beget ; as in nature you all see, a lion begets a lion, a man a man. Proprium est viventium generare simile in substantia. And those two attributes are given to Christ, holding forth his generation, viz., the Word, and the Son. The Word shews he is begotten by God, who is an intellectual being ; the Son shews that he is begotten as a living essence or being. Now then, putting all these three together: 1. God s own Son; 2. Only begotten ; 3. That one only begotten Son of the true and living God ; these twisted and interwoven mutually, are a threefold cord that cannot be broken. Let us therefore see what arguments and evidences these will afford to con vince us what manner of a Son this is.

By a further adding all these succeeding considerations together to them, and setting these by them.

Assertion 3. That this only begotten and natural Son of God is God ; and not God only by union, after he was put forth by God out of himself, but by an identity, or oneness of one and the same essence of the God head.

Pars, 1 Quest. 27, Art 2. Generatio sumitur. 1. Communiter ad omnia generabilia et corruptibilia. Et sic generatio nihil aliud est quam mutatio a non esse ad esse. 2. Proprie in viventibus ; sic generatio est origo alicujus viventis a principio viventfe conjuncto. Nee tamen omne hujusmodi dicitur generatio, sed quod habet rationem similitudinis. Unde capillus non habet rationem geniti. Nee sufficit qusecunque similitude. Vermes qui generantur in animalibus non haberit ra tionem geniti. Sed requiritur ut procedat, secundum rationem similitudinis, in natura ejusdem speciei, sicut homo procedit ab homine.

This third is naturally connected with the foregoing assertion, viz., that he is the natural Son of the living God. Thus, 1. The Scriptures connect and join these two together ; in that often, when and where they mention his sonship to God, they annex withal (be cause the one necessarily importeth the other), his being God also, as may be observed both out of the Old Testament and the New.

(1.) The Old Testament, Isa. ix. 6, Unto us a child is born, which speaks him to be man ; and unto us a Son is given, that speaks him to have been God, and as such, extant afore he as man was born ; for what is given hath a being when he is given, and afore he is given ; who took man s nature to himself as Son; and here, by Son, he means this Son of God, our Christ. Luke i. 81, 35 : The angel there hath manifestly an eye upon this * Thou shalt conceive a Son, and he shall be called the Son of the Most High prophecy of Isaiah here; ver. 32, : and God shall give unto him the throne of his father David : and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end ; thus the angel there. And how speaks Isaiah ? To us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulders. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, from henceforth, even for ever. The angel citeth not the place, but evidently reciteth the very words of that prophecy, the very same, thus. So then, Christ being meant by the Son, that which I allege Isaiah for is this, that his being Son and his being God are joined ; and so it follows in Isa. ix. 6, To us a son is given; and his name shall be called the mighty God.

(2.) In Heb. i. 8, you have the same by Paul s interpretation out of the Psalms : To the Son he says, Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever. Compare we now the words of Isaiah with that of the angel, and this of Paul out of the Psalms together ; they are one and the same, to shew he is God s Son. Thus for the Old Testament and New both.

This man, says the translation (you may as well say, This person ; man is not in the original), was counted

Again, in the New, Heb. iii. 3, worthy of more honour than Moses : inasmuch as he that built the house hath more honour than the house. And ver. 4 it follows, Every house is builded by some man, but he that built all these things (that is, the church in all ages, and things about it, under both Old and New Testa ment) is God. He that had instructed Moses and the church under the Old Testament, and now that of the New, < is God, speaking it of Christ as God. So then Christ is God, who is the builder of this house. Now, read on and you will find his being Son not far off; for in ver. 6, Christ as a Son over his own house. Now, compare Mat. xvi. 16, Thou art the Son of the living God, says Peter. And what says Christ upon it? Ver. 18, Upon this rock I will build my church, as being the Son of the living God. And he that was able to build it was God, says our apostle in that Heb. iii. 4. Therefore he is such a Son as is also God, and both are joined together.

Again, those two parallel places in the epistle to the Romans, the one chap. i. ver. 3, 4, Concerning his Son Jesus Christ, which was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh ; and declared to be the Son of God with power. Compare this with chap. ix. 5, Of whom concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Son of God in the one, is God blessed for ever in the other.

Further, these two run ->g terms equivalent in other places of Scripture, where in like manner they be compared ; 1 Tim. iii. 18, it is said of Christ,

430 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II.

God was manifest in the flesh ; and in 1 John iii. 18, you have it thus, The Son of God was manifested.

Likewise, Acts xx. 28, it is said, God purchased the church with his own

He hath washed us with his own blood, and made us priests unto God his Father. So then blood. Now, compare Rev. i. 5, speaking of our Christ, it was the Son, whose blood was personally his own, who was distinct from his Father, and yet God, that purchased this church.

Again, 1 John v. 28, And we know that the Son of God is come ; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true

God, and eternal life ; the true Son of God: and the true God. The very devil himself doth in effect acknowledge it, Mat. iv. 3, If thou be that Son of God, command these stones to be made bread, which was in effect as to have said, If thou be that great Son of God that is to come into the world, then thou art God, and hast sovereign power to create or change the being of the creatures. Let us therefore see it by the effects, command these stones to be made bread.

Last of all, that known place, John x. 30, alleged to prove Christ s

Godhead, joins these two together, Son of God and God, and the one is inferred from the other. When at the 30th verse Christ had said, I and my Father are one ; that is, I who profess myself to be that one and only Son of God, who is my Father ; as in such a special relation, I am such a Son to him as am withal one with him.

So then, 1. Christ intended that his being God s Son was all one, and to be one with God.

Again, 2. So the Jews understood him to intend thereby that he was God. Their quarrel with him is that, ver. 83, Thou makest thyself God; and yet, lo, he had only affirmed, I, the Son, and my Father are one. So then to be his Son in the sense the Jews understood him to take on him that title, was all one as to be God.

And, 3. In that very sense he so defended himself to be the Son of God, that is, such a Son as was God ; for having, ver. 34-36, made his defence, alleging this proof, that if the eminent men and magistrates of the Old

Testament were termed gods by office, and sons of God by adoption, who were but shadows of him in both those titles, then he, who was promised to be sent into the world as the substance, must be God by nature, and not office ; and the Son of God, not by adoption only, but naturally, and therefore equal and one with God. I say, he having defended himself by this argument, his conclusion is, ver. 36, Say ye then of him whom the Father hath sealed, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest ; because I said, I am the Son of God ? Now, what was it that they had said ? or, what blasphemy was it which they had laid to his charge ? It was this, ver. 33, 1 for thy blasphemy ; because thou, being a man, as to our apparent sight and view, makest thyself God. And Christ, you see, in his making his * Why say you I blaspheme in saying I am God ? which yet was the thing which they had said of him, he speaks thus, Because I said, I was the Son of God, conclusion point-blank to their accusation, instead of saying, believe not me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him ; that is, that he and I are one in nature, as he had affirmed, ver. 30. For indeed, in his having affirmed he was such a Son to God as was one with his Father, which was his saying, ver. 30, he had affirmed he was such a Son to God as was God, one that did the same works the Father did, ver. 35 ; which, if I do, says he, then be lieve it, for it is the natural inference from it.

Thus, you see, the Scriptures join his being both Son and God together. II. The same is in reason, that if he be the natural Son of God, and only begotten of the living God, the true and perfect Son of God, as the Scrip tures, when they speak of his being Son, do declare him (as hath been clearly testified), that then necessarily, in point of rational inference, he must be God essentially. If God hath a true Son, that Son can be no other than true God ; it holds no proportion else to the phrase it pretends to. It holds true in all things else. It is not to be thought, says Ber nard,* that God should have a Son of another kind from himself; but it is necessary to acknowledge him to be of equal height and dignity, since even the sons of princes are themselves princes too, Deus non nisi Deum gignit. If God begets a Son he must be God, the living, true God. God cannot beget less than himself, which is clearly the concession of those last words in John, speaking of Christ, God hath given us an understanding to know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life, 1 John v. 20. The scope of which is this, that he being the true Son of the true God, the living God, himself is, in himself, the true God also, and eternal life, having the fountain of all life in himself.

I shall but open and pursue one vein, or current, or course of Scriptures, which carry on this great point, that our Christ is God ; not as appearing only in the form of God, as some of late, or by office only, but God by nature ; the right God, the true God, the great God, the only God, the living God. Which attributes of God, when found to be given to him, argue him so to be God by essence, the same God the Father is, as put us past distinguishing upon it.

1. He is God by nature. It is the distinction which Paul useth, and whereby he sets out the true God in distinction from all other that are called gods, truly or falsely. When you knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. Why doth he not in plain terms say, When ye worshipped idols ? The apostle supposeth the best of it ; for some of those whom they worshipped had been gods by office, that is, kings and rulers, as Jupiter and others were ; or of use (as gods), bene factors to mankind, for which they worshipped them. He needed not else have put in that distinction, that they were not gods by nature. From which is gathered to our purpose in hand, (1.) That none are to be worshipped but he that is God by nature, for he shews their sin to have been that they worshipped such as God that were not gods by nature. So then, if Christ were not God by nature, he were no more to be worshipped by us, though never so great a benefactor to us, which yet is his due. And to strengthen this argument, the com mand of worshipping so falls out that those who are gods by office of the highest rank, the angels, are commanded to give worship to him. That * Let all the angels of God worship him, in the psalmist s words (whom the apostle quotes) it is, saying, Heb. i., * Worship him, all ye gods, Ps. xcvii. 7. So then he is manifestly God by nature, and thereby distin guished from all of them ; and worship is exacted from all of them as his due upon that account.

And this is the true and genuine drift and result of that passage of Christ s, John x. 30-39. * I and my Father are one. Then the Jews

Non est fas Dei Filium degenerem suspicari ; sed sequalem fateri necesse est: nan. et filii principum principes, &c. Bern, de Ador., Ser. I. altitudine, et dignitate

432 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father ; for which of those works do ye stone me ? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not ; but for blasphemy ; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods ? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken ; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemes! ; because I said, I am the Son of God ? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe me not, believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. There fore they sought again to take him : but he escaped out of their hands. That scripture, of all others, hath seemed to have the greatest objection in it, but one (which I shall anon also again more touch), that Christ is called God only by office and union with God, as the great and eminent men in the Old Testament were called. And the objection lies thus, that the Jews having challenged him to have made himself God, he defends his speech by this saying out of the Old Testament, I have said, Ye are gods: as if himself were but such a God as they, only more eminent.

But Christ s scope is manifestly the clean contrary. For, 1. The Jews did plainly understand him to intend that he was God, and truly God, ver. 33. So the Jews, saith Augustine,* understood his speech thus to be meant ; but the Arians will not. And the blasphemy which the Jews challenged him of was not that he made himself as one of those gods, but that he made himself God, one with the Father, and so by nature to be God as well as he. And his answer, if it had been intended in that other speech, had noway come home to their objection ; for that was not the thing they quarrelled him for, that he said he was a god by office and deputation, as those whom the psalmist did speak of only were.

2. Christ here quoteth that saying, I have said, Ye are gods, as a pro phecy (so I term it, for types were prophecies of Christ, and what he should be, as much as any other), of himself : which those words, ver. 35, And the Scripture cannot be broken, manifestly import. Now, how was this prophecy, but in this respect, that God his terming magistrates, and those eminent men in the Old Testament, in Jewry, or elsewhere, gods, was to fore-signify thereby his own Son, who was the substance of those shadows, what his person was, that he had promised to send into the world ; for in saying, The Scripture cannot be broken, his intent is to say, the Scrip ture is, and must be found true, and fulfilled or made good. Now then, in this lies the force and edge of Christ s argument to prove himself God in that sense they had understood him. The Jews looked at and acknowledged all those great and eminent men whom the Scriptures termed gods, to be but forerunning shadows and types of him that is the Messiah. So that, look what titles and excellencies are given and attri buted unto them, must in an eminent, and distinct, and substantial way be found true in his person, or the Scripture will be broken, and not be found consistent. If therefore they were called gods by commission and deputa tion, as having the word of God come to them, which put that title and office upon them ; and it was said of them Ye are gods, as Ps. Ixxxii. 6 ; your Messiah must be God of another sort and rank than they were of, and not only merely by commission, or as to whom the word of God came, * Ecce Judsei intellexerant quod non intelligunt Ariani. Augustin, Tract. 48, in Joan.

to make him God ; but he must be truly and by nature and essence such. Were he to be God no otherwise than they were, the Scripture had not been fulfilled.

And this argument is so strong, as nothing can be supposed stronger to us Christians, who know that all types of Christ were indeed but shadows, in all their excellencies attributed to them, of Christ as the substance. What is said of ceremonies is true of persons that were types of him, Col. ii. 18, which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body, or sub stance signified by that shadow, is Christ. Now, then, if they were termed gods, and sons of the Most High, it must be understood that therein they were but shadows, and he must have in his person that which holds true of the substance, the essence or real being thereof. And so, according to Christ s way of arguing, if they are gods by office and union, he must be God by essence and nature, as that distinction of the apostle, Gal. iv. 8, holds forth. And otherwise, he had himself been but a dark shadow, an officiary god, as they ; no otherwise Son of the Most High than as they also were, Heb. x. 1. The apostle speaks thus of all types and shadows under the Old Testament. The law had but a shadow of good things to come, and not so much as the image of the things themselves. From all which I gather that as in nature, so here, the shadow is lower than an image, and both alterius generis from the substance or reality, as in the case of Melchisedec is apparent, who in a mere shadow is said to have had no beginning nor end of days ; not that really he had not, but because in a shadowy intent it is not mentioned in the book of Scripture, he being as a shadow conformed to the Son of God. Now, in comparison of Christ, all other eminences in any person, though more real, are yet esteemed to be but shadows in as true a manner as he (Melchisedec) was. And so this great est excellency of all creatures to be styled gods, must, in comparison of him, be content with a shadowy title, whereof he bore the substance. He, in the conclusion of this argument, instead of saying he was God, which yet his argument and their accusation did drive to, concludes he was the Son of God : ver. 36, Say ye of him, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God ? The blasphemy in their sense was, ver. 33, that he

made himself God, as an inference out of that saying, * I and my Father are one. He defends it, and takes it on him by this, that he had said indeed that he was the Son of God (of whom all those gods and sons of the Most High the psalmist speaks of, were but shadows), and there fore truly God, as they intended it. It is not comparatio similium, ut volunt adversarii, that is, that I am God in the same and like manner that they are ; but it is comparatio minoris et majoris, if they that are but shadows are called gods, then, if that Scripture be not broken, I must be God substantially. So then, by Christ s manner of concluding, it was all one for him to say he was God, and the Son of God, both in his sense, in theirs, and in the psalmist s fore signifying of him. He again paraphraseth and * The Father is in me, and I in him. So then, the conclusion, the sum I draw out of all is, that for Christ to be the Son of God, it is all one as for him to be God substantially, and in that respect one with God. And that being thus God, and one with God the Father, is (in its difference from God) best thus expressed, that his Father is in him, and he in his Father. Neither could Christ himself that experimented it, express his being God, and Son of God, more clearly unto explains all these by this phrase, us, than to say, I am in my Father, who is God, and he as God is in me, and so both are one : that is, one God substantially, or by nature, in dis-

434 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. tinction from gods by office, though we are two in person that subsist in this nature. Nor did John know better how to express*it in chap. i. ver. 1, both his oneness with God, and his distinction from God, than in saying, that he

was God, and was with God. God, not as those in the psalmist, to whom the word of the Lord came, and were gods merely by God s saying so of them ; but he, the Word, o Xoyog, itself (as John calls him) of whom they that declared the word were the types and shadows ; and the only begotten of the Father, ver. 18, who was not made a god and a son, because sent into the world, and sanctified, but was therefore sent and sanc tified to that office of Messiah, because he was by nature and substantially the Son of God, and God equal with the Father both in power and nature, ver. 29, 30 ; and in works, ver. 37, 38, * If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not : but if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works : that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him.

2. He is styled the living God. Those words, Take heed there be not an evil heart in departing from the living God, Heb. iii. 12, are mani festly meant of Christ ; for his begun exhortation, ver. 7, was to hear his voice,, and he it was that was tempted in the wilderness, 1 Cor. xviii. 7. And how that whole 95th Psalm was meant of Christ, I have elsewhere shewn ; yea, it was he that gave the law, and pronounced those words, * I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt ; thou shalt have no other gods before my face ; for, Heb. xii. 26, it is expressly said of him, whose voice then shook the earth, namely, when the law was given, and those words uttered by him.

3. He is styled the true God. So 1 John v. 20, And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. And to testify this, he is styled by that incommunicable name of God, Jehovah, Jer. xxiii. 6, Jehovah justitia nostra, the Lord our righteousness. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely ; and this is his name wherewith he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness. So also Isa. xl. vers. 3, 10, 12, Prepare the way for Jehovah. These all the evangelists apply to John and Christ, Mat. iii. 3, Mark i. 4, John i. 23. And if John be the vox damantis, Christ must be acknowledged the Jehovah, whose way was prepared afore him. And when he comes in the flesh, Isa. xl. ver. 9, he says unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God ; and, ver. 10, Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him : behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him; which is expressly applied to Christ, Rev. xxii. 12, speaking of his second coming. Ver. 11, He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly ; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be. Which is expressly true of Christ. Read Mat. xvi. 27. It is God of whom it is said, Isa. xl. 13, as the Septuagint hath it, Tig fyvu vovv xvgiov ; Who hath known the mind of the Lord ? which, 1 Cor. ii. 16, the apostle applies to Christ, by adding, But we have the mind of Christ. So then Christ is that Jehovah, Jer. xxiii. 6.

Now, men may vainly dispute it that this name of Jehovah is given unto mere creatures ; but God himself hath decided it, and expressly declared,

that it is given unto none but the true God : That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth, Ps. Ixxxiii. 18. And Isa. xlii. 8, I am the Lord, that is my name ; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Now, this honour is given to Christ, and therefore he must be God, and the true God.

4. He is also * the great God. Not only, Isa. ix. 6, the mighty God, * that great God and Saviour of us, speaking both of one and the same person, Christ. And it is here the putting the article before great God, and none before but, Tit. ii. 12, 13, rov ftvyakov sot; xcJ

<rw.njgo qpuv,

Saviour, imports ; and so distinguished him from God by the like phrase generally, Eph. i. 3, 6 Qebg xxl Karqg, God, and the Father of Christ ; but more similar yet. This here, Gal. i. 4, rov sou %al vct Tgbg qfjt,5>v, accord ing to the will of God and our Father. So Christ, God and our Saviour, in Peter, is Christ the great God and Saviour in Titus. And this is at once proclaimed as the general faith of all believers and apostles, like faith with us, 2 Pet. i. 1. And what is the object of it ? sv dixaioff-jv?}, on tha righteousness. I have wondered they should translate it through the righteousness, when Christ s righteousness is everywhere made the object of faith, as justifying, on which we believe. Yea, as that which, out of necessity to salvation, faith relies on; and that righteousness, as of a Saviour that is God, which were of no value to us sinners else ; let them else take a Saviour and righteousness that will, for he nor it would do no man any good. This was the general expectation, as Paul to Titus, the general fundamental faith of all Christians then, as in Peter ; and so the prophet s style and the apostle s style agrees. Isaiah, in his 40th, 43d, and 45th chapters, styles him The God and Saviour, and there is none besides him ; and the apostles in like manner, The great God and Saviour.

5. If you yet doubt, lo I to put all out of question, he is styled the only true God. The other, and the greatest objection that ever was or can be made against this Godhead of Christ is, that it is said there is but one God only. Yea, and the Father is so styled and called, * And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, John xvii. 3. And I find in some men s late writ ings here at home them distinguishing thus : that take the Godhead simply in its unity, and so considered, it is only the Father, quoting all those places, there is none besides. And the Son they make to be either God, as united to man, and so in that respect becoming the Son, or the manifes tation of God in flesh ; or, at best, but that in God which contained the mass and spirit of the whole creation as it was in God from everlasting, and so distinct from the nature of God, as purely in himself. But the objection hath been the occasion to me of the greatest satisfaction in this point, that the same style is given as completely unto Jesus Christ as to the Father in those other places. And so the words are not to be under stood exclusively to Christ in this sense, to know thee as Father to be the only true God ; the Father, that only is the true God ; the words are not so, but inclusively rather thus, And him whom thou hast sent to be the only true God also. Only Christ having an office, in respect of which he is called Christ, he is therefore named apart from the Father, yet so as both are that only true God, in distinction from all gods so called, that are not gods by nature. And the ground of my satisfaction is this, that in a multitude of places where God is called the only God, and none besides

436 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. him, yet those places are expressly meant of and applied to our Christ : * Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no God, Isa. xliv. 6. Here, you see, is the attribute we seek for, the only God, &c. And this is as evidently spoken of Christ. For, First, Here are two titles given him, which are proper to Christ.

1. King of Israel; see John i. 49, Thou art the Son of God, thou

his Redeemer, I need not art the King of Israel. And for that of trouble you with any quotations that it is proper to him. And yet he to whom this title is given is God, and the only God, * Yea, beside me there is no God. And if you yet doubt, and ask me, But are you sure that it is spoken of him ? Lo, Rev. i. twice : ver. 8, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end ; and again, ver. 17, * I am the First and the Last. And then you have them all three, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, Rev. xxii. 13. The next in Isaiah is chap. xlv. 5, * I am the Lord, and there is none else ; there is no God besides me ; and ver. 21, 22, he bids us look on him. And sure, without any more ado, we that live under the New Testament, should know him upon first sight. For to whom is it to whom all the ends of the earth do look, but he who was proclaimed the desire of all nations, who were not converted to God until Christ came ? But he it is of whom Isaiah says, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles ; in him shall the Gentiles trust, Rom. xv. 12. Look, and trust on him, and be saved, who is a Saviour, and there is none besides, says the Old Testament. Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be : a Saviour, and saved, is the general style of the apostles preaching

besides him there is no other. And thus they set him forth also, Acts iv. 11. There is no God, no Saviour besides him, and justification in him discovers him none other : By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses, Acts xiii. 39. And in this Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, says Isaiah ; Surely, shall one say, in the Lord I have righteousness and strength, Isa. xlv. 24, 25. And if you were all put to speak, in whom would you say you had righteousness and strength ? Hear Paul for all: To be found in him, not having my own right eousness, Philip, iii. 9. And for the other, hear him again in the same the rest, in one epistle epistle, I can do all .things through Christ, that strengthened me, Philip, iv. 13. Do not all the jury of saints, with one mouth, say the same ? And what is he in whom we have this righteousness ? Doth not Isaiah s fellow-prophet tell us, Jer. xxiii. 6, And his name, for essence, is Jehovah; for office, our righteousness. Thus, I say, Saviour and God still are joined. The righteousness of this Saviour as God is that by which, through looking on him by faith, all, both Jew and Gentiles, are saved. And bring all this to that of Peter, even now quoted, describing true believers, All that have obtained like faith with us, apostles, on the righteousness of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ. And yet he of whom all this is said, takes this style upon himself to be the only God, and none besides him. And if any have the heart or face to deny these characters loosely scattered up and down, enough to convert a Jew to own him for the Messiah prophesied of, much more a Christian to acknowledge him the only true God, whom Isaiah spoke of, if any, I say, can deny it as meant personally of Christ, let them consult Paul, who expressly applies this very scripture unto our Jesus : Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. Praise the

Lord, all ye Gentiles ; and laud him, all ye people, Eom. xv. 10, 11. Where is that written but in this place of Isaiah, ver. 23, I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. And again it is quoted, Philip, ii., that to him every knee shall bow. And let me yet bring the current and stream of other arguments usually alleged, to prove that Christ is God, into the channel of the last-cited scrip tures. You have heard it argued that Christ is therefore God, because he creates and is worshipped, and forgives sins ; and the Scriptures are express, that God alone creates, is worshipped, and forgives sins.

1. For creation, these places are express : Isa. xliv. 24, Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone ; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself. And Jer. x. 10-12, But the Lord: at his wrath is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting King the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. Now it is not only elsewhere said, that Christ created all, John i. 1, 2; Heb. i., and therefore is God; but further, in these very places where he is called that only God, even in these places quoted, he is said to be that God who alone created ; thus Isa. xliii. 7, 11, 23 ; xliv. 6, 24 ; xlv. 5, 22-24.

2. Again, so of God alone it is made the prerogative to be worshipped, Rev. xxii. 9 ; Mat iv. 10 ; out of Deut. vi. 5, 6, where also he is called one God. And of Christ it is also elsewhere said, he is to be worshipped. But further, you have both these in these very places also, wherein, as he is styled that God that is one, and none besides him, he is brought in swear ing by himself, that every knee shall bow to him, which is applied to him.

3. So to forgive sins is proper to God alone, Mark ii. 7. And we find

Christ to forgive sins ; and therefore he is argued to be God. But further, you have both in these very places quoted ; as he is called that only true

God, so he is said to be that God that blots out transgressions for and by himself; thus Isa. xliii. 25, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy trans gressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. So then the argument is every way strong, and indeed all arguments centre in one ; and we find all in this one and the same compass of Scripture.

1. That God is but one God.

2. That God alone creates, is to be worshipped, and forgives sins.

3. That his glory he will not give unto another.

4. That Christ is that one God, who is God alone. And,

5. These places are interpreted of him, and applied to him by the apostles. So as indeed this one argument, from these places of Isaiah thus framed, hath all in it, which are scatteredly used by others out of several places. To conclude, to hear God speak, and saying, as Deut. xxxii. 39, he doth, * See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me : I kill, and I make alive ; I wound, and I heal ; neither is there any that can deliver

The Word was out of my hand. And to hear John from God to say, God, and the Word was with God ; and to hear the prophets say, that Christ is that God who i" God alone, and none else besides him ; and to hear throughout the Scriptures one that is God, talking to, of, and with

438 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. another that is God, and yet all but one God ; to hear the Father to be called the only true God, the Son likewise, and so the Spirit: let all the wits of men and angels reconcile it otherwise than thus if they can, that God s nature or essence is one, but affords three persons, who are each that one God : three that are one.

CHAPTER V.

That the second person of the Trinity assumed human nature into personal union with himself, and so is God-man in one person for ever.

I come to the great mystery of our religion, which so loud a voice proclaims to be such, by the apostle, 1 Tim. iii, 16, And, without controversy, great is : God was manifest in the flesh. God had mani the mystery of godliness fested himself in the Old Testament in his works ; as in Rom. i. 19, That which may be known of God is manifest in them ; and, ver. 20, For the invi sible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under stood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. But God manifest in the flesh is an higher kind of manifestation, for there he is present. We may say of it, Here God is a visible God in his person. In the Old Testament this was prophesied of, among other famous oracles foregoing, Isa. vii. 14, A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel ; that is, God with us. And again, chap. ix. 6 , For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, which notes his being God the Son; who had been begotten long before by God the Father, and now given ; unto us a child is born, and born of * a virgin, there is his human nature ; and his name shall be called WONDERFUL, for his person is a wonderful person, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, compounded of God and man in one person, which set all the world aghast at the knowledge of it. He did wondrously ; * that is, he shewed himself to be God, for he ascended into heaven in a flame, and therein shewed himself more than a man or angel. As his per son was wonderful, so his actions : wonderful in his person, as God united to man ; and wonderful as man, in his making immediately by the Holy Ghost ; such a man as never was. Says David, of his own body, Ps.

Thou tellest all my members ; I am fearfully and wonderfully made, . . . curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. The phrases do speak some curious piece of workmanship to be undertaken in hand by some special artist ; and to hide his workmanship from the vulgar (which argues the nobleness of it) he goes into a dark place, and there he works it unbeheld of any, and then he brings it forth to open view. It was an cxxxix. 14, instance Dr Preston used to give, that in the generation of a child, between father and mother, the father knows not what is doing, nor the mother knows not what is doing ; but God stands by, like a secret limner, and actuates the formation of every member according to the idea thereof writ ten in his book. But in the formation of Christ s body and soul, the Holy Ghost discovered his workmanship in the dark place of the virgin s womb, called the lower parts of the earth. And to stop the flowings of sin and corruption, which by the parents is done, himself performed the part of the formative virtue which is in the seed of men ; whence it was that the divine nature, when he came into the world, said, A body hast * The reference is to Judges xiii. 19. ED.

thou prepared me ; the word in the original is Katartizein* that is, arti culated, made and set in their due place and order.

I shall only add one place further, to set forth the wonders of the mys-

The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth ; a woman shall compass a man. It is a prophecy of the conception of Christ stery ; Jer. xxxi. 22, at Nazareth, f one of the cities of Galilee, the place where the angel brought news first to the virgin, and where she conceived him. Of which, if I have time, more afterwards. This was a new thing indeed, a new thing created in the world, the like unto which, as also the crucifying of his Son, he never did afore, nor never will do again. And the blessed virgin hath a touch upon it, The Lord hath done great things for me, and holy is his name. The word in the original is /^gyaXg/a, and is the same word the * The wonderful works of God. apostles used in Acts ii. 11, Aud thus heaven and earth met and kissed one another, namely, God and man. And this union is the middle union (as I call it), as in respect to the two other, the union of the three persons in one Godhead, and our union with God ; so in respect to the thing itself. For his person being a middle person between the two persons, the Father and the Holy Ghost : he, the Son, as a middle person, by his union with the essence of God, takes hold of God on the one part ; and further, by his union with the nature of man, takes hold of man on the other part, and so takes hold of both at once ; all which was suitable to his office, as being mediator, which the apostle says is of two that are at enmity, Gal. iii. 20 ; and this you have, 1 Tim. ii. 5, * For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

God manifested in the flesh, so the signs and wonders that accompanied and followed his person, after And as the person was thus wonderful, his being gone to heaven, and the coming of the Holy Ghost, as Paul, an eye-witness, testifies, Heb. ii. 4, God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. As also the apostle Peter, 1 Pet. i. 11, The Spirit of Christ testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. The times the apostles lived in were a glorious season. The apostle Paul hath in brief summed up the characters of them, and annexed them to his God manifested in the flesh, as the wonderful effects thereof; as they follow in 1 Tim. iii. 16, where it follows, justified in the Spirit, by reason of the frailty and meanness of his flesh wherein he

He was set at nought by Herod and his men of war, Luke appeared ; zxiii. 11 ; mocked and scourged by Pilate and the Jews, and for his pre tension to be the Son of God, cast out of the world under the public infamy of being the greatest impostor, the most detestable villain and deceiver that ever was in the world, the rulers not sparing him when he hung miserably upon the cross. He was esteemed J of God, Isa. liii., when he was cru cified, overwhelmed with all these prejudices. But presently, as he comes to heaven, his Father owned him, set him at his right hand, and made his enemies his footstool ; and he was justified from that great reproach cast upon him, for making himself God. In respect unto these things it is said, He was justified in the Spirit, that is, in his Godhead, being owned as God. Was not this a wonder, a mighty wonder ! Seen of angels. And by their seeing him to be the Son (which none of them were), as soon as * That is, * xaraorifytv. ED. t As Dr Jackson hath k .irnedly proved in his Sermon called Bethlehem and Nazareth. f Qu. Smitten ? ED.

440 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. he comes to heaven, they all fall down and worship him : When he bringeth his first begotten into the world, he saith, Let all the angels of God worship him, when he came first to heaven. And the bad angels, they believed and trembled, though men did not ; and they besought him not to torment them before the time, the day of judgment. It follows, preached unto the Gentiles, and believed on in the world. The Gentiles that had continued idolaters two thousand years, worshipping devils, by whom they were led ; and the apostles, but by preaching the gospel (which was but whispered, and yet runs through all the world, it ran like wildfire upon dried trees) ; they turned the world upside down, Acts xvii. 6. Taken up into glory, and owned there in the highest manner by God. Whereas, John xvi. 10, the contrary speech there used insinuates that he died, as cast out by God for the most unrighteous person that ever lived in the world. Christ foretells, that by the Spirit s coming with the word, he should convince the world that he was a righteous man, and had satisfied

Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more. And what is the reason of all this ? But because this man being taken up into glory, there is no eye of men or angels that shall see him in for sin ; this glory, but must fall down and acknowledge, That man there is God, the Son of God ; and so John tells us himself. And the other apostles that saw a glimpse of his glory, do confess, We saw his glory, as of the only begotten Son of God, John i. 14. And if the clothes he wore, which were but the outward appendixes of his person, did yet shine so bright as no fuller on earth could white them, how much more his human nature itself, in which the fulness of the gospel* personally dwells, shall transcendently shine much more, as being a part of himself, as he is able to make us to do, Phil. iii. 21, Who shall change our vile body, .that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body ; much more shall he change soul and body into the image of himself.

But I shall comprise all that I intend to discourse of this subject, in this one assertion.

That this person, the eternal Son of God, who was and is God, took unto himself, into an unity of person with himself, the man Jesus, or that the person of Christ is God and man, joined into one person.

To demonstrate the assertion ; the punctum of which lies in this, that in our Christ, God and man are become one person.

1. What is said of his conception or incarnation, in that forecited place, Luke i. 39, That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God; which is explained by that in Gal. iv. 4, God sent forth his Son (his Son that was sent, and God, existed afore) ; and it was he, the Son, that so existed, that is, the person, and he now said to be made of a woman, the virgin. Observe, it is spoken of and attributed to this Son, that he was now made of a woman, * made man, who was begotten of God afore, and now sent into, yea, made flesh ; and that this Son and that man made of a woman are yet but one Son still, not two sons, and therefore also one person ; for if they had been two persons, they had been two sons the Son of God the one, and that holy thing born of the woman another ; whereas being now joined unto one person, there is but one Son to God, as he is there denominated.

2d Evidence. Go we from his conception to the constant course and tenor of his speech about himself. That this man (when grown up) should continually talk of himself, and attribute such things to himself that were * Qu. Godhead ? ED.

proper, and belonged only to that person, the Word, the only begotten Son of God, as we have proved and described him, existed before the world, that was the Son of God in heaven, and very God ; that this man, this sorry man to see to, should talk at that rate as he doth, and still say I, not we, whilst he so speaks of himself, all the wits in the world cannot solve this riddle (if the several speeches be collected, and narrowly observed, in the gospel of John, and elsewhere), but by this which I use to solve all, he was taken into one person with him that was the Son of God.

* My Father hitherto

1 For instance, besides many others, John v. 17, worketh, and I work ; which the Jews understood that he made himself equal with God, ver. 18. But how a man should be God, this they under stood not. And he goes on to justify it, and assume it ; extending that * My Father worketh hitherto, and I work ) unto all things past, as well as present or to come, even unto all that ever God did ; ver. 19, speech of his (namely, that * What things soever the Father doth, these also doth the Son likewise. If he created the world, so did I ; if he hath governed all the affairs of it, so have I ; my hands have wielded the sceptre with him ; and God did never anything without my advice and counsel ; shew ing me whatever he dcth, ver. 20. Thus for time past. And so for time

As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, so to come ; the Son quickeneth whom he will, ver. 21 ; God s will and intention being that all men shall one day

honour the Son, as they honour the Father, ver. 23. And yet he that talked all this was a man, that came into the world (as a man) but thirty years afore, yea, and he professeth of him self, chap. viii. ver. 57, 58, that he was before Abraham ; Before Abraham was, I am, that is, iny person. And yet they judged him not above fifty. All which I allege not, as formerly, to prove that Christ was God, or Son of God ; but now that the man Jesus (who it is that uttered all this), that he. was one person with that Son of God, who is God. For when he speaks it, he still maketh but one I of the Son of God and himself, and speaks the same things that are proper and peculiar to that Son of God who had afore existed. The man (I say) speaks them of himself, utters them in his own name, without any limitation or caution for being mistaken. He, this man, doth thereby distinguish himself from all his fellow-creatures. These things were so stupendously strange, that they made the carnal Jew wild, and mad, and in a rage, and to cry out upon him that he blasphemed, and ever and anon to take up stones to stone him withal ; and although they had believed that he was the Messiah whom they expected, yet such things as these they never could have imagined should have agreed to the person of Christ, whom they expected. They judged he took upon him infinitely beyond the elevation and proportion of the Messiah himself. And therefore, John x. 24, they having only at first asked him somewhat seriously, Tell us plainly if thou be the Christ ; and he as plainly tells them so that he was ; yet frames his answer up in such description of him self, as the Christ, that he was one with God, as that thereupon the next word he hears from them is, Thou blasphemcst, ver. 33.

Yea, and in the 6th chapter, those that were his disciples, that is, such as were a-coming on to believe on him, were for such strange riddles as these, utterly put off, as John vi. Gl ; and yet there, or unto them, such was his zeal to assert this his personal union between the Son of God, and that man Jesus, whose mouth was the utterer of it, that he speaks yet more strangely, Doth +his offend you ? What if you see the Son of man ascend where he was before ? And there is no other foundation or

442 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BoOZ II. ground for such a speech as that ; no other respect could bear it, but this his personal union, as the reason of it. Why, we know his mother and brethren, say they. And where then could this man be before ? Nay, to increase the wonder yet more, he had said to Nicodemus, John iii. 13, And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven ; that is, who is now in heaven at this present ; whenas yet they saw him as a man, circumscribed with local bounds on earth, even as any other man is, within the verge of a poor seamless coat. And these things he so speaks of himself, in distinc tion from the whole creation of God, as proper and peculiar to him, laying them therein in a rank infinitely below himself ; yea, also as one equal to God his Father, and as such, distinct from him ; and yet it is a Son of man that utters it, although, consider him as mere man, it could not be he should have so spoken ; the things said will not bear such words. And it is among other demonstrations of this truth, and also one of the main ends of God s ordaining this personal union, to declare, to the end that men might hear with their ears, and see with their eyes (as John), the original distinction of the Father and his Son. as distinct persons in the deity ; which was that which was, and had been, among the persons from eternity, afore Christ took our nature, in that it was confidently held forth by a man, who being become one person with the Son, could and durst say, and appeal to his works to justify it, which were so stupendously miraculous, that his Father (afore whom and to his face he speaks it all) must be acknowledged to have concurred with him, and so thereby testified that he spake truth in this ; whilst yet this man utters it in the name of a person that was not mere man, but also God, Son of God. For this man doth, before and after, upon this doctrine of his, work his miracles, such as no mere man ever did ; and God suffered him so to talk, did bear it, and let him go on, and assist him therein, or else he could not have done them. As John x. 37, 38, < If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not ; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. And when he had done all these things, to ascend up to heaven, and sit down at God s right hand, this, I say, is at once a confirmation of these two, the greatest truths :

1. The distinction of the persons of the Father, and the Son, though one God. As also,

2. That this sorry man that speaks it was one in person with the Son of God.

And if there had been no other end of this incarnation of personal union than to declare and manifest the first of these, it had been worth it; which by so great an evidence could never have been manifested.

And then, if this man were not one in person with the Son of God, who was God, let us all call him in question, and arraign him at the latter day, instead of his arraigning us, for laying low to himself all the saints, and the whole creation of God, whenas himself as man was but a part of it ; yea, for usurping upon the prerogatives of God himself ; and let his own words judge him. I say, let us cry out upon him as a deceiver, if this man had not that divine person, God s Son, in him, and therewith a divine nature, besides that of a bare man, which divinity lay hid and concealed in him, as a prince under a disguise ; and that person and divinity so united to him as to make one person with him, this man that spake thus.

3. Thirdly, We find these two natures of God and man spoken of in

him, as making up one / or one he ; when himself speaks of himself, or his apostles of him.

I begin with Mat. xvi., where he catechiseth his disciples in this funda mental of religion ; for, ver. 17, 18, he professeth to found his church upon the profession of it. (1.) The question asked is evidently what his person was, and of what made up ? This, his second question, ver. 15, Whom do ye say that I am ? doth directly point to, for their punctual answer : what or who is my person ? And, (2.) concerning that you may observe that he bounds it not, he terminates it not, upon his being a man. The main question is not, whether he was a man or no ? or the Christ, the Son of man ? as if that were all. But my question reacheth farther, Whom do ye say that I, who am the son of man, am ? over and beyond my being a son of man, I am something besides. And yet Son of man imported the Messiah ; as Cameron upon John v. 27, And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Out of Dan. vii. 13, I beheld one like the Son of man ; which is the periphrasis of the Christ.

(3.) Peter, in his answer for them all, affirms not barely that he, the Son of man, was the Christ ; which was but a name of office (as if you should say of a man, he is the king, or he is the chancellor ; noting out an official person, or to denominate his office only) ; but he further adds, Thou art the Son of the living God.

(4.) Observe, that he in his answer joins these two together, to make up the /, the person of this Christ, the Son of man, and the Son of the living God ; and as substantially the Son of the living God as he was substan tially the Son of man. Yea, and manifestly shewing that the main of his person (for the subsistence or personality of it), to consist in this, his being the Son of the living God, more than in his being the Son of man. The * What think like you have joined in Christ s question to the Pharisees, you of Christ? David s son, say they; David s Lord, says he: and both making up one Messiah, or the Christ. So then, the person of Christ was Son of man, and Son of God, Mat. xvi. And Son of David, and Son of one greater than David ; for which he calls him Lord, and both in one person, Mat. xxii. Let us now bring other scriptures to these. 1. You have the same prophesied of him at his conception, by the angel, Luke i., The Son of David his father, ver. 32 ; < The Son of God, ver. 35 ; arid both the same he. Let us still pursue this notion through the Scriptures, and from hence go unto Kom. i. 1-4, * Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God (which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures), concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. In which words you have,

1. As in the former, the person of Christ ; that is, who and what he was in his person, made the eminent and primary subject of the gospel gospel (says he) concerning his Son Jesus Christ. And that set forth as the prophets in the holy Scriptures, or writings of the Old Testament had set him forth to us ; so as we shall have occasion from hence to call in the testimony of some prophets unto the confirmation of this also. I say, the person of Christ is the primary subject of it ; for the next following words insist on the descriptior thereof. And so, whereas Paul was to set forth in his ensuing discourse, how that Christ s righteousness is that righteousness

444 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. which God hath ordained for sinners, ver. 16, 17, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for therein is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith : as it is written, The just shall live by faith ; it was suitable for him in this so methodical and systematical an epistle, in the first place to set out who and what the person of Christ is. Which, 2. He performs in the next words, and that under the same terms, or equivalent, as in the two former Christ himself had done. (1.) To be the Son of David, made of the seed of David, ver. 3 ; and, (2.)|To be the Son of God, ver. 3, his Son in the same verse ; and so, in ver. 4, both making up this one person, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yea, and 3. He further and more clearly proceeds to shew how there were two distinct natures met in that one person: the nature of a man, according unto which he was the Son of David ; the nature of God, or the Godhead, according unto which, or in respect of which, he was the Son of God : Who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, ver. 3, 1 and declared to be (also) the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness. And as the opposition proves this, so it is very observable how exactly the apostle speaks in so great a mystery.* 1. The opposition clears it ; for -/.ara ffdgza, * According to the flesh, is opposed to xara irievfta, According to the Spirit of holiness. Now when he says he was of the seed of David according to the flesh, he (as all acknowledge) means that according to, or in respect of his human nature, termed the flesh, or as man, so here, was made of the seed of David ; oppositely, according to his Godhead, termed the spirit of holiness ; as he was in respect thereof the natural Son of God : so he was manifested with power so to be by the resurrection from the dead. Now that Spirit, as in Christ, is taken for the Godhead or divine nature dwelling in him, is evident by multitude of scrip tures : The flesh profits nothing, the Spirit quickeneth ; and By the eternal Spirit he offered up himself, Heb. vii. And this Godhead in him is called the Spirit of holiness ; by way of the ordinary title given the third person, who is called the Holy Spirit: this here, the Spirit of holi ness itself, which sanctified that human nature, as the altar and temple did the sacrifice.

: as Son of David he is

Again, observe the apostle s exactness of speech said to have been made, for begotten of man he was not, yet made of a woman, David s daughter, of the same matter that all men are formed of. But as Son of God he says not of him that he was made ; but he here supposeth him already, before he was made man, to have been the Son of God, ver. 3 ; and therefore says only he was declared, namely, to us, or mani festly evidenced to have been the Son of God, according to a divine nature in him, in which he existed before. And for proof of it he holds forth the greatest evidence, the power shewn by him in his resurrection from the dead ; in that Christ did aforehand profess and declare that he would raise himself up by his own power, John x. 18.

4. The fourth thing I observe is, that these two natures remain in them selves distinct in him, and yet both make up one person. (1.) Two natures distinct. The apostle doth professedly distinguish, as any schoolman useth to do ; According to the flesh, says he, and according to the Spirit. Yea, he denies concerning him that he is Son of God according to the flesh ; according to which nature he is considered only as the Son of David : but Son of God only in respect of his divine nature. And, (2.) he speaks of him as one person, that hath both these, and consisted of both ; or else * See Beza.

CHAP. V.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST. 445 this distinction needed not have been used if he had been either nothing but a man, or if the same person had not been both God and man. As when you distinguish of a man, that quoad anim-am, according to his soul, he is the offspring of God, Acts xvii. ; for God is the Father of spirits, Heb. xii. : but quoad coi~pus, according to his body, he is begotten by man, who are the fathers of our bodies. To say a man is mortal quoad corpus, but immortal quoad animam : such a distinction were needless, if a man had not both a body and a soul ; or if that body and soul made not up one manner of person ; or if the soul were one person, as an angel is, and the body another.

Now the person of Christ is still everywhere spoken of but as one : one

Lord, 1 Cor. vi. And yet of this the apostle Paul is found to distinguish, that he is Son of God, according to the Spirit ; Son of David, according to the flesh. And you have it again used by Peter, Acts ii. 30, David know ing that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, God would raise up Christ. That addition, according to the flesh, needed not, if Christ had not consisted of another nature besides. Which being distinct, the oneness, the unity of this Christ, to whom both are alike attributed, must be found in the personality, that he that hath both these is one person.

Now from hence, go unto Rom. ix. 5, where you have the same distinc tion again used, as in manifest opposition to his divine nature ; Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came ; who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. According to the flesh, he was of David, and the rest of the fathers ; but besides, he had another nature, which made him

Lord over all, God blessed for ever. Which clearly interprets Rom. i. 3, Son cf God, according to the Spirit of holiness : that as he was God s Son, so he was God. Or as Rom. i., Son of God, according to his Godhead ; even as Son of David according to the flesh ; yet both making but one Atho,* or person, one Christ.

Now, 4. Because Paul, in that Rom. i. 2, averred the prophets for this composition of his person, Son of David, according to the flesh ; Son of God, according to, or in respect of his Godhead : let us see if we find like and similar places to these in the prophets ; not to name all that prove him to be God and man, but such as are punctually correspondent to these.

Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. 1. Son of David, ver. 5, Behold the days come that I will raise unto David a righteous branch ; that is, out of his loins, a branch out of that stock or root. Who, 2, Shall be God, and Son of God (as Rom. ix. 5, Rom. i. 3) ; ver. 6, And this is his name whereby he shall be called, Jehovah our righteousness. Jehovah, from the name of his essence, for it is the incommunicable name of God ; and our righteousness, as being mediator, and noting forth his office. And yet Jehovah our righteousness, rather than the * Man our righteousness ; for his being our righteousness, depends more upon his being Jehovah, than his being a branch of David ; although upon both, as they are conjoined in one person.

From thence let us go to Micah v. 2, where we shall find that as Christ hath two natures met in him, Son of David, Son of God, so two nativities spoken of, and yet the person but one. 1. The ruler shall come forth of Bethlehem. He was born there as man ; and you know it was the city of David, whither Mary, as being of the seed of David, came to be taxed. So then, still Son of David, according to the flesh, and born as such in the four thousandth year of the world ; but then, as Son of God, His goings forth have been from of old, the days of eternity. * That is, I suppose, the Hebrew J"flN. ED -

446 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II.

Unto this head I allege as the concluding proof to them foregone, that strange riddle in Heb. vii. 3, applying unto Christ, set forth from his type Melchisedec, Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life ; but, made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. Which being spoken of one and the same person, Christ, can no otherwise be unfolded than by a differing respect had to the two natures God and man, and accordingly of two nati vities. That he was God, and in that respect had a Father, the evangelist John doth in a special manner inculcate ; that he had a mother, the story of his birth, by the other three, doth inform us ; that he was born of a virgin, without a father, those three evangelists do tell us. And yet that Paul here should tell us, he was without a mother, doth necessarily import another kind of generation of his, wherein there was no mother concurred, and so another divine nature met in this one person ; in respect of which he was as substantially begotten of him without a mother, as that as man he had been conceived of jthe substance of his mother, even Son of the living God.

There are other sorts of proofs of this great truth. As first, the communication and attribution of the same rights, privileges, attributes, actions, passions, infirmities.

1. All the rights of the Son of God by inheritance, given to the man

Jesus, as that called Son of God ; not as the angels, Heb. i. Luke i. 32, 1 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest ; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, to rule the nations ; raise whom he will ; have possession of all power in heaven and earth ; to forgive sins as man, Mat. ix. 6.

2. The attributes proper to God are given to this man : as to have been in heaven before the world was ; John iii. 13, and John xvii., Glorify me with that glory I had with thee afore the world was. Before Abraham was, I am. Whereby what is not true of that nature alone in itself con sidered, is yet attributed to that nature of a man now. The natural pro perties of man s nature in him were never altered, for finite could never become infinite ; therefore it must necessarily be spoken in a personal respect, as being made one person with him that is God ; qui, not qua, that is, spoken of him who is man, not of him as man. As when what is proper only to the soul is attributed to the whole man ; as if when Paul s soul was rapt up into the third, heaven, and his body remaining on earth, that of his body it should have been said, it is now in heaven, because the soul it was united to was there. Like to which is, that Christ should call his body in the grave, God s Holy One ; his Holy One saw no corruption ; which is spoken of the whole person, though it was his body only was capable of corruption. Or that of John, We saw and handled the Word of life, 1 John i. 1, and the Word which was from the beginning ; and yet speaks there of their handling his very body, Feel, if a spirit have flesh and bones, and putting their fingers into it, so to verify his having been come in the flesh. On the other hand, e contra, that all the infirmities of the human nature should be attributed to God, that God should be said to be pierced and crucified ; 2 Cor. xii. 10, Therefore I take pleasure in infir mities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ s sake : for when I am weak, then am I strong ; compared with ver.

8, I besought the Lord ; which is applied to Christ, John xix. 37, And again, another scripture saith, they shall look on him whom they have pierced. And God to lay down his life, 1 John iii. 16, Hereby perceive

we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us ; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. These contradictions all the wits in the world cannot reconcile, but by acknowledging two natures in one person.

3. That the obedience, yea, bloodshed of the man should be called the blood of God, the life of God ; 1 John iii. 16, there it is called the life of God ; and Acts xx. 26, the blood of God, yea, God s own blood ; and his active obedience the righteousness of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Peter i. 1. And these things were spoken, not because God was the efficient of these in him ; for so the Spirit is of our prayers, Rom. viii ; yet, they are never termed the Spirit s prayers, or requests, though made by him in us, and for us, but our prayers. But all that obedience of Christ is called God s ; which difference can never be solved, but that the man Jesus was one person with God. Not so we. Yea, if that man had ginned (if you could suppose it, as to bring an argument from it to illustrate this), you may, by the same law, or reason, that his righteousness is now called the obedience of God, or, the life of God, infer that it must have been termed the sin of God. For what the man did in weakness, is attri buted to God. But we are not in this personal manner united to the Spirit, that our weaknesses should be attributed to him. We sin, yet it were blas phemy to say that our sins are his ; and all because he is not one person with us, though his person is united to our persons.

Neither when that bloodshed is called the blood of God, yea, his own blood ; this is not spoken in respect to his being possessor and owner of it, as God is of all the creatures. Ps. 1., The beasts on a thousand hills are mine. John i., * He came, sig ra Idia, to his own. And so the blood of bulls and goats were God s, when sacrificed. But this is not only said to be his blood, but his own blood, and his own life. These are phrases never spoken of possession, or of an owner by dominion or external right. We call indeed other things, as goods, a man s own, but never call it a man s own blood, unless it be naturally or personally his own. We say not of a slave s body, this is the body of his master, his own body, because the phrase, a man s own body, in propriety of speech, is used another way for the body of a man s self, as of a person. Or if he give a slave s life or body for a ransom, we never say, nor can say in propriety of speech, that the master gave his own body, his own blood, as a ransom. The phrase so properly notes out personal propriety, that is, of a person, unto what is a part of one s person, and that the blood is that person s whose own it is called. Yea, though a father give a child to death, who yet is his flesh and blood, yet we hardly say he gave his own blood ; and yet if that might be said, because the same blood is naturally the father s, yet of God the Father it could not be said, because Christ s blood, as a man, did not flow out of his Father s blood ; for God begets not him as a man, nor hath he flesh and blood to communicate. So that it necessarily notes out that one that was God, a person, taking up that man into one person with himself, that man s blood is therefore called God s own blood, because the man s, who is one person with him.

Neither, 3, it is said to be God s own blood, because shed by God s own will and appointment ; for so the blood of every man that is killed by God s will should be so called, and so the blood of bulls was God s own blood in that respect.

Use. We must labour to have our minds and faith well established in the true knowledge of the person of Christ, since it is a truth of so great mo-

448 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II. ment unto us, and the mischiefs of erring about it will be destructive to our souls.

And the weight or importance that our faith be set and kept right in this point appears in that errors and mistakes herein, as they have been frequent, so fatal in all ages, and to all sorts of men that have had the knowledge or hearsay of our Christ.

1. To the Jews Christ was a stumblingblock, 1 Cor. i. 23, both in what his person should be, as appears John x. 33 and other places, as also that his righteousness alone, through faith, should be the righteousness of a sinner, is in like manner said to be a stumblingblock, Rom. ix. 33. Their heads were mightily then taken up and busied who that man Jesus should be ; and how many various opinions did the devils buzz into their minds to divert them from that which was the truth, and alone was to save them ! Some said he was John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. And thus it is now at this day. The Jews, according to the principles and fancies of that age, had those forementioned several opinions of him, and perhaps many more. And in this age, according to other principles which Satan possesseth men s brains withal, several opinions are raised up, what this Christ shouldjbe, whilst all are zealous to profess him.

Then, again, Christ [himself foretold it, as a forerunning sign of the de struction of Jerusalem, that the Jews having rejected him, the true Christ, they should be given up to many false Christs, pano/xsva. Now, those days, and the occurrences thereof, afore Jerusalem s destruction, are made types of the like to fall out (even in this particular point) in the days pre ceding the end of the world (whereof Jerusalem s destruction was itself a type in Christ s intention in that chapter). And accordingly these days now. Although Jesus at Jerusalem is more generally acknowledged by almost all that profess Christianity, yet in assigning what and wherein his being Christ consists, herein men have and shall run into as many several sorts of Christs as the Jews had done ; one saying, Here is Christ, another, There is Christ ; one that this is Christ, another this. And such buddings and sproutings forth of such errors began in those first times, whilst Paul and other apostles were on earth, amongst those that pretended to Christian profession, witness those more than hints in several epistles, which Paul plainly styleth the preaching of another

Christ than what himself and the other apostles had preached. What else meaneth that passage, For I am jealous over you with a godly: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin unto Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the jealousy serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be cor rupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive an other Spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him, 2 Cor. xi. 2-4. That in these passages he glanceth at some false teachers that had come in among them, as those words, if he that cometh to you preach, &c., ver. 4, evidently imply, that at least such were then abroad in the world, and have been in other churches, and were ready to come to theirs, which Paul was afraid of. But more plain and directly, For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of

righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works, ver. 13-15. And these expressions do import that the doctrines which these had vented concerning Christ were framed and raised up to so high an appearance of spiritualness, as were not only apt to take with believers, and deceive them, as ver. 3, which made Paul so jealous over them, ver. 2 ; but further, they seemed so angelical and seraphic, that in these, if ever in any (his depths, as they are called), Satan had shewed his depths, and had played the coun terfeit of an angel of light, and transformed himself thereunto in his inven tions of them ; and when yet, as Paul plainly tells them, that it was but a counterfeit Christ, another Jesus than he had preached, * another

Spirit, and another gospel. So as the Christ which these false apostles had dressed up, had so high an appearance of Christ s spirit and gospel, as seemed to vie with that true Jesus, &c., which the apostles taught, foi glory and spiritual excellencies. And this also, that new form of an oath which the apostle useth upon that coherence, ver. 10, a new one framed to this occasion, As the truth of Christ is in me, &c., says he, which he speaks to import that in those other teachers there was a false Christ, and not the true.

And to affect the Corinthians the more, and arm them with wariness against, and shew them the danger of entertaining any new doctrines about Christ s person, he presenteth and enforceth the moment hereof, under the similitude of marriage, I am jealous over you with godly jealousy (the subject which jealousy is increased about, is fear of what may rise to the breach of the marriage -knot), lest you should entertain the embraces of an other ; and so it follows, for I have espoused you to one husband, and I would present you a chaste virgin to him, that is, to Christ, to whom as yet you are but espoused. And it is as if he had said, There is but one spiritual husband, and there can be but one, your only husband, Christ.

It is not as in the case of other marriages, if you have not such a man you may have another as good, yea, perhaps a better. But if you mistake here in obtaining this one, only one for your husband, you are undone. There can be no greater errors committed in marriage than error persona, a mis take of the person you are to marry ; and when thinking you marry such a man, you marry another. Yea, and if after marriage to one husband you should be deceived, as many women (as stories and experience shew) have been, when their husbands have been long absent and out of sight, others, that have had some resemblance of the true husband, or some privy mark of him, have put themselves upon their wives, and they entertained

But I fear, says he, lest their embraces. How fatal a thing is this ! by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, ver. 3. The devil hath a special malice at the person of Christ, of all other truths concerning him ; and to put this high abuse upon him, specially goes about to deceive his spouse in his person, to misrepresent him and deform him ; yea, and if possibly he can effect it, put this trick upon him, and great im posture on her, that she should take another Jesus for him, the devil s Jesus instead of God s. And to effect this, of all other, he will use his utmost subtilty. And having been himself an angel of light, he will trans form himself in pretended manifestations, and incomes, and ravishments of spirit, that shall accompany the entertainment and embraces of his Christ. He will use all means ( if by any means, says Paul) to second, credit, and help forward this new mtoh.

And one great occasion of their aptness to be deceived is the simplicity VOL. rv. F f

450 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BoOK II. that is in the person of our Christ, not only in his human nature, a car penter s son, a crucified man, a Christ in flesh, but that when besides for his divine nature, they think they have heard and known already well enough what God s nature is, by what is said of him in the Old Testament, and so in the Father, and to know but the same over again in Christ ; this is no great addition to their knowledge. And that no other thing can be affirmed of him but that he is God, and that to think that he should have but the same simple uncompounded nature that God hath, and not be distinct from God therein. They think they are but as wise as they were in this, and so are apt to listen after such representations of a Christ, as shew him to be some divine Spirit that comes out of God, differing from God, which they fancy will afford matter of some new and manifold wisdom, besides that knowledge they have of God by other means. And thus the simplicity of his person (as they esteem this) is apt to cause them to listen after some other story of him. Whereas the glories and wisdom which ariseth from that union of God and man in one person is such, as tran scends all other imaginations, though never so raised, which either angels, men, or devils have or could for ever invent concerning him.

And the deceits and trains that Satan lays herein, he compares to those wherewith the serpent deceived Eve, Lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve, &c. He put it into their heads that there was a higher knowledge they might attain than in that keeping to God s law, they had already, or could : and further, that themselves should be gods ; so seducing them from God. And thus here there is not only a promise of a higher and more spiritual knowledge than that simple story of Christ God-man attain thereby affords ; but that themselves should be Christs. And they frame such a story of Christ as should serve to persuade this, and their capacity of this advance. For a Christ in flesh, which this man Jesus is, say they, you shall have a Christ in spirit. For a Christ without you, that is, God sub stantially, you shall have, every one of you, a Christ within you ; yea, and if need be, they will not stick to affirm, yourselves shall be God substan tially ; and not be united only to God and Christ, but so united, as to exist in the form of God, and to be one and the same with God. Such or the like workings of this mystery of iniquity, deforming and perverting of the true Christ into another, you find in Paul s time amongst the Corinthians, or of which from false teachers then gone abroad, they were in danger of.

Something answerable, or like to this, the Church at Colossus also were in danger of. Those philosophical teachers which, chap. ii. 8, he gives them warning of, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Their doctrines perverted not only the purity of the worship of the gospel, but were intended to the misrepresenting the person of Christ, as appears by many characters ; both, 1. In that in the very next words, For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He gives them a perfect definition or description of the person of Christ, as in him

And ye are complete in self considered, and in his fulness to us, ver. 10, him, which is the head of all principality and power. And this in a direct opposition (as the coherence shews) unto their philosophical Christ, which they for wisdom and excellency would needs compare with the apostle s

Christ. And, 2. In opposition to their counterfeit Christ, it is, that he also sets out his Christ in all the personal excellencies and fulness, the like nowhere in all his epistles, chap. i. ver. 15-18. And then also of his gos-

pel, which is the revelation of him, ver. 23, 26, 27 to the end ; and as it is the mystery of God the Father, and of Christ, chap. ii. 2, In whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Exhorting, that as they had received Christ, so they would walk in him, ver. 6, as in matter of order, so for faith ; for unto both those that exhortation is directed, as appears by the coherence with ver. 5, but especially in their faith about the person of Christ, with which he therefore begins, ver. 7, Stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving, being thankful to God he had revealed such a Christ, his Christ to them ; for they could not have a better or another. And then follow those words, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy, after the tradition of men, rudi ments of the world, and not after Christ. Some of the teachers of those times, finding in philosophers (then in credit) in Plato, Orpheus, Hesiod, Pythagoras, and in the Jewish traditions, many divine things about X6yo$, the Word, and of emanations, and genealogies, and descents from God, as Irenasus shews, of him from God, and of the creatures from him, they dressed up a Christ and a divinity with those philosophical clothes, and colours, and paint, which, the apostle says, was not * after Christ, as you say a false picture of a man is not after the man, being not taken from him, nor resembling his person, but another clean. They were descriptions of him, not taken from the life or truth that was in him. Whom, therefore, Paul

In him dwells all the fulness of the God head bodily, or (you shall give me leave to translate it) personally. And sets out in the substance of him, so it was another Christ. And therefore, chap, iii. ver. 19, these are said not to hold the head, that is, him, ver. 10, he had styled the head of all prin cipalities and powers; and, chap. i. 18, the head of the body of his church, they having clean perverted him to another Christ. And as it was then, so it is now. Men have gone about to bring Paul s, the Scripture-

Christ, to Plato s ; and as such would obtrude him on the saints. Thus it was in Paul s time ; but John lived longer, after all the apostles, and saw these seeds and buddings then sown come to a greater ripeness, and open and more gross discovery, from blade to ear ; and writing that first epistle to the Christian Jews in a more special manner, he seeing what Christ had foretold should fall out about the time of Jerusalem s destruc tion, both afore and after it, to be fulfilled, doth therefore, chap. ii.

My brethren, it is the last hour (because the ver. 18, give this warning last period of time afore that fatal overthrow of that nation), for even now there are many antichrists (as our Lord had foretold), whereby we know that it is the last hour, we seeing it thus fulfilled. And, ver. 22, Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is, o

the Christ, the sole and only Christ ? And he is an antichristthat denies the Father and the Son, the distinction of these two, and the personalities. And whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. And, 1 John iv. 1, { Many false prophets are gone out into the world. And what was the great false point of odds which they endeavoured to sow and diffuse ? ver. 8, They confessed not that Jesus Christ was come in the flesh, and that Christ was God ; and therefore the catholic faith of all true believers, in opposition to those errors about his person, he gives us ; chap v, 20, And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true ; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. They had other doctrines about their Christs whom they held forth, which were a full denial of all this. You have the like in his second epistle, ver. 7, 9.

452 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK II.

And to obviate those errors about the person of Christ was it that he wrote those epistles, and his gospel of John, after all the other evangelists and epistles written, exhorting them to hold fast to that Christ whom they had heard and known from the beginning, as himself and the holy apostles had set him forth, chap. i. ver. 1-3, * That which was from the begin ning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life ; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us) ; that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. And ver. 24 of chap, ii., Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye shall also continue in the Son, and in the Father. The like Epistle ii. ver. 9, declaring those that fell into such errors, and con tinued in them, to be such apostates as never had truth of grace: chap. ii.

They went out from us, but they were not of us ; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us : but they went ver. 19, out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us ; and hints how some of them so sinned therein, as that withal they sinned the sin unto death, never to be recovered, chap v. ver. 16, 17 (though not all ; those words ver. 16 do imply), * If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death : I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin : and there is a sin not unto death. And of all he judgeth them such, as, without repentance, the saints should have no communion with, Epist. ii. ver. 9, 10, 11, Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God-speed: for he that biddeth him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds. Of this consequence is true faith in this doctrine.

Now, as it was then, so it is now ; those times, and the occurrences which then fell out (foretold by Christ) among Jews and Christians afore Jerusalem s destruction, being types of what should now fall out in the last days afore the end of the world ; and we have yet but the buddings of what perhaps will grow up to greater ripeness and spreadings, as then they also did.

Multitudes of those that are orthodox in their opinions, or speculative judgments about the person of Christ, yet perish, because they know not, apprehend not, this true Christ, as he is in himself really and spiritually. They know not the truth as it is in Jesus, as Eph. iv. 20, 21, the apostle speaks. And this hath and doth fall out amongst all that live in the church. But others begin to err about the very notion of his person, coining other

Christs, by diminishing from or adding unto the person of him, as they would represent him to us. And this is as easy as it is dangerous, even aa it was an easy thing to make another gospel, and to entertain it, as in the Galatians example appears, Gal. i. 6, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. And in that forementioned 2 Cor. xi. 15, the apostle speaks the like of preaching another Christ, considering men s aptness to err herein ; it is no great thing (says he), though great in respect of the moment of it, yet easy and soon done. And that is the apostle s scope in that speech. And again,

CHAP. V.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHKIST

as some churches then embraced another gospel (as the Galatians), so upon other churches the devil endeavoured to obtrude another Christ.

And he is soon (in the doctrine about him) made another Christ, either by taking away from him, or adding to him.

1. By taking away from him, as if you take away his Godhead, this alters the person quite, as taking away the reasonable soul from the body of a man, takes instantly away the man, and leaves a brute beast in his room. It turns him into the carcass of a Christ ; let him be set forth in words never so gorgeously or gloriously, the substance of his person is stolen away. Or else,

2. By adding to him ; for if the joining works to Christ s righteousness, in matter of justification, made another gospel, as the epistle to the Gala tians shews, then surely adding the persons of all the saints to the indi vidual one Lord, one husband, Christ, and that they all should be Christ as well as he, equal with him, their union with God the same that he is, this is to un Christ him.

454 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

BOOK III.

Of the glories and royalties that belong unto Jesus Christ, considered as Godman in one person (besides what accrued to him from his performance of the work of our redemption}, and which were appointed for him, by his Father, from all eternity. The apparent manifestation of the divine attributes in the person of Jesus Christ God-man. The designation of him in God s first decrees, as the end for whom all the creatures were made. The part that he bore as God-man in the creation, as by him all things were created. The appointment of him by God to be one Lord over all, under him one God ; and to be in a more special respect the head of the elect, on whom they were to hold the tenure of all the blessings bestowed on them above the dues of creation.

One Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and ive by him.

1 COB. VIII. 6.

CHAPTER I.

A preface giving a short scheme or draft of the ensuing discourse. An exposition of Col. i.,from verses 15 to 19 ; all that is spoken there of Christ must be ascribed to him as God-man.

We have had the person of our Lord set out unto us, what and who he is. This text, in more general words, leads us next unto the consideration of the glory and royalties of this great person, who, as God-man in one person, is sovereign Lord over all; and also, who hath 1. An universal influence and efficacy into all things: Through whom are all things. 2. Specially into the salvation of the elect : And we by him. Neither doth the text attribute these to him, as he is singly that second person, the Son of God ; but as he is constituted Lord by his Father. And therefore necessarily as considered the Son of God, personally united to that man Jesus, as hath been set out. And of him thus considered, I desire, may be understood all that follows, as that which is the proper subject thereof.

It hath been no small diminution of Jesus Christ (as he is God-man), that men s minds having been intent upon him as a redeemer from sin and wrath (they being sinners, the consideration and burden of that hath lain nearest them, and pressed upon their spirits), and that having once given them ease, they have in a manner only given him the glory thereof; whereas there is in other respects as great a revenue of glory from many other contributions due to him, even from whatever God himself can be supposed to challenge glory from.

The subject of these following sections is, the glory of his person, and

the relation thereof, simply considered and abstracted from the work of redeeming us men from sins and wrath.

Ere I come to the particulars, I shall in this first chapter, which is an introduction to the rest, do two things.

First, Give the sum and scheme of the particulars, that thus shew forth the glory of his person.

Secondly, Single out one eminent and comprehensive scripture, viz., Col. i. 15, which gives a general bottom unto all the heads of that scheme or draft.

First, The series of the heads themselves. The first head is, The native personal glories which attend and are due to that human nature united personally to the Son of God, besides those that arise to him as a Redeemer.

Which are of two sorts.

First, Inherent in him, consisting of such attributes as accompany the union of that human nature to God s Son, and do make up an image of the Godhead in him ; besides his being the essential image of God as second person ; such as is to be found in no mere creature. The second are incommunicable royalties, adherent or appertaining to him, and yet no less due to him than the other. As,

1. That he as man, or rather as God-man, should have in the decrees and purposes of the Most High, the just honour to be the eldest or first born therein, in priority of order, before all other men or angels, that were to be mere creatures.

2. In those decrees to be made the end or final cause of all other things, and this also as his due, that all other things that were to be created should be so disposed of, and contrived in God s eternal counsel, as might tend to his glory, even as well as to the Father s.

Unto these two I add that which is the result of both, especially of the first.

3. That by this designed union of the Son of God to our nature, and in the person of the Son so united, and that simply and abstractly considered ; God hath, and doth make the highest manifestation and communication of himself, such as by no created ways or means could ever have been attained (which is the result of his being the image of the invisible God). And this manifestation (we now speak of) is, both that which is made unto the elect in him, and by him, and for his sake ; as also that one which is transcendently made in and unto that human nature himself, who is one of us, flesh of our flesh, &c. So as by this personal union with the man Jesus, God hath attained his chiefest, highest, and most substantial ends, which by all or any means else could not have been so attained.

The second head proceeds on such glories as are relative unto the works and counsels of God, touching the things that were to be made and brought forth into being by him, and the dependence they all have upon his being God-man ; wherein is shewn how that his Son s being made, and under * The beginning of the creation of God ; the upholder of the whole creation in his Father s purposes ; yea, and virtually was the creator and maker thereof, as so considered. 2. The taking to be made, man, he withal became, 1. upholder and governor of them, when thus created. And, 3. All other of his works (besides redemption) are committed to him.

A third head (which T shall treat of in another discourse, viz., of Christ the Mediator) is more special, namely, his glorious efficaciousness, to the

456 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. accomplishment of the blessedness and salvation of God s elect, both men and angels, out of the common lump and mass of the whole creation ; which contains in it,

1. His being an head of union to angels and men, but more especially of us, elect men unto God, to raise them up as creatures unto a supernatural union with God, above their law of creation.

2. Unto us men, yet more especially in his being a redeemer, over and above his being an head unto us, to deliver us from sin and the curse, by his (himself) being made both for us.

The coronis, or top-stone set upon this pillar and column of glory, which is thus erected, and is a building unto our Lord Christ, is comprehensively contained in Eph. i. 10, That in the dispensation of the fulness of time, he might gather together all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. And it is the whole and full birth, the all of God s everlasting purposes and decrees, and so the whole of what soever shall be accomplished, touching the person of Christ, the salvation of the elect, both angels and men, and the restitution of all the whole crea tion by Christ. As, 1. That God s utmost design was to unite a select company of his creatures to him, to be one with himself.

2. That to that end, he in his decrees contrived it so that the person of Christ should consist and be made up of all things, all sorts of things in heaven and earth ; and so made a meet medium of such an union.

3. That he hath made up that body or company of his elect that were to be thus united to himself by Christ, in a correspondent anti-posture to that of his person, made up out of all things in heaven and earth ; and consisting (take the whole lump of them amongst them) of all sorts of things that are to be found in either, both among angels and men ; even a special all things, out of all the general all things.

4. That he hath made his Son an head of union, which is common both to angels and men ; and over and above, a redeemer or mediator of redemp tion of us men ; * so gathering them all into one a second time in him.

5. That the whole creation (but those in hell, which are exempted out of that catalogue) have by an overflow, a participation (take them in their capacity) of this great union, and are restored to a glorious liberty therewith. Even so be it, blessed and thrice glorious Lord Jesus ; to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

I now at length must quit the conduct of this scripture, which I have hitherto, all along, taken for my guide and bottom, namely, 1 Cor. viii. 6. And it having thus happily led me to that general, which hath these parti culars in the womb thereof, I shall take my leave of it, and betake myself unto another scripture, as adequate to this, and which is its next design and model, setting forth the heads forementioned almost in the same order and method I have proposed them in. This scripture I shall in this section first suit, in the whole of it, to the particulars of this draft.

Col. i. ver. 15-19, Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature : for by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers ; all things were created by him and for him : and he is before all things, and by him all things consist : and he is the head of the body, the church ; who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead ; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence: for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.

CHAP. I.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHKIST. 457

The apostle, from the 15th verse to the 23d, sets forth Jesus Christ in all those rich and glorious excellencies revealed in the gospel ; and his scope and intention designed therein (as likewise in the whole epistle) is, as appears by the second chapter, to divert and take off the Colossians minds from going after Jewish rites, which he calls

* rudiments of the world, &c.,

Col. ii. 8, and which some would have introduced into their worship ; and likewise, from vain and fruitless speculations, brought into their faith and doctrine, but grounded on philosophy, carnal reason, traditions of men, &c., ver. 8, which, having a show of wisdom in them, did so carry away their minds, as (to use his own words in the 18th verse) they were well nigh spoiled or robbed (as were our forefathers, by the like subtilties of the schoolmen, and the ostentation of pompous rites and ceremonies) of these rich and never to be exhausted treasures of all wisdom and knowledge, which lay hid in Christ (ver. 3), but unregarded by them, by reason of the other.

The apostle therefore, knowing that the super-eminent excellencies of Christ, if once discovered, would withdraw their thoughts from gazing after such vain (though gaudy) speculations of science, falsely so called, and how in him they were complete (as himself speaks, Col. ii. 10), and therefore needed not to go out of him, nor to be beholden to any other knowledge for direction in matters of faith and order, seeing that in him were hid ail treasures of knowledge and wisdom ; he therefore brings in this King of glory among them, clothed in all his royalties ; that look, as when the king comes in state into the presence chamber, though the eyes of the bystanders were before never so intent in beholding the curious pictures and rich hangings about the room ; yet when the king comes in, they all turn their : so likewise would it be with these Colossians, when they should once see Christ appear in his glory ; eyes on him, diverting them from other objects in, which the apostle purposely sets him forth in these verses, the like whereof he nowhere doth in all his epistles.

So then you see already this scripture, in the scope of it, to be pertinent to what we are about to demonstrate. It agrees with my design in this, that it sets forth Christ s excellencies in all their fulness. Let us next see how it will correspond with the particulars. The words (adding the 19th and 20th verses to them) do methodically set out those eminent particular heads which I have proposed.

First, The personal excellencies, which, as was said in that draft, are of two sorts.

1. Native and inherent in his person, considered as God-man, in these words, that he is the image of the invisible God. Which, as he mentions first, so it is the chief. The meaning is, that whereas the attributes and excellencies that are in the Godhead are incomprehensible, or (to use the apostle s word) invisible by any creature ; that of all those perfections in the Godhead Christ is the complete image, in a transcendent way above what angels and men are ; and so, as they are in him, they are incom municable unto any mere creature ; he is the image of the invisible God, * Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature. to that end to make them visible to us. So, ver. 15,

2. There are made, extrinsical royalties, incommunicable to any mere creature, and infinitely transcending all their privileges, whereof the text instanceth in two: (1.) That he is the first-begotten of every creature, ver. 13; and, ver. 17, that he is before all things. (2.) The end or final cause, for whom and whose glory they were all made ; for this,

458 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEE, [BOOK III. things were created for him, ver. 16. That as he is the first-begotten of every creature, that is, the eldest, before all the rest, and by inheritance their Lord and King, and the sole heir of heaven and earth ; and so a King over them, with such a pre-eminency of title and prerogative as all other kings do want ; for they are neither the makers of their subjects, nor are their subjects made for them. But he is such a King, as isthe maker of all these his subjects, yea, their upholder, by whom all consist ; and therefore by a just right their final cause and end, * all things were created by him, and for him.

2. Head. The universal influence he hath into all God s words. 1. As creator of them. 2. As upholder: ver. 16, 17, * For by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers things were created by him, and for him : and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

And these glories and excellencies of his, that all were created by him and for him, are amplified and illustrated by the apostle s particular speci fying the prime, the chief, the upper rank, of both worlds, heaven and earth. In heaven are thrones and dominions, that is, angels and arch angels, the nobles of that higher house ; then in earth, principalities and powers, kings and rulers, whom you so much adore. All these were made in him, by him, and for him ; and in him they all consist. The third head. That he is the head of his church, that precious body, of an elect and chosen generation, by God, out of all the rest ; 1 Pet. ii. 5, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Ver. 9, But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people ; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. And the first-fruits of the creation, James i. 18. And thus ver. 18 of Col. i., He is the head of the body, the church ; and that in two respects: 1. Of their union to God, which was God s primitive design towards them, intended in those * who is the beginning, that is, the first foundation of their union with God ; and hereon the first corner-stone of their happiness was laid. And, 2, of their restauration from out of sin and death, to bring them into words, that first designed happiness, which is the great intendment of that union ; and this in those words, * the first-born from the dead, which is added, because at and upon the resurrection of him, and of his members, of the sons of men, who were dead, and fallen into sin, &c., then begins the demonstration of what as an head he was ordained to be to all his church, in the glory that shall follow. Then appears and reigns for ever that rela tion of his being a head of union, in its full and originally intended splen dour ; and that glory, by virtue thereof, which was originally and primarily ordained by God, then takes place, and the full efficacy thereof not till then. When Christ arose, then said God of him, * This day have I begotten thee. Acts xiii. 33, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Now, and not till now, thou appearest and lookest like that Son of mine, whom I rejoiced in from everlasting ; and now first thou hast recovered that primitive glory thou hadst in degree and repute with me, as God-man, afore the world was, and which, as the first-born of every creature, thou wert arrayed with ; a glory only due to him that was the only and substantially begotten Son of God.

The like to this holds good of his elect members of mankind, when fully recovered, and restored from death and the grave, by him first as a Re deemer, now risen again, which death is the last part of their humiliation and debasement for sin.

And yet, as if the apostle, having enumerated these (though the chief) of Jesus Christ s prerogatives, yet because not all particulars, but had given these few of all the rest for instance sake, therefore he sums up all whatever in these two totals or generals.

1. That in all he might have the pre-eminence, or the primacy. The meaning thereof is, that God ordered him to be such a one as might not only have all manner of privileges, that any in this or the other world do or may be supposed to excel in ; but also with a pre-eminence, a primacy in all, above what any one hath in anything whereof he may boast.

And, 2, that it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell, ver. 19. Here is again another all, and a fulness added to that all; an all for parts, a, fulness for degrees, a transcendency in all, above all.

All these mentioned are over and besides that great and eminent work and service, of reconciling us men as sinners to God. Which is The fourth head. That over and besides these pre-eminences, he is the reconciler and redeemer, by the blood of his cross : ver. 20, And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. So as that pre-eminence of things which is in the close of the 18th verse, as also that fulness, ver. 19, is distinct from the work of re demption and reconciliation, which appears not only because in all this glorious description of him, from ver. 15 the apostle mentions not the work of redemption or reconciliation, as making up any of this fulness, which in the 19th verse he intends ; but further, he makes that a surplusage, or rather another fulness, over and above this of reconciliation, here re hearsed. So the coherence carries it. For it pleased the Father, that all fulness should dwell in him, and by him to reconcile, &c., ver. 20, as being a work besides and superadded unto all his other fulness ordained to be in him.

As a premise to all that follows, I have one thing to clear, which is necessary to found my way for the handling the foresaid particulars, namely, That all this fulness, and the particulars thereof mentioned in this text, are attributed to Christ as God-man, either as actually united, or to be united, in one person, and not only or simply considered as God or second person.

For the better entertaining of this assertion, and the taking off prejudices, it is meet that the reader should know how that holy and greatest light of the reformed churches, Calvin, in his comment upon this scripture, inter preting the very first passage, which leads on all the rest, namely, that he is the image of the invisible God, speaks thus in his comment thereon.

He shews hereby, says he, that it is he alone by whom God, that is otherwise invisible, is manifested to us, according to that, No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten, that is in the bosom of the * how the ancients are wont to expound this ; who, because they had a controversy with the Arians (who held Christ a mere creature), do urge this place for Christ s

Father, he hath manifested him to us. I know, says he, being of the same essence or nature with the Father, namely, simply as second person and God. But in the mean time, they omitted what was

460 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. the chief thing in the words, namely, how the Father hath exhibited, or exposed himself, as in Christ, to be known by us. And again, says he, 1 The name (or title) of image is not spoken of the essence, but hath a relation unto us. So as therefore Christ is the image of God, because he makes, as it were, God visible unto us. And yet withal, so he adds, for this it is also inferred, that Christ is of the same essence with the Father, namely, as second person. For he could not truly (or to the life) repre sent God to us, namely, as God-man, unless he were the essential Word of God, it being not compatible to any creature to represent God as here is intended.

A wretched papist, to cast odium upon Calvin, wrote a treatise against him, to prove him, out of his own writings, unsound in that great article of our faith, the Trinity, and about the Godhead of the person of Christ ; entitling his book, Calvin Judaizing, or turned Jew, and heaping up about thirty-eight scriptures, which, as he says, Calvin perverted to such a meaning. He allegeth his comment on this, in the last place, against him. Whereof Pareus, in his Opiiscula, printed 1595, undertook the defence, and saith, both interpretations, according to Calvin s own expressions, will stand together, which I refer the reader to. Now, observe Calvin s sense, how they may stand together, namely, that Christ (here), as God-man, is chiefly or directly styled the image of the invisible God in the apostle s scope ; yet so as withal it argues, and from this inferred, must strongly, yea, it must necessarily be supposed as the foundation of the other, that he* is so the image of God transcendently above all creatures (as here), must necessarily also be the essential image of God. And this I would in this place preadvise the reader once for all (though perhaps I shall be enforced necessarily to inculcate it) to be the genuine drift of all those other inter pretations of the like attributed to Christ ; which, in the ensuing discourses, in opening of this place, and of John i. 1, 2, &c., I shall pursue. And I desire the candid reader so to understand me.

In the mean time, for the rest of the particulars here said of Christ, that in what sense this of Christ s being the image of God, is interpreted by Calvin, I shall with like freeness assert of them all, that they are spoken of him as God-man. This being but the first of this jury, and the rest enume rated, therefore answers to, and are of the same sort and suit. And if this be so interpreted, then let us see if all the rest will not give up themselves thereto. How this will be made good of all the particulars that follow, I shall shew when I come to insist on each apart. I shall now collect gene ral reasons for the carrying on this analogy and proportion of interpretation through the whole, out of those two totals or summary propositions, where with he shuts up all the particulars enumerated (namely) ; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father, that in him should all fulness dwell. This general demonstration I give, by laying these two things together, out of them two.

1. That all and every one of these particulars before rehearsed, are those, or some of those glories, which as so many several pieces do make up this his pre-eminence in all things, and which, put together with the rest, are parts of that fulness which is said to dwell in him.

And, 2. That the apostle makes all this fulness (whereof these are the parts) to reside in Christ, by an act of God s good pleasure. And so by a design, decree, or purpose of God, by an act of his will; for he says, It

should dwell in him, pleased the Father that all this fulness, spoken of, * Qu. he who ? ED.

; it was ex beneplacito, from the good pleasure of God. Thus Eph. i. 9 (where the same word is used), the apostle calls it the mystery of his will, (J*3ra rqv suftoxiav, after or according to his good pleasure, which he had purposed in himself.

Now therefore, hence I infer of all these parts and pieces, that they must be understood of him as God-man. However, that other sense of theirs, attributed to him as second person, must also come in as that which is necessarily the substratum and foundation thereof, and so originally and primarily true of him as such, at least the most of them. Yet so, as directly and primaria intentione, they are intended of the Son of God made man. For if they had been spoken of him singly, as second person, this would not have been said of them, that they are part of that fulness which it pleased the Father, by an act of his will, and according to the purpose of his good pleasure, should dwell in him, for so they are natural to Christ, and not at all subjected to God s will.

For example, If these two speeches in ver. 15, he is the image of the invisible God, and the first born of every creature, should have been meant, the first of those his essential attributes of his Godhead, whereby Christ is God of God, and so the image of his Father ; this is not a fulness that dwells in him according to God s good pleasure, or from God s will, for then Christ should not be God ; and that other speech, if it should be taken as meant of that eternal generation of him, as second person, from everlasting ; then this general that follows, that it pleased the Father, that all this fulness, and these pre-eminences (whereof these prerogatives here mentioned and this particular is a part) should dwell in him, would not have been so expressed. For Christ s eternal generation was an act of God s nature, not of God s will, or by a decree of his pleasure. He indeed begets us of his own will (as James speaks, i. 18), but not so his Son as second person ; for him he begets naturally. So also that speech, ver. 17, He is before all things, if meant of his subsistence as second person, by that eternal generation of his, it could not then be made an act of God s good will, being it was natural and due unto him. But now, take all these spoken of Christ, as ordained to be Godman, to have nil these fulnesses meet in a human nature, ordained to be assumed into union with the second person. So indeed, all this might in deed be the object of God s decree, and an act of his good pleasure, in this respect, that it was in God s good pleasure whether to have decreed him or anything else, or no. And in truth it was the highest act of grace and God s good pleasure that ever was bestowed on any creature, to ordain that man at all unto that union.

Yet still, let all this be so understood, that though these things be meant directly of Christ as God-man, as the Son of God dwelling in a human na ture, yet so, as they are by inference as great and strong convictions as any other, that this person that is united to our nature, is in his person originally the essential image ; and therefore, so the image of God (as Cal vin observes this place holds him forth) as no creature is. That so he is the Creator, end of all things, or else he never had raised up that human nature he assumed, unto those royalties.

Thus much to shew how this scripture is a ground for all those heads and particulars, whereof I gave you the draft.

I next make entrance upon the heads themselves, to enlarge upon them.

462 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, TBOOK III.

CHAPTER II.

The personal native glories and royalties ivhich belong to the Son of God, as dwelling in our nature. How the divine attributes are inherent, and shine forth in that man Jesus, so united to the Son of God. In what sense he is the image of the invisible God. How he is the wisdom and the power of God. His human nature does not possess those perfections in that high degree, as they are attributes in the divine nature, and so infinite , but he hath them in a nearer resemblance than any mere creature is capable of. In what respects he also has independency and sovereignty. It is upon the union of the human nature with the Son of God, that it is invested with his high privilege.

The words of the text explained in the former chapter, which sets out the personal native glories, and excellencies, and royalties appertaining to the Son of God, as dwelling in our nature, and which especially shew how the divine attributes shine forth in the man Jesus Christ so united to the Son of God, and which I shall in particular apply to that purpose, are in the * Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature. All things were created by him, and for him : and he is before all things. The first particular is founded on those words, the image of the invi

15th, 16th, 17th verses of Col. i., sible God ; which the apostle sets first, as the greatest excellency, and the foundation, and the key of interpretation to all the rest that follow.

The resolution of which words is into this assertion, that in that man Jesus Christ, by virtue of his union with the Godhead, there is inherent a fulness of all divine perfections, which make up an image of the attributes of the Godhead, in so transcendent a way of excellency and eminency, as is incompatible and incommunicable to any mere creature remaining such.

I. For the interpretation of the apostle s intent in those words, there is a double image of God in Christ ; the one essential, as he is second person ; the other manifestative, as the glory of God shines in the face or person of Jesus Christ, as man ; thus Grotius on the words, and Pareus in his vindi cation of Calvin, who reckons up many witnesses, as Ambrose, Martyr, Melancthon, Ursin, &c., for it (of which by and by). And the same dis tinction, to the same purpose, is acknowledged to be comprehended in his being called 6 Xoyog, the Word (as in the first chapter of John s gospel), connotating both the essential Word of God, or image to God himself, and also the manifestative Word, as representing him to us, as made man.

If the question be, Which of these two is principally and more directly intended in these words ? I answer, the latter, and that for two reasons.

1. Because he is not simply termed the image of God, but with this addition, of the invisible God ; which does necessarily imply, his being such an image, as relates unto us, that is, that he is such an image as makes the Godhead, which is in itself invisible or incomprehensible, to be manifest and visible. For that is the end of an image, namely, to hold forth a thing, to make it apparent to the view, which otherwise is not seen.

Then, 2. The Godhead and person of Christ, considered simply as second person, is in himself as invisible as the Godhead, or person of the Father. The meaning thereof is this, that in Christ, as man, united to the second person, there is a resultance, an edition of the Godhead, in all the perfec tions of it ; which I may call so many divine attributes of Christ, as Godman, (even as we usually call the other the divine attributes of God) which

do make up an image of the Godhead ; which in Heb. i. 3, is called, not only the image of God, but (with a difference from all creatures) the express image, or engraven image, that is, such as no creatures are. The image of God s attributes in angels and men, are but such as the light of tapers in respect of the sun, of which that is but a dull and faint resemblance. But Christ is the shine, the brightness of his Father s glory. Even as the beams of the sun are to the body of the sun, as lumen est imago lucis, so is Christ God s image. And this similitude the apostle there useth, and applies it to him as he was man, namely, as he was appointed heir of all. Which phrase, as he is merely second person, might not be used of him, for so he is hares natus, not constitutus, not appointed heir, but * begot ten. Now as the rays or beams of the sun are but the emissions and effects of the sun itself, and so far inferior to the substantial glorious body of it, so this image, or shine of the Godhead s glory in the manhood of Christ, is but the reluctance,* the effect, and so inferior to that essential glory, which as second person he partakes of in common with his Father. Thus Beza, Cameron, and others, have understood it.

II. For the thing itself, and to explain what this image of the divine attributes in Christ as God-man is. It is not that bare communication of properties, so as only that which is said of the Godhead is predicated of the manhood ; or that the manhood instrumentally useth the attributes of the Godhead, and so is omniscient with the omnisciency of the divine nature, and omnipotent with his onmipotency (as the Lutherans fondly do dream). But it is such a system, or fulness of perfections really inherent and apper taining unto the manhood, by virtue of that its union with the divine nature, as although infinitely coming short of the attributes that are essential to the Godhead, yet is the completest image of them, and such as no mere creature is capable of, and so is as truly incommunicable unto a creature, (whether it be man or angel) as those attributes of the Godhead are to this humanity of Christ itself, though so united. This in general may be made out of that parenthesis in John i. 14 ( And we beheld his glory, the glory as the only begotten Son of God ). By glory, the evangelist means espe cially those glorious perfections, that dwell in his person, as holiness, wisdom, &c., for it follows, full of grace and truth ; though withal including those signs of his power, as sparkles of his divinity, that dwelt in that flesh, and also referring to that glory they saw in him at his transfiguration. The essential glory of his Godhead it could not be, for they openly saw it (as the word signifies), and therefore it is not meant of the glory of the Godhead itself, which is here said to be invisible ; and there it is also said of it too, that that is such which no man hath seen, verse 18. Now the glory of these his perfections shining in that human nature was such as was peculiar to him, and transcendently above what could be in any mere creature, and such as carried its own evidence and testimonial with it, that they were such perfections as were proper and peculiar to the only begotten of God ; therefore it is added, the glory as of the only begotten of God, that is, such as could be in none but him that was God, and the natural Son of God. That as the shine of the sun carries its own evidence with it, and it is the glory as of the sun when it appears, so transcendently, that the likeness of it cannot be made by all the fire and lights in the world, if put together, such was this glory here spoken of.

This word is apparently not the usual word reluctance, from reluctor to strive or struggle against ; but rath one derived from reluceo, to shine again or be reflected. ED.

464 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III; To give two or three instances of some of these perfections peculiarly and incommunicably dwelling in the human nature of Christ, as,

1. Wisdom. 2. Power. 3. Independency and Sovereignty. The reason why I instance in these, is, because I find them all put to gether by Christ himself.

1. There is a wisdom in Christ s human nature, which is so high an imitation of the attribute of wisdom in God, as no creature, nor all creatures could reach to, or have attained ; and therefore they, though they be called wise, yet not wisdom, as Christ, God-man, is called, 1 Cor. i. 24, But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. And the reason why so transcendent a wisdom is in him as man, which is proper to him, and of which all creatures must fall short, is given Col. ii. 3, For in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ; not objectively only, as in the knowledge of whom (if we could attain to it) we might find all treasures, but subjectively also, as whose knowledge in himself inherent contains in it all treasures of wisdom. For Christ could not be objectively all wisdom unto us, if he had not first all wisdom subjectively in himself. And therefore it is, verse 9, For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Now the reason of all this fulness of wisdom in Christ is there given, that the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily (or personally) in him, which is alone proper to him ; and therefore also surely these treasures of wisdom are also meant of inherent knowledge residing in his human nature, as the God head doth.

Now the treasures of wisdom in Christ s human nature are not of that extent and richness that the wisdom that dwells in God himself is of, for to make Christ omniscient as God is, were to make his human nature God. Nor is it, as the Lutherans express it, that his human nature is omniscient with the omnisciency of the divine nature ; but yet, in such a transcendent fulness, as is omniscientia similitudinaria, a similitudinary omnisciency com paratively to what is in the creatures (as Zanchy from the schoolmen calls it), and so is an image (and that in a transcendent way) of God s omnisciency.

Not that his human nature knows all that God knows ; for God, per simplicem intelligentiam, by the ideas of all he can make, knows all that his power can do ; and so his knowledge extends itself, not only to all that is made or to be done, but to all that he can make or do, which is an infinity. But yet there is a similitudinary omnisciency in Christ s

1 human nature, in that it, now glorified, knows all that God hath done, or means to do ; and so it is of as large extent, for the objects of it, as that knowledge in God himself is in that respect. Which knowledge in God, the schoolmen call scientia

God s foreknowledge. All that God s will hath decreed to be done (even all his counsels) Christ s human nature visionis ; and the Scripture, knows, and had, by virtue of its union with the divine, a right to know, both things past, present, and to come. And so it is in a sense a kind of omnisciency ; and is a glory as of the only begotten Son of God, incom municable unto any other.

2. The same holds in his power. The power of the human nature is not equal with God s, as that he can do all that God can do ; for God can make infinite many things which yet he never made, nor will ever make ; yet there is a similitudinary omnipotency in Christ s human nature, both in that he can do whatsoever he will (his will pitching on the same design with God s in every thing), and in that all that God will ever pitch upon to be done, he is an instrument of. All was done, either in the virtue of him

before he took our nature, or hath been since his being glorified. His fiat, his I will (as himself speaks, John xvii. 24), must be set to everything ere it be done. For all power is committed to him, both in heaven and earth, Matt, xxviii. 18. All the business of the world runs through his hands and head. And therefore he is called the power of God (in the forecited place, 1 Cor. i. 24), and the arm of the Lord, Isa. liii. 1. And this is a kind of omnipotency, that all that God means to do he should be the instrument of. Both these instances we find together in one scripture delivered, and unto the very same sense and purpose I have driven con cerning them, John v. 18. The Jews had quarrelled with Christ (he having said, ver. 17, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work ), both for calling God his Father, in so peculiar a manner from other men, and also for that in that speech he should join himself so in commission with God in all his works of providence, to say, Ego et Pater metis, I and my Father; so making himself equal with God, whenas he was a man, that is, to have an equal and joint hand in all together with God. Hereupon Christ justifies this speech of his, and shews how, although he were a man, yet such a man as being one in person with the Son of God, this was true of him, without any dishonour at all unto God. First, he acknowledgeth indeed that this pre-eminence his Father hath, that he is the first mover in all : The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do ; yet so, as whatever the Father doth, the Son doth also. For the Father loves the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doth. Here we have, (1.) That whatever God doth, or means to do, the Son hath a hand in it.

(2,) That the Son knows all that is done by his Father. Therefore it is both said, What he sees the Father do, and that * the Father sheweth him all things that himself doth, John v. 19, 20. Here is both the omnisciency we speak of, and the omnipotency, in the terms we stated it, as respecting all God s works, ad extra, even all that ever is to be done.

And this (3.) in an incommunicable way to any mere creature ; for so the Jews that made the objection understood it ; that he (as they thought) being but a mere man, as others, should join himself with God in all his works, and so make himself in a sort equal to God. And this also is in * that he might be honoured, even as the Father is honoured, John v. 23. And ferred from that which follows ; that all this is given the Son of man, so with such an honour as no mere creature is capable of. And this (4.), in a similitudinary way, as the o/Aoiug, likewise, or in like manner (ver. 19), also imports.

And (5.) all this Christ speaks of himself as Son of man, though it be true of him too (and that in a more transcendent sense) as he is God, a second person. And it is one of the greatest keys to John s gospel, that multitudes of such speeches are spoken of him, both first and originally, as he is God, and second person, and then as God-man, or as he is Christ, that is, the Son of God dwelling in man ; for Christ speaks pertinently to the thing that stumbled them. They thought much, that he being (in view) but a man, should arrogate this to himself, to have a hand in all God s works. Now this he answers and justifies himself in. And further, that he speaks these things of himself as man, as well as simply as second person, appears in the other instance which he gives to confirm this, that the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son, ver. 22. And if in judge ^nt he hath this joint or equal hand (as they call it), thence he argues it, he might also have it in other works. Now this VOL. IV. G g

466 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. being spoken in a way of difference from his Father, that his Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son ; this must needs be meant of him as God-man, for the meaning hereof is, that the Father judgeth not audibly, visibly, and in view, as judges used to do. He takes not on him the person of a judge, to act that part ; but thus, or so hath committed all unto his Son, and therefore as a man. And this also the very committing or resigning the judgment unto him implies, it is a making of it over to him, and a giving him commission to do it, which must not be said of Christ as God. And, ver. 23, it is added, He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father that sent him. Now

Christ only as God-man was sent.

But to put all out of doubt, that he speaks of himself in this discourse, as he is Son of man united to God, he himself, in the closure of all, doth expressly so explain it, that so he might be understood to speak fully contradictory to their exception. Thus, ver. 27, The Father hath given the Son authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.

First, he sets out this prerogative with an emphasis, as the particle also doth imply, as being the highest dignity and power of all other, to have judgment solely committed to him, to execute it so visibly as God, and in God s stead, and in that respect more than what he had said in that speech they so excepted against, I and my Father work hitherto. I, namely, virtually and hiddenly, do co-operate and work together with him. And then, secondly, to explain how it is committed to him, he adds, because he is the Son of man (so it follows), the particle on, because, being, as some interpreters carry it, put for xaoV/, prout, as such, namely, as he is the Son of man ; that even as such, all judgment was committed unto him, and all these former things true of him. And so that word or/ not only renders the cause of it, but explains how, and under what nature, all judgment was to him committed. But however, if it imports the reason of it, it much more includes that as he was the Son of man, this judgment was committed to him (which to prove is the thing I aim at).

3. I shall now give another instance of a third attribute in Christ, which is also such an image of what is God as is incommunicable unto any mere creature ; and that is independency and sovereignty ; which I therefore add, because I find it mentioned by Christ with these in this place. This sove reign independency is one of the chiefest flowers in that crown of his glory (as in kings also it is, whereby they differ from subjects), that none have potestatem vita et necis, power of life and death over them. The creatures have a life wholly dependent, as subsisting by the power of God ; Heb. i. 3, Who, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his per son, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. And that so as at pleasure God might annihilate them, and yet in so doing rob them of nothing which they can lay a just claim unto as their own. So that the tenure of their being is advoluntatem Domini, at the will of the Lord of heaven and earth. But it is not thus with Christ s human nature, now it is assumed into union with the second person ; but, it being together with that union invested with the royal prerogatives of the person, with whom it is one, it hath independentiam. similitudinariam, an independency like unto God s, such as is communicable to no creature : therefore, says

Christ, ver. 26, As the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given the Son to have life in himself. I have learned, from divers interpreters of the Gospel of John, and from much comparing the speeches of Christ to-

gether, to interpret that, and multitudes of other the like, as well of him as God-man, as of him also as second person ; and this and other could not be true of him as God-man, unless first as he is second person. And that which evidenceth more particularly this speech to be understood of him as God-man, is, that it is said to be given him. For this we are sura of, that the manhood obtained this prerogative by a free act of grace and gift. God had a freedom to ordain, or never to ordain, that nature or any other unto so high a dignity. Therefore, 1 Pet. L 20, Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. Christ is said to be fore-ordained, as well as the elect ; and the grace shewn in his election was greater than in all ours, by how much the privileges he was ordained unto were greater. But when once this nature is united to the second person, and become the man God s fellow ; then he is instantly invested with this indeposable prerogative, to have life in him self, and not to hold it by gift, though so at first obtained. And so he hath an independency, similitudinary to that of his Father s, as these words in John v. 26, As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, do shew. He can now say that which no crea ture can say ; and that which were blasphemy in their mouths is now not so in his, for he holds not his life ad voluntatem Domini; but as the second person hath a natural right to his subsistence, so now hath this man, being made one person with him ; and so by virtue of that union hath the personal prerogatives of the Son of God made his, yet so as still this inde pendency of the human nature riseth not to that absoluteness and infiniteness that is in God himself, as was in the like manner said of the former ; for this manhood subsists not by the power of itself, but by the power of the Godhead dwelling therein. But God subsists merely, simply, and ab solutely of himself. Yet there is this similitude in it unto that which is in God, that this man can say, This power which I subsist by is my own, by virtue of his relation unto the second person. I being the Son of God, and one in person with him, what is his is mine, not originally or essentially, but by gift. Yet so as there I have now an independent right to be and to subsist in that second person for ever, and can never be deposed. In deed it was a free act of grace in God at first. But in doing of it God did a wonder in the world, of all the greatest. For he sets up an independent creature, a creature backed with such a right to his being, that now himself cannot pull him down, nor dissolve that union again. Aid what a glorious image of God s independency is this !

I might shew the like also in holiness ; that there is that transcendency of holiness also in him the man, that is not in all the creatures put together ; and so in that respect also he is the image of the invisible God. If it could be supposed that any mere creature could have as much habitual holiness as the human nature hath (which were too bold a supposition), yet notwithstanding, there is a holiness over and above that habitual grace in him, there is a relative holiness that casts the shine, the superlative glory on that habitual ; and the stamp thereof that is upon this holiness is better than all the coin. It is the holiness of a man united to God, and who is God, and this makes it acceptable. There is a relative holiness that follows from the hypostatical union, that gives all the worth to what he did, and to all the grace that is in himself; and this no creature is capable of. And this was that that made him able to satisfy. And this is the holiness that God tkes the great contentment in, and could never have been satisfied out of it ; and by reason of this, his righteousness

468 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. may be imputed to sinners, which the righteousness of a mere creature could not be ; it is the holiness of God, as his blood is said to be the blood of God.

I might shew the like in all other attributes ; and it is a noble subject to spend pains upon, to set forth and cut out every limb of this vast image of all God s attributes that are in Christ, merely upon his personal union. 1 have limned out only these two or three parts of it, ut ex pede, that by the liko proportion we might infer the vastness of all the rest.

CHAPTER III.

The honour and royalties that appertain unto Christ, God-man, as ordained such in God s first decrees, to be the final cause or end of the whole creation and works of God. In what sense he is thefirst-born of every creature. The reasons why it is not to be understood in respect of his eternal generation as Son of God. It is spoken of him in consideration of a dignity, or birth right which the man Jesus Christ, united with the second person in the Trinity, has above all other creatures. He is also the first-born, in that he was first in order intended in the eternal purposes of God. He is the final cause or end for which all things were created. And upon iJie presupposi tion of his being decreed to be God-man, it belonged to him as his due to be the universal end for whom all things should be made. This was a high prerogative, of which no mere creature could be capable.

I am now, in the next place, to describe, in a second branch of this head, certain other ro}

Talties or prerogatives, incommunicable also to any creature, which belong to Christ, God-man, whereof some are mentioned in the text ; as that he is the first-born of every creature, ver. 15, and that he is before all things, ver. 17, and that all things are for him, ver. 16. Which eminently imply two things. 1. That he was the first and prime birth in God s decree ; and, 2, also holds the honour of being the end or final cause of all. These I put together, because they more properly belong to this head ; and the latter serves to explain and illustrate the former. And still let it be taken along, that they are meant of him, not simply con sidered as second person, but as God-man.

1. To begin with the first. The first-born of every creature. For the explanation of the import of it, I will, (1.) Shew negatively what is not only to be understood. And (2.) then positively open the full extent of it, and shew that what I have declared is intended thereby.

(1.) It is not spoken of him simply as second person only, as some inter preters have understood ; so as that his eternal generation, as Son of God, should be only intended. Concerning which assertion let me first make this apology, that whereas this and the like scriptures are alleged by our divines to prove that Christ is God, as second person, this interpretation that I am about to give doth not overthrow it, but establish it. For these things could not have been said of him, had he not been God. And there are other scriptures that do more plainly and directly establish that, fully enough ; but yet so here I take it, that eternal generation is not meant directly or immediately, though by consequence it is argued, and most strongly. And there are these two reasons for this.

[l.J Because, in Scripture phrase, he is not in respect to that his eternal

CHAP. HE.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 469 generation, called primogenitus, the first-begotten, buittnigenitu&jUhe onlybegotten. But this here is another phrase ; it is the first-begotten.

[2.] If that had been directly intended, he would not have called him the first-begotten, in comparison unto creatures ; but here he saith the * first-born of every creature, every creature having had a birth, in the apostle s intention, as well as he. He is said in Job, to be the father of the snow, and of the ice, Job xxxviii. 28, 29. But here, first, to make

Christ, simply as second person considered, and his eternal generation, as the only-begotten Son, to be meant here ; and then to compare and range him, in respect of that generation, with the birth of all creatures else, and that he is the first-begotten of every creature in that sense ; this had not been suitable. For as between him, as so considered, and them, there is no comparison can be made, so nor between his generation and theirs. His title and heraldry would have been emblazoned from the order he bears with those of his own rank, the other persons, Father and Holy Ghost ; among whom, to have been called the second of those glorious per sons, is worthy of him as such. But to say, the first-born of every crea ture, and mean his eternal generation, of which the prophet says, Who hath known it ? Prov. xxx. 4, the very comparison of this high birth of his, with the metaphorical generation (so I must call it, when attributed to the most of creatures inanimate, &c.) of every ordinary creature, this had dishonoured him too much. I must say of this, what the apostle of Melchisedec s generation, Heb. vii. 6, His descent (or pedigree) is not counted among them, nor theirs to be named with his. That that name, which Agur in the Proverbs, chap. xxx. 4, so adores, as not to be known by us, and equals it, and compares it with God s only, What is his name? (speaking of God) and what his Son s name ? if thou canst tell, should be set in the Alplia, the first name in the alphabet, and catalogue of creatures ; no, it is altioris ordinis, of another, and an higher rank and kind than so. This hath caused me to think, that the first-begotten of every creature, it is spoken of him, as he is admitted into the catalogue or society of the creatures, as his fellows (as I may so speak), into their number, or as he is become one of them. Or take him as he is the Son of God, ordained to human nature, and then to have his name stand highest in the tables, amongst all the rest of the creatures, and to be called the first-begotten of them, it is no way a disparagement to him, for he is become as one of them, even a creature among them, a man, and so of the same kind or rank with other creatures. Again, that which yet heightens and further presents the incongruity of it, is, that it is not said here that he was the first-born of many brethren, but of every creature. To have said it in respect of those his many brethren, they being only sons though adopted, and he the natural, had held a better equipage ; * but it is far lower, even of every creature. And when he is said to be the first-born of many brethren, as in Rom. viii. 29, For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren ; it is spoken of him in respect of predestination, not of his eternal generation, as you may see there. And so much for the negative, in what sense it is not directly to be understood.

(2.) Therefore, to shew positively in what respect this primacy and pri mogeniture, and this in comparison with every creature, is attributed to him.

[1.] It is spoken of hrn in respect of a dignity and a birthright, that * That is, equipoise. ED.

470 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. this God-man hath at that instant ; he is admitted amongst the creatures (as by being ordained to human nature he was admitted) ; that though he thereby became of their rank, yet he must be the chief, and have the birth right. In Ps. Ixxxix. 27, you shall find the birthright (and that as spoken of Christ) is put for dignity and excellency, * Also I will make him my first born ; and what is meant by first-born, is explained in the next words. higher than the kings of the earth. It noteth out therefore an excellency and a dignity, a height, and a being Prince of the kings of the earth, as Rev. i. 5. So a prince of all the creatures.

[2.] But still there must needs be more in it, for in the Scripture the dignity, the birthright, was directly founded upon being the first-born. So Christ is not only said to be the first-born, because he was made higher than they all, but because he was born first, and therefore higher and greater than all. 2 Chron. xxi, 3, He gave the kingdom to Jehoram, because he was first born, the first brought forth, the opening of the womb. So that now the dignity that Christ hath, it is because he is the first-born, some way or other, of every creature. Therefore, as it was said, it cannot be meant of his eternal generation, as second person. And if there were no more, I might add this against it, that it were infinitely incongruous (to speak after the manner of men) to say that the creatures lay in the same womb, or came out of the same loins, that the Son of God, as second per son, lay in and came out of. Therefore, there must be some other womb in which Christ and the creatures all lay, and in respect thereunto he is the first-begotten ; and that womb is the eternal decrees and purposes of God, which is the common womb, both of Jesus Christ, as he is God-man, and of all creatures else. For that he was God-man by predestination is clear : * Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the 1 Pet. i. 20, world ; and being so, he was in this, as in all other respects, to have a pri macy and pre-eminence, and so to be in a true and just sense the first-begotteri la that womb. And thus Rom. viii. 29, a primogeniture, or a being the first-born, is attributed to him in respect of predestination. For the apostl 3, in comparing the rank or order wherein we were placed in respect of him, says, that we were * predestinated to be conformed to his image, therefore he was in some respect predestinated ; that, as it follows, he might be the first-born among many brethren ; and so he, as the eldest, came lorth first. That as in all births, according to the order of nature, the head comes forth before the body, so did Christ, the head of the body, the church, as, ver. 18, he is called. And therefore, Eph. i. 4, we are said to be elected in Christ. Now then, there is this further addition, which heightens the reason of it, that if he be the first-born of the first-born of the * To the general assem creatures (for so the saints are called, Heb. xii. 23, bly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect ), then he must necessarily be the first-born of all other creatures, who were all ordained both for them and him.

And this may be one true sense of that which follows, ver. 17, that he is < before all things, namely, in respect of the order of God s ir$ rtdvruv, intention. God, though viewing and ordaining all his works ad extra, at once, yet therein chiefly aimed at Christ, as, under himself, the end and per fection of all. Which also hath been understood by many to be the true meaning of that uttered by Christ himself (in the Proverbs) under the name

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his of Wisdom, Prov. viii. 22, v ay, before his works of old. It is a place much and often cited, as also

this text, by them that have been of this opinion, which have not been a few in several ages.

And, First, God s ways are his works ad extra, wherein he purposed to go forth and manifest himself towards creatures. Now in the beginning of these ways, and the first thoughts of them, did God possess Christ Godman in his foreknowledge, as the richest treasure of all his glory to be manifested in his creation, without which he would not have proceeded to any other work, or have walked forth in any creature-way, but rested in that blessed society of the Three without them. And it is not said, In the beginning of his way, but it is also further added, that he possessed him

before his works of old. Which is the same that is here said, before all things; as also in saying, the first-begotten of every creature. And for further illustration s sake it is added, ver. 33, I was set up from everlasting, ere ever the earth was. The phrase, I was set up, will less permit us to understand it of that eternal generation of his, as he is second person, than in those other expressions that have been here insisted on, for that was an act of God s will ; but that other, by a natural act of a mys terious generation.

I am now approaching to that second royalty mentioned in this branch, Christ s being also the final cause or end for whom all things were made. And this is such a respect as the creatures were not capable of one towards another. Which point is conjunct with this of his priority in God s decrees, and indeed is the greatest confirmation and proof of it.

All acknowledge a priority, though not of one act of God s decrees before another in a successive order, as in respect of the decrees themselves (such as in our purposes and thoughts there is through our imperfection), yet in respect of the objects of God s decrees compared together arnoDg them selves. So one thing decreed by God is ordered by his will to have a reference unto, or dependence upon another thing, though at the same time decreed. And so in that respect there comes to be attributed, even to the acts of God s will, as terminated upon such objects, that he intended one thing first and chiefly, and another subordinately unto it. And accordingly the Scripture speaks of God s decrees, condescending therein to the con ceptions of men. And though in men there are successive acts in their purposes and resolutions, because men are not wise enough, in the same instant in which they set up an end, to see and take in all the means that shall conduce to the attaining of it ; or if they were, yet they are not able by the same act to judge which is the best and most convenient ; yet God, through the perfection of his knowledge, can do this, and so make but one act of all, both one and the other. Yet still, what is in man imperfectly, is to be looked at as an image of God s proceedings herein, in a transcend ent way of perfection. And so we may truly attribute the same thing unto God s will ia his decrees, as to the substance of them, in that perfect way of his, that we do unto man in his that is imperfect. And hence God is said to work by counsel, Eph. i. 11, In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purposes of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. It is in assimilation or likeness unto what is in man ; because, as an act of knowledge and deli beration is said to be first in us, ere an act of will or determination what to do ; so in God himself, an act of knowledge, or of the full cognizance of what is to be done, is (after the manner of men) supposed to be before an act of his will. And answerably in his will, the intention of the end is said to be before the intention of the means. And this priority of the end afore

472 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. the means is taken for granted to have been in God s decrees ; for if God had not thus proceeded, by ordaining the means unto the end, he could not by us have been conceived to work with that perfection of wisdom which must be in him ; for wisdom always considers first an end, then fit means tending to that end.

Yet still this is but what is common to all other things that are ordained to be as ends by God, unto which other things are subordinated ; and in this scale there is a kind of priority allowed one creature to have had in God s decrees, in respect of others its fellow -creatures. As the sun was intended for the enlightening of the world, and the generation and conser vation of all things therein, by its heat and influence, and yet both it and the world were intended for man, and man and all the world for the elect, as the apostle says, 1 Cor. iii. 23, All things are yours, and you are Christ s, and Christ is God s. Now all the creatures fall infinitely short of that royalty which I hence attribute to Christ, God-man, when I affirm him to have been the final cause or end of all things. And look how far his prerogative herein is found to exceed that which may be supposed might have been any of theirs ; by so much is thereby confirmed, according to the ground even now laid, a priority as transcendent that he verily holdeth in God s decrees.

Now he holdeth a pre-eminence in this infinitely above all creatures, and therefore even in this his being the end of all also.

And this pre-eminence is held forth in these particulars. 1. In that he was set up as a universal end of the whole creation of God; * For whom all things, says the text, were created, ver. 16. And this is not to be predicated either of angels or men. God vouchsafed neither of them that honour, as to be the general and universal end of all things. This priority is a similitudinary prerogative of what God alone is, as one God, so that his Christ should be one Lord, 1 Cor. viii. 6, over all things, and but one. And herein is Christ so the image of God, as no creature is ; as in respect of dominion over this visible world, man is said to be the image of God (Gen. i. 27, 28), as his type. 2. And further, this universality of endship (as I may call it), he holds with a peculiar transcendency, which no creature is capable of; for it ariseth from his distance and absolute sovereignty (which if he be ordained to subsist in a human nature, that nature must be raised unto) which he hath over all the creatures. This person decreed to subsist in man s nature, was considered by God in his decrees to be of that worth and distance above the creatures, that their very being and existing was to become absolutely and simply his propriety. He was to be absolute Lord of their being, even as God is. But thus were not man, or rnor angels of men, though as any of the sons of men, to the being of angels, superior in rank the one may serve the other ; but yet thus men and angels are fsubordinate to Christ as their end. This we have in Heb. ii., where, by this argument, the apostle proveth that that man spoken of by David, Ps. viii., could be none but the man Christ Jesus, nor any mere creature ; because he was (as set forth by David) advanced to a higher prerogative than the angels, in that God hath put all things in subjection under him, yea, under his feet (as the phrase there is) ; so, as he hath left nothing that is not put under him, ver. 8. He therefore is not only the universal end of all things (if such we could suppose any one mere creature might have been constituted by God), but he is the absolute sovereign end : so as they are under his feet, as vassals, whose whole being is from him, and

CHAP. III.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHKIST. 473 at his dispose ; of which prerogative no mere creature is capable. And even in this prerogative sense he is the universal end of all. For God hath exempted nothing from subjection to him (as the apostle there saith). Elect angels are not thus the end of elect men, nor elect men of elect angels. He hath not put into subjection to the angelshe world to come, says the same apostle in the same place, ver. 5. Christ has an absolute and entire lordship. And therefore he must needs be first in intention, and so before all things ; as of no other thing or creature it can be said.

3. Add to this, that suppose him at all decreed to be God-man, and united to a creature, it was withal his due to be ordained by God the end of all things decreed together with him. And this is and was an incom municable royalty to any mere creature, nor must be said, nor could have been true of any of them, but proper to him alone. And this makes a third priority or precedency in the endship, as also in God s decrees.

As touching this third and last head, I shall do two things further.

1. I must explain and declare the ground of it. And,

2. Shew the glory of this priority, above what any creature hath been capable of.

1. For the explanation of it.

(1.) It is true that the second person, his subsisting in a human nature, or his being God-man, dependeth wholly upon the ordination of God, and that in respect of his being second person singly considered, or in respect of that human nature that was united to him. It cannot be said to have been a natural due to the second person to be made man ; and much less was it a due to that nature of man assumed to be made one person with the Son of God.

(2.) It is also as true, that though God would have thus decreed his Son to be God-man, yet it was not necessary that God should make any creatures at all, and so not necessary that he should have ordained to make any other fellowcreatures with him besides himself. And so it was not necessary in this sense that they should have been for him as their end. But God might for ever have rested in the communicating himself unto that man, God s fellow only (and it had been a sufficient motive to him, and a fulness of satisfaction had thereby arisen unto him alone therein, to see, and behold, and enjoy the image of his own perfections in a creature united to his Son). And therein he had shewn his own greatness, and superiority above this his Christ in this ; that himself was the supreme end of him, but he actually the end of nothing else that was ordained to be made for him.

But (3.) that which I further affirm is this, that supposing God would decree him to be God-man, and to subsist in a human nature, and likewise withal would ordain multitudes of other things, angels and men together, as de facto God did, that then it becomes the necessary due of this Christ, and that as God-man, so decreed, to be set up by God in those his decrees, as the end of all those things. Yea, and further, that God should so mould and cast the whole frame of his designs, concerning his creation intended, as that all should tend to him as their end, as well as to God s own glory. So that whereas God, in that which is called his simple foreknowledge or counsel (whereby he had the view of Christ, and of all things else he did decree, afore him, before that his will did determine them to be), must needs foresee, that if he predestinated this second person to be a man, and one person with him at all, and other things together with him (and it is hard to think that he should scape his first view, of all things else), that then

474 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. this did become that man s due, and the necessary consequent of that union with God s Son, that he should be so far respected and preserved by God, in his decrees, as to have the place of a supreme end of all and every thing ; and accordingly that God should cast his decrees for Christ s glory as well as for his own ; which indeed is his own, even to honour the Son as the Father is honoured, John v. 23. Hence as we read, Heb. i. 2, that Christ is said to be appointed the heir of all things. So at the 4th verse we also read, That he was made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. In the first speech the apostle calls him the appointed heir, because that man should be assumed to that personal union and sonship, upon which this inheritance befell him, this was by a free decree and ordination of God. But yet withal the 4th verse tells us, that yet he obtained it by inherit ance. And if he were appointed heir, this was due to the very appoint ment ; and by such a right as no creature, no, not the angels, are capable of; and yet still it is founded, take him as God-man, that he is made Lord and Christ, as Peter in the Acts speaks, Acts ii. 36, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same

Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Yet so as if he be appointed God s Son, as man, at all, this is his due and his natural in heritance. And this other also follows hereupon in God s appointments and ordinations, that all things should be so cast and moulded as to be for him. For the heir is the end of the inheritance, as well as he is the lord of it ; and so must Christ be of all the creatures appointed and coordained with him ; and for him to be thus both the appointed heir and yet the natural heir (as God-man) is no more contradiction than to say of him, as man, that he was both God s natural Son, as being one person with the natural Son of God, and yet to have been predestinated unto that sonship, because he was predestinated to that union upon which this fol lowed. So that he was to be the end of all, this was a free act of God s appointment, because his being united to his Son was by a free act of his will also. And yet for him to be made the end of all things, was a natural necessary consequent of God s decreeing him unto that union. And God foresaw that this would and must be the necessary consequent of it, and yet freely ordained him to it. And therefore this and all such natural and necessary prerogatives that follow upon it, and which could not have been withheld or cut off, are yet all of them said to be by appointment.

And indeed others say the same thing. For when it is affirmed that Christ needed not have merited any glory to himself, they ground it upon this ; because, by virtue of the hypostatical union, all glory is his natural due, and a necessary consequent of it. Which surely is a truth, though it may not be made use of to exclude another title unto this his own glory, namely, that of purchase. For it is no dishonour to him to have two claims. And if it be said, that you must suppose him first to be ordained Godman, by a decree, ere this the consequent of it could become his due, and therefore, in the act of God s decreeing him, and all things with him (which decreeing him and them was done by one single and entire act) this was not looked at by God as a natural due to him.

The answer is, that by that simple foreknowlege, which is antecedent to his decrees, whereby he knows all things that his will determines afore he doth determine them, he must needs know this would and must be the consequent of his decreeing Christ to be God-man, if ever he did it ; and so he predestinating upon such a knowledge, he intended him so to be,

CHAP. HI.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 475 even in that act of decreeing him and all things, and shaped these his de crees accordingly.

2. Now, for the second thing propounded, namely, the eminency of this his priority, as thus stated, that it is such a prerogative as no mere crea ture could he capable of. Besides what hath been said and observed out of Heb. i. 4 and chap. ii. 8, it is certain it cannot be said to be the natural due of the best angels or men, that God should make them the end of any thing else decreed, or to be created together with them. It is true that God makes one creature subordinate to another as its end, intending it for the use of another. Thus 1 Cor. xi. 9, The man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man ; and so the world for both. Yet so as it was not a due that if both man and woman should be created, the woman should be for the man. For in heaven, though the sexes remain distinct, yet there the woman is no more for the man than the man for the woman. And this co-ordination one with another, God might have made in all things, and none in subordination to another, especially angels and elect men. But that the angels should serve the elect, this is merely from an ordination of his will. And he might have made this world, and man in it, and yet not have subjected this world unto man ; and many more worlds he might have made, which should not at all have subserved man, but might some other way have been for his glory, as it will be if this world should stand and continue after the day of judgment, as some have thought. So that for one creature to be decreed the end of another, was a matter of mere arbitrariness and pure liberty unto God. As there is a decree that all these things should exist and have a being, so there must be a further distinct decree appointing the one to serve the other, upon which alone this subordination doth wholly depend. So that not the existence of the things only arise from his will, but also the order of them, that this should be for this, and this for that ; the one hath no other claim or due but God s mere and arbitrary decree. But in God s decreeing

Christ, and all other things for him, the matter standeth in far different terms. For although (as was said) that he should subsist in man s nature, that depended merely upon a decree, and was in no respect his due ; but that he should be the heir, the Lord, the end of all things, is so the object of God s will and decree, as withal he may claim it (supposing an intention in God, that he will be God-man at all) as a due, and royalty, and prero gative entailed to his being decreed God s Son, by the supremest law that can come between God and his Son, which cannot be made void, or he be bereaved of that prerogative. Even as if God himself purposes to make any creature, this law naturally falls, upon his decreeing of it, that it be ordained for his own glory ; now, say I, for Christ s also. For, by the union, that man becomes the natural Son of God, and so this right is natural unto him. I will give instance to illustrate this difference between Christ and the creatures. Take any mere creature, the angels, and souls of men, and as its having a being depended simply upon an arbitrary decree of God s, so its having an everlasting being does also. God might freely have ordered the contrary, and they could no way have claimed it as a due, or a deprivement of their right ; it was no natural due that was the consequent of its being. But if God decree his Son to subsist in a human nature once, then his being ever as a man, and God for ever to dwell in him, is the natural consequent of the former ; for the union is indissoluble, he being thereby investH into the prerogatives of God s Son, whereof this * thy years fail not, whereas the creatures may change and is one,

476 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. wax old. So Heb. i. 11, 12, They shall perish, but thou remainest; and they shall wax old as doth a garment ; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

I do not, nor must not affirm, that this is not at all the object of a decree of God s. For it is certain that all his works, ad extra (whereof this is one), are such. Yea, this is one part and piece of that fulness in the text, of which, as of the rest, it is said in the due* of all, Col. i. 19, It pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell in him. And again, Ps. ii. 6, 7, I will publish the decree, I have set my King on my holy hill. His being King was the object of a decree. Yet still I add withal, that it was withal his due and inheritance.

Neither do I intend that it was a decree only, and merely in this respect to this first grace, that this man should be united to God s Son, being the object of a pure and mere arbitrariness in God to have, or not to have, decreed it ; that therefore this other dignity (that is, the natural con sequent of it) is said also to be so decreed, virtually (or as we say, volitum in causa), because that that which this wholly depended upon was the object of a decree merely free ; but I acknowledge it truly the object of a free decree of God s will, as well as the former. For he was willing and well pleased in it, and from such a will appointed him the heir, and made him Lord and Christ. Yet still say I not in that sense arbitrary, that suppos ing withal (as hath been so often said) him to be united to the Son of God, that by a contrary decree this royalty might for ever have been denied him, and the contrary determined by God.

And there is no incongruity in this, or derogation from God, that this and other the like privileges should be both his natural due, and yet the object of a decree. We say against the papists in a manner of a less alloy, that if God could make man at first with an understanding and a will, it was, by the law of creation, a necessary and natural due to that man to be created holy, and in the image of God, and not in pure naturals, as the papists dream ; and yet to give man that holiness at first, was the object of a decree over and above his being made man. But this dueness of Christ s being the end of all (if at all the Christ), is of a higher nature, though I illustrate it by that of a lesser, between the Creator and the creature. Also we know, that in Christ himself, the personal glory he hath in heaven, he holds by a double tenure, the one as God s natural Son, the other by merit ; and yet over and above it is said to be given him by his Father, as an act of his will and decrees. It is true, that for the manner or way of contrivance, how all should tend and serve to his glory, this must be granted to be merely arbitrary, and dependent on the counsels of God s will ; even as the ordering how they shall serve to his own glory is. Yet that all should be cast for Christ s glory, as for God s (though in a subordination unto God s), is a necessary natural law between the Father and the Son. And so he holds it, and not simply by arbitrement. Thus much for the second particular, that his royalty, in being the first of God s decrees, and therein to be the end of all things, is held forth in these words, First-begotten, &c., He is before all things. But concerning his priority in God s decrees, there will be occasion to speak more hereafter, in other places of this discourse.

* Qu. view? ED.

CHAPTER IV.

That by this designed union of the Son of God to this individual creature the man Jesus, and in the person of this his Son so considered, God hath and doth make the highest manifestation of his glory, and communication of himself, such as by no created ways or means else could have been attained.

And this third branch is the natural result of both, especially the first, which was, that he was the image of the invisible God ; which is spoken in respect of the manifestation of the Godhead to us, in his human nature.

Herein then, thirdly, lies the divine glory of Christ, that God s highest ends of making and ordaining any creature, being the manifestation of him self, and the communication of himself to us ; if it be manifest that by this personal union he attaineth these ends more fully than any other way, then this design must needs be acknowledged the sovereign and eldest birth, and first-born of God s thoughts, and the glory of Christ as God-man answer able hereunto.

It is true the work of redemption addeth hereunto some pieces, as the manifestation of mercy, justice ; and the story thereof giveth us a new and complete edition of God s attributes (which I have shewn at large in that treatise, The Glory of the Gospel) ; yet if the ends for which this union of God-man in the person of Christ alone serves for be considered, it will be seen that the ground-work, or the substance of that glory on which those other colours of redemption are laid, and do but superadd unto, are found in the person itself, simply considered as God-man. Yea, and the most glorious of those ends God had in the whole compass of this design of Christ s incarnation, are the immediate result of his personal union to our nature, and of us unto him. However, this much is granted on all hands, that the glory God hath by this work, and the issue of it alone, exceeds infinitely what could have arisen from any, or all of his goings forth in making mere creatures ; and this, say I, moved him above all else in his purposes to make any creature.

The eminent ends God had to move him to make all, or any creature, were two.

1. The manifestation of himself, and his glorious perfections to creatures reasonable, that they might glorify him.

2. To shew his love, and communicate his goodness unto those creatures reasonable, which he would set himself to love.

The first respecteth himself, who made all things for himself and his glory ; and therefore he resolved to manifest the glory of all his attributes unto the full.

The second respecteth the creatures, to some of which it became him, who was goodness itself, to communicate also that goodness to the highest and utmost.

1. Now take this great and most glorious design of assuming some one creature reasonable (which by his decree was man, and that man Jesus in special), into person with one of the three persons ; which lot, by his decree, * that Son of man. And take this singly and alone, without the fell on superadded project of redemption, and we shall find that both these great ends are thereby more fully accomplished (though this work of redemption added makes them more full) than could possibly have been attained by the creation of millions of worlds of mere creatures (if this should have been

478 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. supposed wanting) made to manifest God s glory and his goodness in ; although they had all been made in never so several variety, which the wis dom of God could have contrived the models of ; or never so glorious in their several varieties.

For demonstration whereof ;

First, Would God manifest himself as God, and make known those glories locked up in himself, which was the chief end of creating, as Rom. i. 20, The invisible things of him (that is, his attributes which cannot otherwise be seen or known by us, to which the words of this text agree), * from the creation of the world are clearly seen, even his eternal power and Godhead? Here is a way, this is a way, namely, to assume man s nature into personal union with his Son, puts down all ways of mere and simple creation that can be supposed. More of God s glory shall instantly shine forth in that small model, the man Christ Jesus, having the Godhead dwelling in him personally, than by God s making millions of worlds never so various, or so richly furnished with glories. For still in them, at best, would have ap peared but ra sou, the things of God, as Rom. i. 20. And the more diversified they had been, the more scatteredly and brokenly would those things of God have appeared in them, even but as footsteps, vestigia deitatis, and at best but as the dark shadow of a man in broken and scattered pieces to be picked up here and there, and set together, some resemblance or shadow of the Godhead would appear. But in the man Christ Jesus, God himself appears personally, * God manifest in the flesh, 1 Tim. iii. 16, * seen of angels, and that with so great and super-eminent a glory, that they cover their faces and fall down at it. For when the type of his personal glory, as he was to come in the manhood, was presented filling his temple, the seraphims are said to cover their faces ; Isa. vi. 13, In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. About it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings ; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of his glory. And that that prophecy and vision was spoken of him as God manifested in human nature, is evident by Christ s own applying it to him

These self, as prophetically spoken of him as to come ; John xii. 41, things said Isaiah (Christ having in the 40th verse cited the very words of his prophecy in the 10th verse of that 6th chapter), when he saw his glory, and spake of him, and so of those times when he was in the flesh, and that glory that followed. And therefore also in Heb. i. 3, when he had set him out in that glory the human nature now wears in heaven, being * the brightness, or shine of his Father s glory, his favour being as the sun, the glory of Christ, God-man, but the aKavyaff/Aa, the shine, the lustre of it; yet such as there follows, ver. 6, Let all the angels of God worship him. Thus was he seen of angels (who worshipped him), the most curious spectators that ever God made ; and he was seen too of men, John i. 14, * We saw his glory, as of the only begotten Son of God ; which appeared so transcendent in glory, as whoever saw it must needs acknowledge, This man is God, this is he. Therefore John putteth this peculiar character upon it, that it was as the glory of the only begotten Son of God. By other works you may know there is a God ; but there is that peculiar impress of majesty upon his glory, and that brightness accom panies it, that you must say when you see it, this is no other than God himself dwelling in man. It is such a glory as could not have resulted out

; AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST. 479

CHAP. IV. of millions of worlds of mere creatures, made on purpose to shew forth God s glory. And whereas the Godhead and the glory of it was invisible, as the text hath it, and locked up from the eyes of all creatures, dwelling in light inaccessible, 1 Tim. vi. 16, God dwelling personally in this man, puts forths a peculiar image of the Godhead, and makes the glory of the Godhead visible (as to the utmost it could be). God hath on purpose stamped his utmost manifestative glory on the face of Christ, that we might see it in him ; 2 Cor. iv. 6, God gives the light of the knowledge of God in the * of Jesus Christ. That as the face (or as others read it, the person) soul looks out in the face, and you see more of a man s disposition in a look, a cast of his eye, a wink, a blush there, than in all his body, so of the Godhead in Christ Jesus, which is his face. He is the brightness of his Father s glory, shining in and through a veil of flesh (whereof the shining of Moses s face was but a type and shadow) through the lantern of his humanity (if I may so compare it), so to relieve our eyes in beholding the Godhead, which no eye could otherwise have done. There is a sun behind that veil, the glory of which immediately shining, would have put out our eyes.

Now observe, how in this design God exceedingly condescended to our frailty. We are reasonable creatures clothed with senses, desirous to piy and see what we know and hear of, to have something visible, as the dis position of the people of Israel shewed ; and also appears in that speech of Moses, Exod. xxxiii. 18, Let me see thy glory. Now hereby God hath satisfied this innate curiosity that is in us. Here we may and shall see the God that goes afore us (as they desired, Exod. xxxii. 1). Here we may * That which was from the begin ning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us) ; that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that say, as the apostle did ; 1 John i. 1-3, ye also may have fellowship with us : and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

I will instance but in the manifestation of one attribute, and that is that which is mentioned in Kom. i. 20, as that which is more especially instanced in, as seen in the creation, his eternal power and Godhead. The very knitting man s nature into one person with the Son of God, was a greater work of power than God ever did besides. That God is made flesh, is a greater wonder than to have made worlds ; therefore in this conception, and work of uniting that nature, it is said, The power of God shall over shadow thee, Luke i. 35. It argues great power, to join diverse elements in one body, and then unto that body to unite a soul, and breathe a breath of life ; as when God made man, his choicest piece and workmanship, a living soul. But he did not only all this in framing Christ s human nature, the same that ours is, immediately himself, by the Holy Ghost, but further united the Son of God ; and this nature infinitely more disjoined and disproportioned each to other, than the reasonable soul and our bodies ; which he did when he made him a quickening Spirit. All the works in nature are so far short of this, that they afford not a full similitude of it. Yea, all God s works, of nature and grace, are altogether bound up in it (as the schoolmen well shew), and exceeded by it. Of all other works we may say that Deus potuit facere mms et majus, if we take but this work out of the order and chain of things, out of the system of this world. But we may

480 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III safely say that a greater work than this could not have been done by God himself. Which therefore is the amazement of angels. This one instance is but for a taste of the rest.

2. God s second end respects the creatures ; which was to shew his love unto, and communicate himself unto his creatures. Now, by this union alone (if no other design had been in it), he should have done it more than any other way.

Besides that by this happy marriage and union of both natures, God hath given the utmost pledge of his love to his whole creation, a kindness and respect is done unto them all ; not only in that he shews he loves his crea tures, so that he will assume one of that rank and sort so near him ; but further in this, that that creature so assumed was the epitome, the com pendium of them all. Man, a little world, called every creature, Mark xvi. 15. To the making of whom the poets feigned a piece of every creature to have been taken. And so, by the advancement of this nature he preferreth and advanceth at once the whole creation, and every kind or part thereof, for something common to every one is in him. There is an avctxspaXa/wflVs (as I have elsewhere shewn*), a gathering together of all things in earth and heaven ; and not of creatures reasonable only, angels and men, under his dominion as a head, but even of all creatures also in his person. He is the corner-stone of the whole creation. Yea, and God and all comes in to make one, and is gathered together in one, with all things else in him, so as God hath thereby knit all creatures to himself. And therefore Hugo brings in God, speaking of his making his Son a man, thus, Do not think that in this I aim only at the reconciliation of men ; but in him by this means the whole creation is become amiable and lovely unto me ; look ing upon it in this model or epitome.

But more especially his love is shewn hereby to man, the darling of his creation. Suppose Christ, God-man, had only been given to men as a head and husband (and they had not needed reconciliation by him), this had been infinite love ; yea, this gift had excelled, and doth excel all the benefits of redemption, if abstractly considered from this other. What would Adam have given for such a husband ? Now, ver. 18 of this Col. i., he is called, the head of this body, his church, a head more worth than all the body. But of this more by and by. I come to the second head, the communication of the goodness of the Godhead unto creatures reasonable. And for this the union of the Son of God with the man Christ Jesus serves in the highest way. Good, we know, is communicable of itself. Now God is good, and so doth good (as the psalmist speaks). He only is good, as Christ says, the chiefest good. Now, by this same law, that bonum est sui communicativum, that is, that goodness is communicative : by the same also, summum bonum est summe communicativum sui, that is, the highest good is communicative of himself the highest way. And as to communicate himself to creatures moved him to create, so he was resolved to communicate himself to the utmost, or he would never create at all ; he would never have put his hand to this work else. Now he could not have made a communication of himself the highest way but by a personal union of some person with a creature reasonable ; for all communication depends upon an union. The creature must be one with God ere it communicate of his goodness in a way of blessedness. Now therefore by this rule still, the nearer union the nearer communication. And by the same proportion, the highest communication cannot be without * In his Exposition of Eph. I., Works, vol. II. ED.

the highest union. Now that highest union alone is personal union of a creature with one who was God. So then, to attain this end, this was necessary, for the highest communication would not have been attained without it.

Now hy this union you shall see is effected the highest communication ; and that, First, To that creature, or individual man Jesus, that was assumed. And, Secondly, In that nature, to us that are united to him.

First, To that creature or nature itself : for in him thereby the fulness of the Godhead dwells personally, as some well translate that word bodily ; and so it is the highest union that may be or might have been. He was united to God, or one that is God ; not as to an object only, or as to a perficient only, as we all shall be in heaven unto God, made perfect in one, John xvii. 23, but to the Son of God, who is God, as terminus essentia, to terminate and give bounds of subsistence and personality to that human nature ; so as the human nature and the Son of God are not only one flesh, as man and wife, which is the nearest union with us ; nor one

one person (of which I have spoken spirit only, as we with Christ, but elsewhere). And hence this human nature is made God s fellow, as Zechariah calls him, Zech. xiii. 7. The man, God s fellow, is advanced to a fellowship in this society of Trinity ; and therefore to him God communi cates himself proportionally, without measure, as Christ in the Gospel of John speaks. Which was not due to any mere creature, but it was his due when first assumed ; No man hath seen God at any time, but the Son, John i. 18. None should have done it without him ; none can see God as he doth, nor is capable of it.

And, Secondly, by means of this union with, and communication unto, this one reasonable creature, there is way made for God in, and for his sake, to communicate himself unto other creatures, who are made his fellows, as he is God s fellow ; and this in a higher way than by the mere law of creation any creature could have attained. Others of the sons of men united to Christ, come to be united to God thereby, more nearly than otherwise, or any other way they should have been. For this, let me put in by the way, it was not fit, or meet, some say not possible, to have united and assumed all, or many men, to his union ; however, not meet. It was a dignity too great to be made common. It became not the great God, who is one in nature, to communicate this dignity, but unto one. And this being supposed, as for us, the Vu1<jus of those creatures, whom God meant to communicate himself unto, there was no way for their behoof like unto this, that God should take one of them up to himself, and by their union with him, and for his sake, to give forth himself to the rest. First, to marry man s nature in some one individual man in this incommunicable way, and then to marry us of the same nature unto him ; and so thereby making him first partaker of the Godhead in a transcendent way, as his natural due ; and then when once he was so united, for his sake, and in respect of our relation to him, to admit us to the nearest union, in a super natural, or super-creation way, which mere creatures are capable of, and which, but for him, he never should have vouchsafed unto us as mere crea tures by any law or covenant of our creation. And thus through this humanity, as through a sacred breast, we do, lactare deitatem (as one of the fathers speaks). And although our redemption by Christ, as we are sin ners, is an infinite benefit ; yet his person thus given us, is more worth than all those his benefits ; Est aliquid in Christo formosius salratore. And VOL. iv. H h

482 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. then by our interest in his person, we come to inherit God with him, to be heirs and coheirs with Christ, of God, in such a way communicated, as but for this his union with God first, we should never have attained.

I will give but one instance to illustrate this, as I did bring but one for the setting forth the former. Power was the attribute I pitched on, as manifested in this assumption, in the foregoing head ; and wisdom shall be the attribute I single out, to illustrate this other of God s communicating himself the highest way. And these two I instance in, because Christ is both the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Would God commu nicate and make known unto his creatures reasonable, the depths, the * riches of his knowledge and wisdom, as the apostle styles them, and com municate the treasures of them to the utmost they are communicable ? Now by means of taking up one creature reasonable, a man, into this highest union, shall this be effected the highest way that could be supposed.

First , To that creature so united ; for it is his due to know more at the first instant of that his union than all the angels blow up their understand ings, and fill them to the utmost wideness. For by virtue of that union, he is presently in his Father s bosom ; as it is peculiarly said of him, John i. 18, No man hath seen God at any time : the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. He is made there, by his place, God s privy counsellor ; the mighty counsellor, Isa. ix. 6. It is his place by inheritance, he hath right to know all God s secrets, he is God s eldest Son, his fellow, and therefore it is said, that God lays up all the treasures of knowledge in him, Col. ii. 3. Because (as it follows) the Godhead dwells bodily in him, and thereby he comes to have the Spirit above measure, and that Spirit searcheth the deep things of God. If God said of Abraham, How shall I hide from Abraham what I mean to do ? Gen. xviii. 17, much less can he keep it secret from Christ. God can hide nothing from him which he means to do ; and indeed, to know it is his due. He draws nearer to God infinitely than Moses did, or angels ever did, or shall. Moses (his type) was taken up into the mount, where God appeared, and angels up into heaven ; but Moses was not taken up into this mount, the highest place of honour, of personal union, standing upon which, this man hath a full prospect into all God s counsels and ways. See how Moses is slighted to him even in this. The law came by Moses, says John, chap. i. ver. 17, who, when he received it, was spoken to by God as never man was. God professeth he revealed himself to no prophet, as to Moses, face to face, Num. xii. 8. But what follows in John i. 17 ? Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And John gives the reason of the dif ference, No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed him, ver. 18. Moses saw God as never no man saw him. But Moses sight was no sight in com parison of Christ s. For notwithstanding he had spoken of Moses, ver. 17, yet in the next verse he dares to say, No man hath seen God at anytime, but only this Son, his eldest Son. No servant, no adopted son, ever saw God so, or shall do, or could do, but the eldest, who is in God s bosom.

Secondly, This way of communicating himself to one thus assumed into this union, was the best means to communicate his depths of wisdom to other creatures made one with him (for still remember it was not fit that any more than one should be partaker of this high privilege of personal union) ; for this man being himself thus in God s bosom, as hath been declared, is able to declare more of God to the rest of his brethren, than they otherwise should have ever known. He was first to see God, and then

He hath revealed him, says the evan reveal him to others, as John i. 18, gelist. And he is able to speak experimentally, out of sight, the deep things of God ; John iii. 11, We speak, says he, the things we have heard and seen, not at second hand, but upon personal eye-sight. And whereas others, if they would speak of the heavenly things to us, must do it under earthly similitudes ; he is able (if we were capable of it) to speak heavenly things in their own idiom. So ver. 12, to set forth his knowledge of the * If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not things he speaks, (and yet Christ had spoken afore of nothing but things heavenly, and they only are the object of faith), how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things ? It is as if he had said, I have told you but earthly things in com parison of what I could tell you ; if you were capable of them, I could speak heavenly in their own dialect. And the reason follows, ver. 13, for no man hath ascended into heaven, but he who came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. Yea further, he hath the power and skill, not by the means of words only that are heavenly (suiting heavenly things to heavenly) but to create such inward real images and rays of heavenly things, as shall manifest the very things themselves to us, in their heavenly splendour, and as the beams of the sun do let in the sight of the sun itself into our eyes.

2. Yea, and further, by means of this personal union of our nature with the Son of God, revealing and communicating the knowledge of God unto us, it comes to pass that the greatest riches of assurance is added unto that knowledge, without which our knowledge of God, and his mind, would not be so fully satisfactory, though we could have come to know never so much any other way. No way could ever have been thought of, so to ascertain our belief, as this. No way conduces to such an infallibility of revelation as this doth. If a mere creature revealed God unto us (as Moses did), it might be, at least, supposed not to be so certain as when God-man shall speak. For though the words of the prophets had a certainty in them, as Peter comparing the certainty of the Scripture with that voice he had heard from heaven, 2 Pet. i. 19, he calls it a more sure word of prophecy ; so may I say of what God-man shall speak. It is infinitely a more certain sure word, for it is as impossible that he should lie, as that God himself should. Every man may be supposed a liar, but we are sure he cannot. And the Son of God being one in person with him, if you hear him speak, there is an impossibility of being deceived, for himself is God. Therefore, Heb. i. 1, In these last days he spake by his Son, which is also again indigitated, chap. ii. ver. 2, 3, For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward : how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. And it is there brought in as a more infallible and unpa ralleled evidence of the truth of the gospel above the law, that that was given but by angels, but this gospel was first spoken by the Lord him self, who first broke up the treasures of it. And hence, one of his titles is, * Amen. God s Amen. Or, 1 the faithful witness, Rev. iii. 14. Yea, the so it is ; as that which seals up all, and puts all out of question.

484 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

CHAPTER V.

The glory which Christ, as God-man, had assigned him before the world was, in<b*is election by the Father, manifested in an explication of John xvii. 5. Whether that expression, Glorify me now with the glory which I had with ihee before the world was, be spoken of Christ, as second person in the Trinity, as God, or as God-man, appointed in God s eternal decree. In what proper sense this might be said by the man Jesus, l Glorify now me, &c. How as God-man he can be said to have had this glory with the Father before the world was, when as such he did not then exist. What glory it is that is here intended, it is a glory due to his person, God-man, distinct from, and superior to what followed, upon his performance of the work of our redemption.

And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. JOHN XVII. 5.

To clear and prove what is the scope of these words, I shall propose several queries, and the answers made thereunto will lay open the genuine mind and sense of the text. ls Query is, Under what notion or consideration Christ should be the subject of that speech, The glory which I had with thee before the world was ? Whether it be spoken of the second person, simply considered, as God (which is a great truth in itself, and which most do understand meant in this place), or whether it be spoken of Christ, considered as God-man, in God s predestination ; and so to involve the man, or human nature. There are, you see, two parts of the whole speech: 1. And now glorify me. And touching that, there need be no stick* to apply it to the human nature ; for he was a subject capable of being glorified now, as upon his ascension he was. But then how may we withal apply the other part, with the glory I had with thee before the world was, and take him in as the subject of that glory ? Yea, and if we do, it must be some way the same kind of glory, which the subject of the first part of that speech prays to be now glorified withal, with the same glory mentioned in the second part, which was before the world, and not with another. So as take which you will, whether the divine nature as second person, or the human, still the same nature must be the individual subject of the same glory, in either of those speeches. We must not think to apply the one part of the speech to the man, or the human nature only ; and then the other to the divine nature only ; this will breed a distraction, or a division in the sense. My answer to this inquiry, and my assertion is, that Christ, considered as God-man, is the subject of both ; and that as the man speaks it, so the man is involved as spoken of, and the whole person as God-man, Glorify me now, Father. Now presently, upon my ascension (says the man) in respect of entering into an open actual possession of that glory, which I the man had with thee, in the idea of this glory, in thy predestination of me, ordained unto me before the world. But of the manner, how he the man had it before the world, of this at large, and apart, in my answers to the other following queries. In the mean time, That it is the glory that belongeth to the man that he prayeth for in * That is, hesitation. ED.

these words, And now, Father, glorify me, and not simply as he is second person. This assertion I prove both negatively and affirmatively.

1. Negatively. It is not the glory of the second person, simply or alone considered, and therefore, it is the glory of him as God-man. For, (1.) That he might be glorified with that glory due to him, as second person simply, was not a thing to be prayed for, for it is naturally and essentially his due.

(2.) As to that glory, he might as well have formed his prayer thus, Glorify thou me with the glory I now have with thee, and not in this manner.

And now, Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with thee from everlasting. For that divine glory of him, which is essential to him as second person, he had it as much now at the time he prayed, as he had it from everlasting, and all one.

(3.) That word, Now glorify me, necessarily implies a suspension of a glory due before, and that could not be of his glory, simply as second per son. Also, that now argues a glory to be given in time, in such a manner as not afore ; and what is done in time, concerns the human nature, not the divine.

2. Positively. The subject of the glory prayed for is the man. Austin was so far convinced of this, that though he were engaged against the Arians as much as any in his time, and all the fathers afore him had urged this place to prove the divine nature of Christ as second person, his existence from eternity, yet betook himself to this, that it was spoken of him as man, and so interpreted, The glory which I had, to be meant, which I had by predestination, and in that sense with thee. Now, that it is the man, or rather the person of God-man in union together, is the subject prayed for, is evident. Because, (1.) It is the petition of the person who had been, and as he had been humbled, who had glorified God on earth, and had finished his work, and waited for this glory until now. As therefore the apostle says, the same that ascended, first descended ; so I may say here, the same person who was now presently to die, and was crucified the same day, was the same, who was the subject, the person prayeth to be thus glorified, when he shall have done his work. For, (2.) It is a glory suspended until this his work were done. And there fore, Now, Father (says he), glorify me, &c., answers unto that which is in Luke xxiv. 26, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ? Of which afterwards.

(3.) He prays for that glory wherein in heaven (when glorified) he should appear visibly in his human nature, and which in the 24th verse he prays his saints might see and behold ; and which in the same verse had been given him out of love before the world was ; which cannot be meant of that of the divine nature, as second person simply, for that is as invisible as God the Father is ; and was not by gift but by generation communicated to him.

All these things cannot be the voice of him simply as second person. Fix upon it therefore, that it is the glory of the man, or rather God-man, prayed for.

%d Query is, In what fair and genuine sense can it be said by the man

Jesus, Glorify me with the glory I had with thee before the world was ? My answer and second assertion is, that it was the glory which the second person, being in God s sir ^ular predestination of him constituted God-man, had in and by the same predestination given him, as the glory of the only

486 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEE, [BOOK III. begotten Son of God, as his due in the perfect and exquisite idea thereof, then given him, and pre-ordained unto him.

Unto me this hath appeared as the plainest and fullest interpretation ; and that which answers all difficulties, and carries the interpretation through, is, that the word

I had relates to the glory which he had in his singular and supereminent predestination, which was the sense Austin gave long since. And there is that which favours this interpretation in the aspect and corre spondency which the 22d and 24th verses that follow in this prayer hold, and do mutually cast upon these words of ver. 5, and these words upon them ; serving to expound each other of them.

The glory thou gavest me, I have them ; so in ver. 22, and then put to them ver. 24, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me ; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. Where, God s loving him afore the foundation of the world, is a phrase all one with his having predesti nated him out of love (as I shewed afore). And by * the glory which thou gavest me, ver. 22, is above all other meant, that personal glory of and flowing from the personal union, which was by predestination given him as God-man ; by virtue of which, first given him, it is and was that he gives us a derived or secondary participation of glory out of it ; a portion of glory and privilege like to this of his, wholly flowing from it, and conformed to it ; yet not the same hypostatical union or personal glory which Christ himself hath, which the 24th verse shews. For our glory (as there) ariseth to us, but through our beholding that his so supereminent glory ; by which he manifestly declares how it is that the glory given him, he gave to them : and that their glory was to be differenced from what was personally his own, and proper to himself ; his scope being to shew the dependency that their glory hath on his ; and withal, how that his was first given him, in pre destination, by the Father ; and that then he gave a glory unto them as concurring with his Father in that gift. And it is not to shew at all that our glory is, for the rank of it, the same with his. No ; for our glory he gives us is to arise from our beholding his personal; glory, and so is but a second-hand derived glory ; God having first, and with a primary and chief intendment, estated Christ absolutely, singly, independently, in his personal glory, and in his predestination of him, God-man, gave him that original as the grand lease of all creature glory. Therefore he is called the Lord of glory, 1 Cor. ii. 8. And Christ being endowed therewith, did as freely give forth to those whom God had given him (as their several portions) under leases. Which glory of ours may yet in this general respect be said to be the same, in that it is supernatural, wholly above what by the law of creation or the covenant of works, which from Adam we had derived ; and which, though never so much advanced, we should have attained unto. For this is a glory the second Adam bequeathed us, like unto what himself had, which was wholly supernatural. So then, bring all these together, * The glory I had afore the world, down to the 22d, first the 5th verse, * The glory thou gavest me, I have given them ; those whom thou gavest me, says ver. 24 ; and I will, that they behold that my glory ; and then, the close of all, in that 24th verse, For thou lovedst me afore the world was, as the spring of all ; and this connection of all these will amount to this, that, first, in God s predestination of him afore the world, it was that he gave him this glory spoken of, ver. 5 ; and, secondly, that that glory was first and absolutely given him by the Father, and then ours by himself concurring with the Father, who loved us as he loved

CHAP. V.] AJsD HIS SON JESUS CHKIST. 487

Christ, ver. 22, which two are the sum and substance of what I am to prove.

This thus proved, as meant of predestination, my interpretation of ver. 5 * Glorify me with the glory I had with thee afore the world was proceeds

1. With the glory. Thou hadst the idea, the portraiture of me, when I was among all those other models and schemes of worlds, and varieties of creatures thou hadst in thy view, and which thou couldst have ordained to make, whenas yet thou didst not. I in the hue and array of God-man, simply as such considered, came up afore thee, and outshined each and all of those creatable glories of mere creatures thy power was able to make ; and I took thy heart above all those curious pictures or images in the power of thy art whatever, and outshined them all, as not worthy to be thought of or looked at with me or my glory ; that is, above all and afore all thy will and good pleasure did here set the fiat of thy desire, and of thy first desire; for being satisfied, in the morning, with the image of thyself in me, thou saidst, This I purpose to be my fellow, and my sole delight ; which no other of mere creatures, or all, could ever have been.

2. Glorify me now with the glory which in decreeing of me to be God-man, thou hadst in thy heart, in thy designs and purposes to bestow ; and didst then, and by this decree, actually endow me with, as the natural inherit ance, propriety, and proper due and concernment to that person thou should ordain God-man, and one person with thy Son. This I now beg of thee to be now possessed of.

3. With the very same glory, according to the exact draught of it, that was in thy divine understanding, and will, and purposes about me. And he therefore says, with the glory now, which I then had ; that is, in the model, the idea, exactly answering one the other. There are two parts of the petition (as was said), Glorify me now, the first ; with the glory I had, that is the second. And these two must prove to be, in a true respect, one and the same glory.

* the glory which I

And if any (as many do) will urge, that this latter, had, can be understood of no other but of Christ s divine nature, or of the second person simply considered; then, that other part, Glorify me now, will recoil and check them as to that opinion. For it must be truly some way the same glory. And though it be true that the divine nature, or the second person, he might alone say,*I had a glory with thee afore the world was, namely, the essential glory of the Godhead ; yet he might not say, Glorify me now with that glory; for that essential glory was neither to be prayed for, nor was it ever laid aside or interrupted, as it was enjoyed by him with God. No. And again, on the other hand, for the man to say, Glorify me now with the glory I had with thee, and mean the essential glory of the Godhead, that is as incongruous as the other. So as, take both parts of the petition in conjunction together, and as to belong to but one subject, either the man alone, or the second person) alone, and they will never suit, either in a uniform way or sameness of glory. You can no more apply them both to the divine nature than you can to the human. And yet it is plainly insinuated to be one and the same glory. This will never be unriddled (at least not so fairly) any other way than by this of predestination, viz., that look what glory in God s ultimate purposes and transactions with his Son, was foreordained and designed him as God-man (and as such he was th" subject of God s decrees as well as we, as many scriptures declare), and so it is exactly one and the same glory ; which is

488 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. the gloss that Austin long since gave of the words, Clarifica me, sicut tune, ita et nunc: sicut tune prcedestinatione, ita et nunc perfectione : fac in mundo, quod apud te jam fuerat ante mundum ; fac in suo tempore quod ante omnia tempora statuisti, &c. Glorify me as then, so now ; as then in predestina tion, so now in the perfect performance of it ; do that in this its due time, which thou hadst appointed and decreed afore all times. Now whatever God predestinates, persons, or things concerning persons, he hath the idea thereof, and of all that appertains thereto, in his divine mind. For, known unto God are all his works from the beginning ; and therefore had, yea, much more had, of this very glory of God-man, the full and lively por traiture of his understanding and purpose ; yea, we may say, that even that glory, this divine person, God-man, hath now in heaven (when it was that this his prayer had its accomplishment), is no other glory, either for kind or degree, than was in the heart and mind of God, laid up with God for him; as in Job the phrase is, many such things are with him; Job xxiii. 14, For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me ; and many such things are with him. Yea, of all the saints it may be said, when they are glorified in heaven, it is but with that same glory and no other, for measure and the like, than was in the heart of God decreed towards them from everlasting. And so they differ, as the pattern which was so long afore formed, and the piece that is framed to it. As when king Ahasuerus said, Let it be done, so and so, to the man whom the king will honour, Est. vi. 9. Which when Haman had once sperformed, might be said, that he had been honoured with the same honour in all the circumstances of it, which the king in his heart had contrived to be given him. And so it is here ; for predestination is but preparatio beneficiorum, a shaping, a forming of all those benefits of grace and glory that shall be bestowed in time upon every one that is elect ; and so it was in Christ.

3d Query. How is the man, or he as God-man, said to have had this glory with the Father before the world was, when as such he existed not ?

Ans. By reason that the second person then existed, and all along from everlasting upon his election thereunto, took on him that personage of Godman, and bore the title of it with God his Father ; thereby it comes to * the glory which I had with thee ; which no saint or angel else can say of the glory given them by pre destination. pass, that it may be said by the man Jesus, For that a mere act of God s ordaining him God-man in his own breast and intention, singly and alone] considered, should be an adequate full ground for Christ to say, that I as man, or as God-man, had a glory with thee afore the world was, when I, this man, was not extant, as now I am who challenge it, cannot be alone sufficient.* For the elect saints (who were predestinated as well as Christ) might then also say, We had a glory with thee afore the world was ; but this they must not, nor can say, for the very sound of it is such, as signifies that the person that had that glory, and that says it, should have been then with God, and to have been glori fied by God with that glory he speaks of.

Now the elect of men, neither of themselves existed then with God, nor no part of them, no not their souls. They may say indeed, that by virtue of their predestination, grace and glory was given them afore the world was, * Nee enim habuisset gloriam nisi ipse prius fuisset qui gloriam posset tenere. Nemo enim habere aliquid poterit nisi ipse ante fuerit qui aliquid tenet. Tertul. de

Trin. c. 24.

CHAP. V.j AND HIS SON JESUS CHKIST. 489

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. But for them as 2 Tim. i. 9, to say, the glory which I had with thee afore the world was ; this their pre destination, or God s single mere act of predestinating them, will not war rant them to say. Nor doth the Scripture anywhere so speak of the saints their predestination ; no such language is anywhere used of them. Besides that, it were to derogate from Christ, who alone is capacitated (for the grounds that shall be added) thus to speak.

Moreover, their election, and the grace given them thereby, hath this difference from Christ s election, that they are said to be chosen in Christ, Eph. i. 4, and that grace given them from everlasting is said to be given in Christ, in 2 Tim. i. 9. But Christ himself was chosen immediately in and for himself, which enabled him to say, the glory which I had with thee afore the world, which none of them could say; yea, and for him to say it, and to have intended no more than what he had of glory in and by God s mere act of purpose and predeterminating him unto it, had been to say no more than the world itself might say, or might be said of it, that it had a being (namely, in God s purpose) afore its creation and actual existence. For whatsoever the world now is, it was in God s naked decree and pur pose, afore itself was, as well as Christ himself.

Hence, then, there must be some extraordinary special thing found in Christ s predestination, which must give ground to this speech, and fill up the whole intendment of it. And therefore I added, to this second assertion, a second part of it, that the second person, the Son, did, at and together, and upon God s act of predestinating him to be God-man (and upon him did God s predestination fall as well as on the man Jesus), take on him the real title and repute of God-man, and sustained and bore the personage of God-man afore his Father. And his Father actually gave him the glory of it, as a superadded glory to that of his being second person, and his Son simply con sidered. And this having been aforehand done, upon the account of, and respect unto, his being to be that man one day ; hence, the man Jesus being now existing and united into one person with that Son of God, was * Glorify me with the glory I had with thee afore the world was : the person he was now become, having been glorified in that very account, as God-man, by his Father from everlasting. justly and rightly enabled and capacitated to claim and pray, This condition of the person God-man, upon whom this election fell, hath not enough been considered. That whilst such a bare act of election light ing upon us, would not have been such an expression, but been deficient, yet in the case of Christ, as hath been now stated, it would : and with these additionals it is abundantly verified, and holds good. But we must consider that there was not only a predestination-act on the Father s part, that passed upon Christ to be God-man in common with God predestinating us ; but that there accompanied it, at the instant, on the second person s part, an acceptance of what God had predestinated him unto, a sustaining of that person afore God ever after, and a glory given him all along by his Father in their converses, answering that dignity, which utterly varies the case from that of our predestination by a single act of God s. And because God s predestinating him to be God-man hath singly been considered by many, when that interpretation hath been given of the words, that they are to be understood of what was in God s first predestinating of Christ ; and

490 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, (BOOK III. that, as it is a bare act on God s part, falling short, they therefore have wholly rejected that interpretation ; whereas, supply to it what was also done at and upon God s predestinating, on Christ s part, and God s glori fying him as such for ever after, and so the solution riseth (in my poor conception) to a satisfaction of the difficulties that are otherwise incumbent on the words.

This new supplement of so grand a moment in this argument I shall draw forth into sundry particulars, which the reader may please to add unto those of predestination already foregone. For that must still stand, though these be also taken in unto it, to make the interpretation more full.

1. The Son of God, second person, was extant and with God, at the instant when he was chosen to this glory of being God-man ; there he was, the person, which we were not at our election. This I need not insist upon. And hence,

2. The glory of it was immediately given to himself, at the very instant of that act of predestinating him to it. It needed not be given him in another, or to another for him : he was there to accept it and receive it ; whereas the glory we were to have was given us in Christ, when nothing of us existed, and so long afore we existed ; and was therefore given us in Christ, because he was present by, and could receive it for us (as he did) ; and therefore might much more receive any glory or honour which the Father, by such an act of election, should ordain him unto, as, de facto, he did him to this of God-man.

But you will urge, that still the man, that was ordained to this glory, existed not, but in a bare decree.

Consider therefore, 3. That the second person that existed, and was now chosen to be God-man, had the title of being God-man ; and so the glory due to it, upon that election of him to it, really conferred upon him ; and so as from thence he was no longer to be considered, merely and ab stractly, as second person alone, but was thereupon afore God and with God, and in his repute and esteem, accounted of as God-man. Take a man that is elected to an office, whom thereupon you call now elect, besides what he is and hath as a man singly considered, he hath now the honour of his office, though he be not installed. Thus a man chosen and designed a general, hath the honour and title of his designment, long afore he goes into the field. Now this much more really was the second person s case, as to this new additional glory.

4. He not only knew what he was ordained to, but solemnly accepted it afore his Father, and concurred in assent and consent thereto, and under took to be so as his Father had appointed ; Heb. x. 5, A body hast thou prepared me. The second person deferred not, stayed not accepting it upon the first act of God s choosing him, until the time should come that he was to become God-man, by being made flesh ; but he accepted it in stantly, without any more ado. And so he was absolutely and solemnly espoused by his own consent afore his Father, unto that individual nature of man, whom his Father had by that act of predestination designed and proposed to him to be. And hence the title of it must needs come on him. He took on him the title, the honour, and glory, from that very instant of eternity. He was thenceforward God-man contracted, although the mar riage was to be after consummated, when the Word took flesh. He had the title of God-man elect, though not of God-man united, or made flesh. He bore the personage of God-man (mark that word) personam yerebat, the garb, the port of it, although as yet the Son of God had not took up into his

person that man he was contracted unto. I say, he bore the title and repute of it, and went under that name with God, the name of God-man, even as he did, of everlasting Father, or a Father of us from everlasting, Isa. ix. 6. There is the like reason for either ; for he had that title of everlasting Father, but because from everlasting he afore God took upon him that relation to us as his children, and so to be of the same nature with us ; as the apostle argues in Heb. ii. 10, 11, 14, For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one : for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. The second person singly considered hath not the style of Father, for that is the first person s propriety, only considered simply as a person.

Again, if all the promises God hath made in his word were from everlast ing made, and then extant afore God, as you read, Titus i. 2, they were ; In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began ; then Christ, considered as God-man, to whom, as such, all the promises were made, and in whom, as such supposed, they have their truth, foundation, and existence, their Yea and Amen ; he then (I say) must much more have borne (being then present with God) that title of Godman. And without his being considered as such, and his having accepted to be such, those promises had had no existence or reality, nor would it have been so, that all our grace and glory was given us in Christ afore the world was, as it is said 2 Tim. i. 9, Was not then that title of being Christ and God-man then given them ? Without the consideration of which, wo had not, nor could be considered as legatees, to whom that grace was be queathed. Yes, it was a title familiarly used of him amongst the Three, from thenceforward for ever.

This title was in itself truly a glory, though but an additional, given the second person then existing ; and though the man, or the human nature was not existent, yet the glory of his being one day man was then existent, and the person was existent that was capable of receiving even that glory at that present.

[1.] It was a glory, for the thing in itself was truly a matter of glory, though but an additament to him ; and being given by a person of glory, his Father, the fountain of glory, it must be truly such.

[2.J Though but an additional glory, for his native essential glory, as God, needed it not, as to his own blessedness or glory ; as we see God doth not need that glory we creatures give him, and yet it is a real glory to him, and a glorifying of him, that which creatures give him.

[3.] Though the man existed not, yet the glory existed ; for the second person existed to receive it from his Father, who existed together with him ; and might, and did, aforehand give it to him, upon his own ordination of him to be man, and the second person, his undertaking to become man ; and so, was given through that relation contracted for ^forehand unto that man. So as whoever considers it, will find himself to be utterly in a mis take, if he should thus conceive of it, that Christ only had the glory of his being God, and second person, afore and with his Father ; and that God began first actually to honour his Son as God-man, only from the time he actually took flesh, and became man. For if there be a real glory ariseth

492 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. to him now he hath assumed man s nature, for which and by reason whereof he is by us deservedly to be glorified and adored as God-man ; or if that be a glory to him now he is in heaven, that he is God-man, which he visibly wears there afore his Father, and all the saints ; then it must be acknowledged (having been given him by his Father, in his decree, and undertaken by himself), that it was a glory also, as then really extant be tween himself and his Father. At the time after he had assumed our nature, and was actually become man, then his Father should and did openly declare and congratulate him as his Son, in saying from heaven, Mat. iii. 17, And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; it is added, that he gave him glory and honour, as is expressed in 2 Peter i. 17, For he received from God the Father, honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Then why may it not also be said, that when in God s everlasting decree, God had said the same to him as expressly, Ps. ii. 7, I will declare the decree, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ; why should not this be as well a giving glory to him from everlasting, though but upon, and in his decree, which was from everlasting ? Upon the making of his decree for that glory, this was said, Thou art my Son, &c. And the psalmist professeth but to publish the matter of that decree, and to produce the record, and set it down by way of prophecy. If then the declaring the same by God himself afterward, when he was made flesh, and become man, were an honour given him by his Father, then surely, at the making of that decree it was the like; and therefore he had that glory with the Father before the world was.

That there might be a glory given the Son from everlasting, is clear from this, that there was the highest and freest mutual converse held between the three persons amongst themselves from everlasting, when no creature was, and in that converse they drove and carried on designs of what was to come, and gave the glory to one another, of what each of them was, or should be, or do, in their several activities, to all eternity. They spake one to the * A body hast thou prepared me. And the Father to the Son, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee. And this latter was from everlasting, in other, and one of another, as Heb. x., the Son said to the Father, * I will declare the decreeing of it, spoken to him ; for the words afore are, the decree, whereof that speech therefore was the matter. Likewise there were mutual engagements and promises passed between them, Titus i. 2, eternal life was promised afore the world began. And there must be an intercourse of persons promising, and that received and accepted the pro mise. And in like manner in their converses they glorified one another ; John xv. 16, The Spirit shall glorify me, says Christ. He says it indeed of his glorifying Christ to us ; but if he doth it to us, much more among themselves.

And truly the phrase here, which I had with thee

1 (which now only re mains to be expounded in the fulness of the extent of the meaning it will reach unto), is very compliant with this notion ; for which I had with thee, imports not only a presence, or being with God in existence.

As, 1, John i. 1, the Word is said to be God, and with God.

Or, 2, the intimacy of an alike glory to that of the Father s, enjoyed by the Son together with the Father.

But, 3, it denotes the repute or esteem which Christ had with him ; so that the glory I had with thee is the honour and valuation I then held in thy heart of me.

We use the same phrase in our language, and it is current in all lan guages ; a person who is honoured by another, we use to say of him, he is in esteem, repute, or favour with him. And so it is not necessarily here to be wholly confined to signify his essential glory, which he had together with his Father, and enjoyed, as if that were only meant ; but will well comport with this reputative glory cast on him by election of his being God-man.

And the Scripture speaks parallel unto this in point of grace, that is now borne to us by God, or to any elect of God ; and it is all one to say, such a one hath grace with God, and to say they have glory and honour with God. Now, of the blessed virgin, the angel accosts her with this, Luke

Thou hast found favour with God, or art in great grace with God ; that is, in God s estimation and repute. Grace in his heart borne to thee, which might have been said of her, even from everlasting ; when it was i. 30, that God did single her forth to be the mother of the Lord, it may be said, she had that grace with God then, which otherwise is commonly ex pressed by a finding favour in his eyes. Maldonate takes hold of the word, as often importing esteem and renown (though he diverts it to another pur pose). I may say of Christ, God-man, that he was of renown with God, and that he was, as God-man, in repute and esteem, such upon his elec tion of him. This may justly be termed a glory, when thus it was in God and with God, for God s repute and esteem is glory ; for God is the God of glory, the Father of glory, and glory comes only of God ; John v. 44, * How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that corneth from God only ? His esteem is the valuation of glory, which is in the sight of God of great price, is really so, 1 Pet. iii. 4. And, thus understood, Christ prays to have that glory which in the person of the second he had then with God in his repute and valuation. And if you put had unto it, yet still the phrase, had with thee, will not rise up to denote that he had it in real possession then with God. A man is said to have a thing in a right unto it given him, though not yet enjoyed, as Heb. x. 35, we are said to have treasure in heaven, when yet we enjoy it not. Glorify me with thine own self (there is an actual possession prayed for), with the glory I had with thee, in thy esteem, account, and design. A title of glory and excellency given by a person that is the true fountain of glory, what is this but really and truly a glory to the person to whom it is given ?

4th Query. Our next query is, What kind of glory is it that is properly intended in this 5th verse ?

This is a matter of great moment to be inquired into, as will in the sequel appear. For the discovery whereof, First, Divines* have observed, though not upon the occasion of these words, that there is a double glory of Christ, and that considered as Godman.

1. Persona simpliciter, Of his person simply, considered as God-man (abs tracting from his being a mediator for us).

2. Offi-cii, Of his office of mediatorship ; which latter was superadded, over and above, unto the glory of his person, as God-man, and consists purely in what he is in relation unto God his Father ; whereas that glory of mediator ariseth from his relation unto us, and for us, and from what he did or wrought for us as sinners, influenceth us with, in the virtue of * See GOIWITUS, torn. iii. p. 74> 75.

494 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. that other personal glory, in being an head to us. And indeed Christ hath a threefold glory.

The first essential, the same with God his Father, he the Son being co equal to him, God of God, and very God.

The second, belonging to his person, as now constituted God-man, to break forth in and upon the man assumed, as being one person with the Son, who is God essentially.

Thirdly, The glory of his mediatorship acquired by himself. The two latter are those afore us.

The first of the latter, the glory of his person, simply considered, is ex pressed in that speech, John i. 14, We beheld his glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, which was merely the glory which brake forth in his person ; for otherwise the glory of his office, as being mediator, as dying and rising again, &c., was the glory of his person. And they saw not, nor considered not then, the glory of him, as dying, &c., for they un derstood it not till after he was risen ; as in Luke xxiv. 45, 46, Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. This double glory you may see, Heb. i. 3, * Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, &c.

1. The glory of his person simply, as God-man, is in these words, Who being the brightness of his Father s glory, and the express image of his person. c When he had by himself, or by the sacrifice of himself, purged away our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

2. The glory of his office as mediator, in these words, Which latter clause declareth, how he being originally, in his person as God-man, the brightness of his Father s person, &c., after his work per formed on earth, to purge sins away, he went to heaven, and took posses sion of a glory answerable to that dignity of his person, which was to sit down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, and therein to perform what was to be executed by him in heaven, in intercession, &c. Which, if it be not just the same in substance and order with what is here in these four verses prayed for, I leave to be considered, he here praying, that now he had finished his work on earth, that now God would glorify him in heaven with that glory which was due to his person, who was * the bright ness of his Father s glory, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, so taking his place according to the dignity of his person speci fied ; which glory, as he was predestinated unto in his person before the world, so he was appointed by election, as the heir, Lord, and end of all things. And although his mediatory glory in heaven is involved in his sitting at God s right hand, which he doth as a priest to intercede, yet it is the possession of that personal glory which he was appointed unto, that is, the substantial glory there spoken of, and intended, and which the weight is put upon.

Now, Christ himself, within the compass of these five verses, doth, ac cording to this difference of glories, frame his prayer about himself. For, you may observe how he prays twice for his own being glorified ; first, in ver. 1,2, Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he might give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And here a second time, ver. 5, And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which

CHAP. V.J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 495

I had with thee before the world was. Now, besides that he would not have used such a repetition of the same thing in so punctual and concise a prayer, within the compass of so few verses, and which is all he prays for, as for himself; besides this, the distinction of a twofold glorifying is evident from hence, that that glorifying him in ver. 1 relates to the per formance of his office of mediatorship, which he says lay in this, to give eternal life to as many as God had given him ; and the meaning of his * glorify me, that I may glorify thee, in ver. 1, is, that in that work first of suffering, which now he was entering into, God would gloriously assist him, and enable him to go through with it, according to the commission, authority, and power God had given him (for in that sense power, in ver. 2, must necessarily be understood), Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee : as thou hast given him power over all flesh, to this end, that he might give eternal life, &c. All this properly relates unto this work and office of mediatorship. And that particle, As thou hast given him power, imports, that in a proportion requisite unto that work and office, which he was empowered and authorised withal, he would give him a measure of glorious strength answerable or worthy of that office, and fully enabling him to perform it and throughly to execute it ; and then to glorify him as a re ward for that work when he should have finished it, ver. 4, I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. But the measure of this second

Glorify me, in ver. 5, is the glory of God himself, and what it became God to glorify such an one with as was his Son ; and to be taken up into the glory of God. It was not upon the account of what he had done in this world, as in relation unto us and our eternal life, but what simply arose from the union and communion which he had, and was to have entirely with his Father, singly and alone ; Glorify thou me with thine own self: and so, which was to arise from that oneness with his Father, and which he had had with him afore this world ; or, the consideration of any such thing, anything done in it, or persons belonging to it ; and which he and his Father had alone ; and such as would have been if there were no world, nor had been extant ; and so it was without relation unto his work done, or persons in this world whom eternal life should be given unto.

If it be objected that the coherence of ver. 4, 5, I have glorified thee on the earth, &c., ver. 4; And now, Father, glorify thou me, ver. 5, would seem to carry it, that he should ask this second glory, for this, as the ground or cause, that he had done such a work of mediation on earth, I answer, No ; that is a mistake. But that coherence with this ver. 5 notes out that now for the time of it, that full time was come he should be glorified. That whereas he now had, according to his own or his Father s

finished the work which God gave him to do ; and which also that word compact, performed all, and * finished respects, namely, the time, the due time, to be now come, that therefore now glorify me, with a glory upon a far higher account due. It was to shew that until this now of finishing this work of redemption, that glory otherwise due was suspended. And it is as if he had said, Now give me my native original due upon thy mere decree, and constituting me God-man, and not at all depending upon my merit or work ; but give me my personal due, which had been suspended till now, but which now is due ; when I shall have performed that work thou didst command and impose upon me ; which finished, now bestow that other upon me. Here was ingenuity to the height, not to ask his native due, nor speak a word of it, till he had performed his imposed ser-

496 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. vice God had set him. And with this doth that of Christ himself, Luke xxiv. 26, most fully accord ; Ought not Christ to have suffered, and enter into his glory ? His glory, not upon account of sufferings only due to him, but his before ever he suffered, which was absolutely and personally his upon another account, but which he was not (by God s ordination and his own consent) to enter into, but after sufferings first, to enter upon it and possess it. And the parallel of these two places is observable. 1. That, as there he says, He ought (first) to suffer ; so here, Now I have finished that work.

2. To enter into glory, there ; Glorify me with that glory, here. 3. Into his glory, there ; The glory which I had afore, and without the consideration of this work, here. And that word, * Enter into his glory, imports, he then took possession, and not afore, as man ; and yet in right it was his, and sufferings were but the way to it ; it was not purchased by sufferings. This his glory was an intrinsecal glory, not additional. Divers interpreters* have perceived that the glory of his person, of Godman, or, as they term it, his intrinsecal glory, is the subject of this Glorify me, in ver. 5. But they have not withal observed it with difference from that other glory prayed for, ver. 2. Only Brugensis had a glimmering of it in his exposition on ver. 1, though he seems to have lost it again after wards. His words are these. He deduces two things (says he) why he should be glorified: one, that he is the Redeemer of mankind and Saviour of men, ver. 2, 8. The other, that he is the eternal Son of God, ver.

5. f Thus distinguished he, and but in a light touch. The differences between these two glories, personal and mediatory, are many and great ones. I take notice of the grand one of all, and it is in the text. There is a phrase which doth in the highest manner describe wherein this personal glory, the very essence of it, doth consist, * Glorify me with thine own self. This so momentous a clause is diverted, to note only the place wherein he would be glorified, Glorify me with thyself in heaven, where thou art, as spoken in opposition unto I have glorified thee on earth. Others thus, I seek not worldly glory, but glory with thyself; all which do dilate} the spirit and life of this phrase. But our Cartwright and Gerard do interpret it of God s glorifying him in, and with, and by the glory God himself had, and with that glory alone, abstracted from all other things whatsoever. Christ praying for that wherein the spirit, the essen tial substance of his glory and blessedness lieth, even in thine own self; Father, glorify me with thine own self. Not only signifying his desire to be glorified conjunctly, both together, he as well as the Father ; that is, that as God the Father had hitherto been glorified, so that now himself, that had been hitherto debased, might now be glorified also, according as * That all men might honour the Son, as they honour the in John v. 23, Father. But these are short of Christ s desires and aims here, who seeks the utmost of glory.

But it further notes, 1. That glory which the human nature hath in God, and from God, and him alone. This both that parallel place confirms, John xiii. 32, If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in * See Toilet on ver. 5. f QuamoLrem glorificari mereatur, et quod in eo sit gloria dignum, duo exprimit, unum quod sit Kedemptor humani generis, et hominum Salvator, ver. 2, 3, alterum quod sit seternus Dei Films. J That is, dilute. ED. Notat gloriam quam petit surnmam et singularem, nempe earn quse est Dei.

Carturight, in verba.

himself, and shall straightway glorify him. It is one and the same glory he prayed for there and here ; and expressed by the same phrase. Only then, the time when he prayed that, of his being glorified, was further off, though straightway ; perhaps within a few months or days. So it was when that sermon was made. But here, because the time was approached, and the straif/hticays run out ; he therefore here says, * Now glorify me ; but it is one and the same glorifying. And in the 13th chapter it is God s glory, * Glorify me with thine own self; the former phrase explaining this other. In Rom. xv. 7, it is said that Christ received us to the glory of God, that is, to the participation of that Glorify him in himself; but here it is, glory which is to be had in the blessed God alone, whereof himself was personally and originally the proprietor and inheritor, and we co-heirs with * heirs of God, Rom. viii. 17, he communicating it unto us by his

Christ,

And the right, according as he says after in his prayer, John xvii. 22, glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one. Who was it first brought up seeing and enjoying God im mediately ? Christ the Son of God, he was the founder of that way of blessedness. There are two Psalms made up of Christ, the 16th and the 22d. The first Peter cites, Acts ii., and so applies it unto him, as not meant of David, but of Christ. The other, which is the story of his being * My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? &c. This latter, after the sad rehearsal of his crucifixion, tells us of the fruit and crucified, beginning, consequence of that his mediation, when performed, as to himself, so to his whole seed, from ver. 22 to the end. And this was the glory that fol lowed (as Peter speaks, 1 Pet. i. 11), the glory of his mediation. But that other 16th Psalm runs in another strain, and comforts himself with another manner of glory, which should accrue to himself, as ver. 5, The Lord is my portion and inheritance. And it is the enjoyment of this God alone, after his ascension, he predicates as his highest happiness, ver. 11, Thou wilt shew me the path of life : in thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. And this high enjoyment of God he brought up. None had or should have seen God at any time, had not he first done it. And this is the single glory of his person, as Godman, which he prays for here in these words.

And look, as in the former verses he had set out wherein our eternal life lies, namely, to know God, and him whom he had sent ; so in this verse, he describes wherein his own eternal life lies (I call it so, for of him now in heaven it is said, in that he lives, he lives to God ). And it lies in God ; Glorify me with thine own self. But his mediatorial glory, arising from his works of mediation, as redemption and intercession, is a glory he hath afore God, and in his view, and which God gives him ; but it ariseth from his mediatory action, as the salvation of his saints, as 2 Thess. i. 10. But this of his person is a glory he hath in God, and with God alone, in the enjoyment of all that God is. As if he should have said, Father, let the glory which is thine be mine. Make me glorious with the glory thy self hast ; with a glory from thee, and with a glory in thee. Nor is it the manifestation of his glory only unto others (as some would have it) he prays for, and in that sense to be glorified as his Father was. It is a thing beyond it, a glory severed from that of manifestation ; for this is but outward, but this is an inward intrinsecal glory of his person, enjoyed in God and with God, and such as God had, and which he should to himself enjoy, and within himself; a glory in and between God and him, consisting in that intimate entire converse with God, and a free enjoyment of all the sweetVOL. iv. i i

498 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. nesses, perfections of the Godhead, upon an account of personal right to them, and interest in them as his own, by virtue of his union. And he is therefore said to come in his own glory, and his Father s glory, Luke ix. 26. That though it should shine in him and throughout him, yet inwardly much more.

2. You may observe, he specifies it to be that glory he had with his Father when there was no world ; that if you could suppose there were no world, no creature extant, saint nor angel, yet let me be glorified (says he) with thine own self personally, and then I shall be glorious indeed. For that glory I had with thee afore the world was, was without any work of mediation done, or creature made. And let me have but that glory, and I have enough. And so this is not that which his mediation brought him in, or that which consisted therein.

It is true (says he), I have a glory from all these saints that are about me, and I am glorified in them, as 2 Thess. i. 10, you have it, and they in me ; and it is my blood and intercession hath brought them hither.

Yea, and they are glorified by beholding my glory. But what is all this in comparison of this alone, for me to be glorified with thee and in thee alone ? This is the height of my desires and prayers ; and this glory is my per sonal due, and hath been suspended to purchase an additional glory by my mediation. Yea, but this is the glory I aspire after, and have in mine eye above all other ; and let us retire into each other, and enjoy it alone to gether ; and therefore, glorify me with thine own self. Draw the curtains, as it were, upon all glories else, whether of mine or from all others I am glorified in, that thou and I may singly and separately enjoy each other.

Other lesser differences there are between this personal and mediatorial glory, which might be added. As,

1. The glory of his person is his birthright as Son of God ; Heb. i. 4, * Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance ob tained a more excellent name than they. The glory that rises from his mediation and the works thereof, is but acquired, accessory, and additional, won, and won by conquest. He got by his bow, as Jacob speaks, Gen. xlviii. 22.

If you would ask, which of these two glories belonging to God-man are the greatest ? Your own thoughts, I believe, have by this time cast and determined, that this of his personal glory doth infinitely exceed that of his mediatory glory, or of his office, whether as head to us or redeemer, al though there was none in heaven or in earth that could have sustained these but he. For, (1.) That is the glory of the very Godhead, dwelling personally in him, breaking forth in, and shining through his human nature ; as if the sun being encompassed with a case of crystal, how glorious would that crystal be ! A glory such as is only worthy to appear in him that is one person with God. This is the greatest and highest glory, as well as mystery, God manifested in the flesh, seen of angels, taken up into glory. For this, 1 let all the angels worship him (as Heb. i. 6, when he brings his firstbegotten into the world the second time) ; merely for the excellency of his person and name, which by inheritance he hath obtained above them ; and not for redemption of them, which is not there spoken of as of them.

(2.) It was the excellency and intrinsic glory of his person, from whence those divinely-human acts of his mediation did flow, and receive their value and virtue therefrom ; his blood, because it is the blood of God-man, and so of the rest.

CHAP. V.I AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 499 (3.) It is the glory of his person as God-man united ; that is, that glory which after the work of redemption for us, and the application of it to us finished (as after the day of judgment it will be), when he shall have given up his dispensatory kingdom to his Father ; then it is he eminently appears in his own personal single glory (as I may call it) for ever. I term it his single personal glory which he will sit in heaven with. You must know, if you have not known it, that his type, the high priest, went into the holy of holies, striped of all his gaudy robes ; you see him pictured merely in single plain priest s garments of linen. And it typifies this out, that Christ s personal glory is that with which in the holy of holies he shall most eminently, and above all others, appear for ever in, and sit down in it. And there he sits, shall the saints say, appearing in the form of God ; and so he is the utmost visible image of God to us, and was he that furthermore did that great office and service to God and love to us, to bring us all who are here about him, out of the depth of sin and misery hither to this place with him, and purchased a]l the glory we shall ever have. And this personal glory is that glory, the beholding of which the blessedness of the saints doth lie in ; it is to behold his person. For as he prays for it here for himself, John xvii. 5, Glorify me in and with thine own self; so he prays for them whom God hath given him, that they may be where he is (personally resident), that they might behold my glory ; ver. 24, Father, I will, that they also whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me. And it is the glory of * seeing him as he is, that is the height of our happiness; 1 John iii. 1, 2, As he is. Mark it ; that is, what his very person is, beyond and besides all that he hath done, or by his person hath acted or procured. This is the glory the his person is above all there meant ; for as elsewhere, it is apostles so adored, as the highest evidence and efflux of his being the Son of God. All the evangelists record the story of his appearance on the mount. The apostle John, he cries out in a parenthesis of wonderment, John i. 14, And we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, though shining in him but in the days of his flesh. And Peter, he magnifies and exalts it above all things else he had to say of him, or could allege in testimony for his being the Christ, and Son of God ; we saw his person in glory ; 2 Pet. i. 16-18, We were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. And this glory his Father then gave him from forth of the super-excelling glory of his own, now breaking forth in him and upon him as an aforehand demon stration and specimen of what he was to wear in heaven ; where it is the excelling excellency of his glory there spoken of doth appear. And it is plain it was his personal glory that Peter hath reference unto ; and he in terprets what is meant by the glory personal, which Christ in his prayer says, John xvii. 22, that God gave him ; And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them : that he might give us the like, namely, by merely beholding him, and that his glory, ver. 24. And to conclude it from the text, it is this glory, by the course of his prayer, he aspires at as the top and highest of his glorv. For you may observe that he ascends in those his first requests made for himself. He begins to ask a being glorified in

500 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III respect of his office ; both for to perform his work, and that after, and for the performance of it, to have the reward promised him for it, peculiar and proper to it, which was to be known and acknowledged the mediator, and that had the power to give eternal life to them that believe. And so, that glory was for us, and our salvation, ordained him, as the words shew.

Well, but he soars up unto a glory that is purely his own, and for him self alone. He flies up to the very top-pinnacle, the supreme sublimity of the divinest glory, the utmost he could ask, and that for himself; and en forces it from the highest argument, the glory which I had with thee afore the world was. And so ends his prayer for himself; for he had said the utmost. And therefore this is the crown of all.

CHAPTER VI.

The exposition of some other passages in John xvii., that God, having first predestinated Christ to be God-man, this moved him to elect us, to complete his glory. The first motive was, that as he was to be an head, there might not be wanting to him a perfect body to participate with him in the enjoy ment of rhis blessedness. How tlie marriage of Adam in paradise was a type of the relation between Christ and the elect his spouse, designed before the consideration of the fall. The second motive was, that a glory addi tional to Christ s personal glory, might accrue to him as God-man, from their being elected. The third motive was drawn from the interest and part which Christ, predestinated God-man, had, together with his Father, in electing them; John xvii. 22, And the glory which tlwu gavest me, I have given them] that they may be one, even as we are one? The meaning of the words explained by answers to some queries. What that glory is which the Father had given to Christ. What that glory is which Christ there upon assigns as his own gift to us. When wan the time of giving this glory to him. and to us. The fourth motive is, what Christ represents to Jiis

Father, viz., the glory which the accomplishment of this design will bring to himself and to his Father, when the union and glory of the saints shall thereby be perfected at the last day of the world.

Having thus opened the fifth verse, which sets out the glory of Christ as God-man, given him in his election by the Father ; which was and is the proper interest of his person, as he was chosen to be God-man, simply con sidered ; I come next unto those special motives built thereon, made on our behalf, and as those which moved God, or which God had an eye unto in his choice or election of us ; with a respect unto Christ as first ordained for himself.

Calvin well observes concerning Christ s praying in this chapter, that he being entered into the very inwards of heaven, had afore his eyes the secret and hidden counsels of God, and prays at the rate thereof, and urgeth his Father therewith ; and as I understand it (submitting it), he utters in the passages I have selected, the very order of God s counsels about us, and the motives drawn from his own and his Son s interest, as it stood in God s electing ; first, of Christ, then of us. The passages are in ver. 6, I have manifested thy name to the men thou gavest me out of the world : thine they were, and tlwu gavest them me.

Verse 10, And I am glorified in them. Verse 22, * And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them.

CHAP. VI.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST

Verse 24, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me may be where I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me. And my general method in opening each of these, as to this my purpose, shall be this.

First, To explain the words of each of these verses in their order.

Secondly, To shew wherein the force of the motives drawn from Christ s interest in our election, contained in those several passages, doth lie ; whereby he moved his Father, that according to his own eternal purposes made in Christ concerning us, in his choice of us, he would grant that union (which is the end of our election) ordained for us.

Unto the first I premise, and desire this still to be remembered and carried along, that all those passages, and the motives therein contained, do in a more especial manner refer unto, and depend on that personal glory of Christ, spoken of upon that fifth verse (which hath been opened), first laid and supposed as the head and foundation of them all ; as the top-link whereon these succeeding passages I have singled out, do, as so many links of a golden chain, hang, and in an orderly way depend ; namely, that upon the glory of the personal union of Christ, God-man, first ordained by God (which therefore in the fifth verse, Christ in praying for himself had forelaid) ; and from which (as first supposed) these principal motives, made on our behalf for our union and glory, receive their strength and enforcement, as or dained us in the election of us, with a relation to and for the interest of Christ.

And perhaps, that in the very opening and explanation of the words of each of these passages, there will appear couched, this very point of Christ s having been first ordained as God-man. And I shall for the present con tent myself with those ; or at least it will be seen how fairly they comply with the notion thereof (and herein I profess a modesty). However, the opening the words, each in that plain sense and genuine meaning of them (as it presents itself in that dim light I have about them), will serve unto the discovery, wherein the force of them, as they are motives, should lie.

Verse 6, Thine they were, and thou gavest them me. Here in order, next unto the personal glory ordained to Christ in God s decrees, is his mention of an election of other persons of mankind (Christ instancing in the apostles for the rest) to be followers, companions, consorts of his ; that Christ might not be alone, nor partaker of his glory wholly and only to himself ; when the Father gave unto the second person, as he was considered God-man, and as he sustained the personage of God-man, and whom he commended unto him to be his, and this from everlasting. When one hath a son that is marriageable, he thinks of a wife, a companion for him ; and thus the Father did for his Son, and chose the persons whom, and gave them him.

1. Thine; thine by thy election of them for me out of the rest of the * The foundation world. With which that in 2 Tim. ii. 19 corresponds, of the Lord, that is laid in election, remains sure ; the Lord knows who are his. They were his by his foreknowledge of them ; Rom. xi. 2, people whom he foreknew. Thine first, without me when considered as God-man, though as second person he concurred in the choice of them, as also the Holy Spirit. Only the Father, being the first person, proposed them to the other two, as persons with him simply considered ; and there fore, the Father here in Christ s address bears the honour of it; Thine, and thou gavest them me.

2. They were, which is spoken in distinction from what is again repeated in ver. 9, * Them whor thou hast given me ; for they are thine. He urgeth there, that at present they are thine ; here, in the time past they

502 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. were thine. This time past notes out from everlasting ; for then first it was that he chose them for his. And in this prayer, ver. 23, Thou lovedst them, as thou lovedst me. And among other as or liknesses, the point of time when God thus loved them, as he did him, is one (though him in order first) ; which he specifies, ver. 24, Thou lovedst me from the foundation of the world ; and so as me, from everlasting, so them.

3. And thou gavest them me. This some would limit unto their having been called ; and so, this act to have been that in time, when the Father gives those to Christ to apprehend and own, and whom he draws to Christ by calling. But the great and first giving of them to Christ, is an everlast ing act, as well as choosing of them ; and indeed, a distinct act from elec tion itself (considered as barely election), though at election, and concurrent with it. Thus in John vi. 37, * All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Coming to Christ there is vocation, and that speech shews that there is a foregoing act of giving to Christ by God the Father, which is the * shall come to me. And if afore calling, I ask, when that act of giving them should first commence ? Sure, God that loved both them, to make them his own, and him so from everlasting, would not defer giving of them to him until after so long a space, as from eternity unto their vocation is ; but, having his Son then extant and present with him, and privy to all his intentions, and the commending and bestowing them upon him being so great a gift, next cause of their coming ; and their coming, posterior to it to that of his own personal glory, he surely did it from the first, and as soon as the thing was capable to be done, and this was from everlasting, in those transactions between the Father and the Son, there being nothing to hinder it then, no more than afterwards.

And indeed, this their being given to him being twice repeated in this * I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou ver. 6, First, gavest me out of the world : then secondly, again, thine they were, and thou gavest them me ; if we allow the first to import vocation in time, we may well put the second unto election afore all time. And this latter to be the account given by Christ, and an ascension unto the original cause, why they were given him at and by vocation ; ver. 12, Thine they were (long afore in thy everlasting love and election of them), and thou gavest them me ; and from everlasting also, which he after expresseth, ver. 23, Thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me ; and me thou lovedst afore the foundation of the world, ver. 24. Where also their being given to Christ is joined with Christ s election. Gavest them me ; for what end and purpose ? To be his, in his relation to them, as they were the Father s in his : * They are thine ; and mine are thine, and thine are mine. And his relation to them, and theirs to him, we find in Scripture to be as members to a head, fellow-members, of spouse unto a husband, and brethren to an elder brother, of the same nature with them ; of father, and they his children ; in and by those relations they are his.

Gavest them me. If this giving them to be his was from everlasting, the question then will come, under what consideration the me comes under, 1 Given them me. Whether when they were given to him, and as second person, simply considered, or as constituted God-man also. I said at first, a father seeks and gives a spouse to his son when marriageable. The second person, simply considered, is not in potentid maxima of marriage with us, but in a remote capacity ; unless you suppose him set up God-man, he bears no relation to us. The wife is bone of his bone, who is the husband, which signified Christ and his church.

And if it be said, that we were given unto him, but with this as an afterproposal, that he might become man for us, and then to marry us for our sakes onty, that, I say, is not signified at all by being given to him, but the contrary rather. For, in that sense it would rather have been said, that he was given to them, as both in the Old Testament, and when incar nate, To us a Son is born, to us a Son is given, which we all acknow ledge. And in the New, God gave his Son for us. But when a thing is said to be given as a gift to another (as here we to Christ), it imports the favour shewn to him to whom it is given, and therefore this giving these persons (which was the first giving that passed), signifies they were given to him for his sake, as a singular gift and favour to him. It remains there fore, that they were given as meet companions, children, spouses unto him, already ordained, and set up as God-man, to be an everlasting father, and by like reason, an everlasting husband to them, (they are both of the same nature in God s decree, and his own undertaking). And being thus quali fied and fitted to own them as such, it was therefore that he took them to be his, under these relations, as being now, and by this ordination of God s, become a meet husband, father, head, unto them. And to what end were they then given him, but that they should be owned by him, and received by him, to be his under those relations, as well as they were the Father s in his relation ?

And truly, this is no other than what was prefigured and fore -signified, at and by the very first creation of man, when the execution of God s pur poses did first begin ; and therein his everlasting purposes about Christ and his church were to be veiled under the type and shadow of the first man Adam, both in his formation and marriage, which was, as soon as there was any such subject capable to bear the type of Christ and of his church. His first formation God himself declared to have been according to his own image, which, as I anciently understood it, was according to the original pattern of human nature, first set up in Christ s ordination to be man, as, in the idea of God s eternal decrees, he was the first born of every creature. And then, as for his marriage with Eve his wife, formed out of him, those divines that stand for Christ s having been primarily ordained, use to allege it for one proof thereof,- that that speech of his, Bone of my bone, &c. ; and * for this cause a man shall cleave to his wife, Gen. ii. 23, 24, * Robertus Bodius, late Professor successively in three universities, setting forth the parallels of that mystery of Christ, and of that first marriage of Adam. Sobrie, nee extra Scripturse cancellas evagando: Primum, ut Deus non bonum judicavit Adamum, quern in generis humani principem, principiumque condiderat, solum permanere, et adjutorii sibi convenientis expertem. Ita etiam noluit Christum Jesum, quern vitsd et salutis agyov, quern electorum omnium caput et columen, ab seterno statuerat, solum permanere et citra ecclesiam, s~a.se illius gloriso et beatitatis consortem. Quinimo sicut Adamus ipse, licet in se perfectus, tamen absque hac vitse suss socia et compare se quodammodo mancum adhuc sentit et imperfectum ; sic etiam Jesus Christus, etsi gloria, dignitate, majestate, et omnium in 8umma perfectione coronatur ; tanta ecclesiam suarn charitate dignatur, ut hanc sibi in corpus et complementum adsciscat ; et absque hujus consortio, se quodammodo mancum et imperfectum existimet. Ne magis illam suain gloriam et beatitatem solus in seternum obtinere velit et possidere, quam caput aliquod sine corpore et membris sibi subjectis perpetuo remanere. Thus he, in Eph. c. 5, p. 835, columna secunda. And again, p. 833, Sicut nou aliunde quam ex ipso Adamo facta est uxor, ipsique in adjumentum tradita : ita non aliunde quam ex ipso Christo initium sumpsit ecclesia ; quippe qui consilio ac destinatione divina primus omnium portus est, et fundamentum illud Return ac prastiosum, cui totum ecclesife pedincium superstrueretur. Moses hoc fortasse respiciens emphatica ilia JEdificandi voce utitur, &c.

504 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. was intended by God (though Adam understood it not, as Caiaphas did not his prophecy), of our Christ and his church ; and so of that intended union of Christ and his church ; though in execution brought about after the fall, yet in intention, first decreed without the consideration had of the fall, it being uttered by him in his pure and innocent condition afore he fell. But this now I insist not on largely to explain, having done it elsewhere. That which I here allege it for is, that look as Adam (his type herein) was first, that thus Christ was first, in God s intention, absolutely ordained to be God-man. And that therefore, because he should not be alone, God had given and predestinated his church to be a spouse to him ; and from ever lasting brought her, and presented her (as who was to be made out of him) as a gift, infinitely more valuable than all the world besides, which God had made for him. And God put her into Christ s heart and bosom, and then Christ took her as given him by his Father to be his, and to cleave to her alone for ever, and to communicate his own glory unto her, in her designed proportion. And that Adam and his marriage was in this very thing thus the type of Christ and his church, in their union and conjunction, the ap plication of the apostle of Adam s speech thereunto manifestly shews, in * For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. And how Adam was alone and first made, the story in Genesis tells you ; and the Eph. v. 30, 31, apostle elsewhere, 1 Cor. xi. 8, For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.

Verse 10. And I am glorified in them. It is from his own interest in us, as he is God-man, he pleads ; and his plea is, that besides his single personal glory ordained him (ver. 5), and his interest in us then, by the Father s having given us to him (ver. 6), there was designed therewith a glory that should accrue out of them to him, besides that which was personally his due ; God s end in giving them to him being, that Christ might be glorified in them, and their union with God effected by him, which union is that he centres in, in the conclusion of the llth verse, that they may be one, as we are one ; which in plain words is, that in giving them me, Father, thou aimedst at, and didst ordain withal, a glory to me in them, and them for my glory. And those words, and I am glorified in them, have in their coherence this import in them, that not thou only, Father, art glorified in them, but I also, I as well as thou. I have a joint-stock of glory by thy decree running along with thine, in them, and to be had out of them, even as thou hast. He had said just afore, * All mine are thine, and thine are mine ; all things (as I opened it), as well as all persons. All things are in common, his as well as his Father s ; and so the persons of these were his, in that highest proportion of interest and propriety, as well as his Father s ; and a glory to accrue therefore from these, according to that proportion, is my due also, as well as the Father s ; and is as if he had said, I, Father, have, according to thine own decree, accepted them for mine ; now therefore perform that design of thine, which, together with thy gift of them, thou ordainedst them unto, and them to me, which was and is my glory. Yea, and therein lay the greatness and excellency of the gift of them (as to me), that my glory was to be a sovereign end of them, to gether with thine. And this the parallel of the former type will also warrant. Of the woman it is said, she is the glory of the man, 1 Cor. xi. 7. And to be his glory in this respect among others, that he had so noble a creature as the woman on purpose made for him ; even as of us it

CHAP. VI. J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 505 is said, We are the glory of Christ, 2 Cor. viii. 23. But more expressly in ver. 9 of chap, xi.,*

Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man ; there is the type. Now that Christ is the man, the husband and head of his church, and she the spouse, Eph. v. 23 informs us, For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Saviour of the body.

It is undeniable, but that Christ s speech, John v. 23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him carries this with it, that by God s ordinance, the Son hath a joint-stock with his Father, in the dispensation of all things ; and so of the glory that shall arise from thence. And that it was spoken of him considered as God-man, or of the Son of God personally united unto that man Jesus, the coherence of that speech in ver. 22 afore, and ver. 27 after, do manifestly shew. For in ver. 22, he, declaring what sovereign honour it was which he shared in, he

The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son. And then, in says, ver. 27, he farther explains himself, how it is to be understood of him ; The Father hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man, and therefore as such considered, is that spoken of him, ver. 23. And accordingly the Lamb (which is Christ God-man) hath a joint tribute and revenue of glory given him with the Father, Kev. v. 12, 13, * Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, honour, glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

Yea, I say further, that this glory of his, being a sovereign paramount end (though under his Father), becomes a right and just due to him as God-man, when constituted so to be ; and that the saints and all creatures should, in their several ways and proportions, serve unto his glory as well as to the Father s. For, by the same ground that other royalties, which are so divine and godlike, become an undeniable due to him, as that, because his person is the only begotten Son of God, that therefore he should have a divine personal glory, answerable to the fulness of the God head, dwelling bodily or personally in him, as John i. 18 shews, so this 01 a supreme endship, in like manner with the Father ; the latter must be no more denied him than the other.

They object, The glory of Christ, as God-man, is but a creature. I reply, 1. The very glory of God which is given him by us creatures, and ariseth out of all creatures (which we term his manifestative, not essential, glory), is but a creature in itself; and yet, because the terminus, or person it belongs or redounds unto, is God, therefore we say of it, that it is the glory of God ; in that respect it is so supreme, as it may not be given unto another, that is, not to creatures.

2. Christ s glory, as God-man, is but a creature, yet it redounds to the glory of him, that is, God, who is one person with a creature, and thereupon shining in that creature. And it is a divine glory, and you are to esteem and adore it as the glory of the only begotten Son of God. You may see this in a parallel case to it. Take Christ s obedience and sufferings, and they are but creatures materially considered ; yet in relation to the person that is the subject of them, whose they are (though performed but in the * Of 1 Cor. Ed.

506 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEK, [BOOK III.

righteous ness of God ; so here, the glory that appertains and belongs to this person is a glory belonging unto God, and is not to be levelled with the glory of human nature), and they are said to be the blood of God, and endship, belonging unto any the most glorious creatures, or all creatures.

You will again say, this glory of Christ as God-man was given him (as in this prayer he acknowledged) by an act of voluntary predestination, as well as ours, and what is to us voluntarily given, might in the first rearing of it up and ordination, be disposed of as arbitrarily, and so for other ends ; as, namely, for us and our salvation.

I answer, 1st, it was a mere arbitrary act in God to ordain his Son to be God-man, and he might have chosen whether he would predestinate him or not to such a glory. It is true also, it was purely voluntary in God, whether he would have ordained any others with him, or any other thing besides him ; and if any other persons with him, whether to have made him their head, only preserving them from sinning, or withal a re deemer from sin upon the fall. But still, if he would so ordain him, it must be an ordination worthy of him that is his Son ; and let that be what soever God pleaseth, yet still, that whatever must be ordained unto his glory as well as to the Father s, he must be the sovereign end of all, as well as his Father ; this falls to him as his right. Heb. i. 2, it is said, he was the appointed heir of all things, which must be meant of him as God-man ; and, for him to be God-man, depended upon appointment ; yet being ap

being made so much pointed, he is said to have it by inheritance, ver. 4, better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they ; and so by a natural right, because he is a Son, for so it follows, ver. 5, For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ? So as indeed, in the appointing him to be God-man, he necessarily constituted him the heir of all things, which he should otherwise, or besides him, predestinate. For it was the natural right of the person so ordained, and could not be denied him ; nor the glory of it in the execution be suspended, but with his own consent, and that suspension but for a time.

And, 2dly, furthermore, God knew what he did, whilst he was predesti nating of him, and foresaw that this right must be the natural concomi tant of his being God-man. And God, in his single knowledge of vision (as we call it), had the draught and model of all, in his divine understanding and view, ere ever his will did set his fiat, or purpose, to anything that was decreed. And among others of his infinitely vast designs, he had the in tuition of Christ as God-man, as one great One, yea, and of all other so eminent, as that, if his will would decree him at all, this high endship (I have spoken of) of all things was to be his right, and a necessary concurrent and consequent of such his being predestinated. And therefore, certainly, the divine counsel of his will did, from the first, cast and contrive all things else he did or should decree, in such a manner as to be for his Christ and his glory ; as well as God did contrive all should be for his own glory, as he is God ; and both with one and the same act from the first. So that, let men say what they in their vanity imagine of Christ as God-man, his being decreed afore the decree of the fall or after, they must all yet ac knowledge this for a fixed centre and conclusion, that God aforehand, fore seeing him and all things in the ideas of his simple intelligence, did form all for him as their supreme end ; then whenever his will decreed him, if indeed we could suppose that the idea of Christ, God-man, had been out of his eye, and the view of his foreknowledge or simple intelligence, we might

CHAP. VLJ AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 507 then have only supposed many things or all things might have been ordained, and Christ not as yet ordained, and Christ himself to have been decreed for them, and not them for him at first. But it could not be so here in Christ s case. For, seeing God foresaw that whenever he was decreed, it is he must be decreed the end of them all, and heir of them all, therefore he was first thought of and decreed ; for so the end necessarily is to be. If therefore, when he is to be predestinated, he is to be predestinated this end of all things, then it must be that he is first predestinated.

Yea, we say further, that when our all-wise, great, and sovereign God did set himself to ordain anything at all, he did contrive and frame his ordi nation about them, such as might tend to Christ s glory and his own ; and had the like respect and eye unto the concernments of his Christ, as Godman, in his, as he had to his own concernments, as God.

The third particular motive is drawn from Christ s interest, having been first set up as God-man in God s election. John xvii. 22, And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them : that they may be one, even as we are one.

First, For the exposition, then, wherein the force of the plea lies. Here he further pleads that they were not only ordained for the glory of him, as in ver. 10, but that he himself being ordained God-man in predes tination, he had as God-man joined with the Father as the free donor and ordainer of them unto that glory and perfect union, as well as his Father.

Or, if you will, in our familiar language, our glory was a deed of gift, and his hand was to that deed of gift, which was to make over glory unto us, as well as his Father s. Our glory was his free deed of gift, as it was the Father s. And, therefore, he must needs be deeply interested to claim it for us of his Father, and hath from thence an undeniable plea to move him to grant it ; and so the story and series of election designs of Christ and us, begun at the 5th verse, runs fairly into the 22d verse. In this order,

1. God the Father, in predestination, gave him that personal glory of being God-man, which the second person condescending to take on him, he bore it afore his Father as God-man, afore the world was, this ver. 5 ; then, 2, his Father did withal give him his elect to be his, ver. 6, &c. ; and, 3, did also ordain and subordinate them for Christ s glory, as the end of them, as well as his own, ver. 10. And now, 4, in this 22d verse, God having given him that high and sovereign glory, singly for himself alone, and given it absolutely, without terms and conditions, to him (as the nature of a gift, especially of that gift, to such a person, required), he thus set up and constituted in this glory of God-man, he was not only the requisite means, or medium to convey a glory to us, but he was by the privilege and prerogative hereof empowered to convey it by way of gift, and to make a deed of gift of the like glory and union to us. And so, as unless in that manner he did make it over to us, and set his hand to it, and signed it, as a concurrent giver of it with his Father, we had never had it. And I, says he, gave unto those my Father had given me, out of love to my Father, who had loved both them and me, portions forth, to each of them, out of that glory he had given me. And I did give it as freely to them, as my Father had freely given mine unto me, to the end that I and they may be one, and live for ever together, ver. 24, that so their glory and union with me and my Father may be perfected, by their beholding that personal glory so peculiarly proper to me, given me by my Father. Every tittle of this may be evinced fro the aspect and correspondency this 22d verse holds with ver. 5, together with the immediate connection of the following

508 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

23d and 24th verses. And, indeed, these 22d, 23d, and 24th verses do continue the sum of all the former put together, as the conclusion of his prayer for the whole church, the rest being for the apostles.

This being the sum, I shall open and prove the particulars therein con tained, either by answers to certain queries, or several plain and simple assertions, and both founded upon the words.

I. Query. First, What is meant here by that glory which the Father had given to Christ ?

Answer. First, negatively. 1. It is not that essential glory abstractly considered as his second per son, without the supposed union of the manhood, in that manner as hath been explained. I will not only urge for this, that it is said to be a gift given him ; for his essential glory of the second person abstractly considered was by natural generation communicated to him ; but a gift is what is merely out of will and goodwill bestowed. But this argument for it would be alone sufficient, that he plainly speaks this speech of himself as a mediator or head of union to us, as ver. 22, 23 shew. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Now he, as the second person simply con sidered, is not the means of union of us with the Father, but it is,the divine nature united to the human nature (as the loadstone set in the steel), which has the virtue of drawing us into union with himself and his Father; which he therefore prayeth for upon it for us ; having said first, the glory which thou hast given me, as that glory which he gave unto us, upon the glory given to him. And so he is considered here in this speech as medium unionis ; Thou in me, and I in them, that they may be made perfect in one.

2. It is not meant here of the glory of his mediation, his mediatory glory, as we call it ; that also is proper to himself, and incommunicable to us ; and of it cannot be said, that the glory God gave him, he hath given us. We are not constituted by him redeemers of, or mediators for, or heads of union to other saints, as he is to us : then we should be givers of glory one to another. And then all saints (and of all saints he speaks here) should all be heads and mediators ; and so there should be no body. Secondly, affirmatively. It is eminently and singularly meant of the glory we have been speaking of; namely, of his being God-man, in one person, and the glory that flows from thence, as it is and was designed to shine forth in him in heaven, as the immediate consequent of that union. And this was a gift indeed, a gift to purpose, greater than all gifts, as all divines acknowledge the grace and glory in his personal union to have been.

I know that many interpreters extend it unto all whatever, that is any where or in other respects said to be the glory of Christ ; as that his work ing miracles, which is called his glory, John ii. 11, This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory ; and his disciples believed on him ; his giving to him his Spirit, which was to him without measure. So in giving grace and holiness, which is called* glory, 2 Cor. iii. 18, But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. And many such like ; by which they go about to shew the scope of Christ s petition to be, that he would give them the like glory, in these particulars, which his Father had given him ; and so indeed, that all the glory the Father had given him, in all the par-

ticulars of it, he doth give sprinklings thereof to us. But this extended interpretation (though in respect of the things themselves it be a truth), yet as applied to this place, produceth from this suggestion, that he should speak of that glory which in this life is possessed by us, and given us in order unto eternal life ; of which more anon. And, doting upon this to be Christ s main and sole scope, that to make the saints one among themselves is the intendment of the next words, that they may be one in us ; whereas it is the high and ultimate union which is perfected betwixt us, and Christ, and God, as I have shewn. And whereas in the words after it is the ultimate glory in heaven, and the perfection of us by that union, that is intended. And therefore answerably, the glory given Christ here is his prime and ultimate glory, which was his personal union with the Son of God, that is, the gift that is intended. Gerard, after he had enumerated all such particular glories forementioned given to Christ, whereof some he admits, yet at last, when he had considered all, and attentively viewed the scope of the words, pitcheth upon this, that the glory of the Son of God, who is God united to man in one person, and the glory that flows there from, is the glory here intended ; and that as the fountain of our union, and* * also doth interpret it ; and he so of our utmost glory. And so Brugensis tells the genealogy of it thus : The Son of God, the second person, being one by essence with the Father, to him he united the man Jesus by personal union ; and of him as such I interpret that of the 5th of John, ver. 26, ( For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. And that person, as now become God-man, when united to us, we thereby become partakers of his divine nature ; and so to have the divine nature to dwell in us first : as he by his union hath the divine nature of the Godhead to dwell in him.

And others do in effect run upon the same interpreting, that the gloiy given him was to be his Son ; and the glory given us by him is to be sons unto God with him ; and we believing on his name, he gives us power by charter or grant

to be the sons of God, John i. 12. Also our sonship is derived by our union or marriage with him, as being the natural Son of God ; and his marriage of us is his taking us to be his. And so the glory of sonship which we have is by free gift ; for it was free for him to many, and it was to be done by his consent. And it was by the personal union that God bestowed on the man Jesus the glory of being his Son ; That holy thing, saith he, shall be called the Son of God, Luke i. 85. And his being the Son of God is the highest glory of Christ ; and more than all, even the foundation of all. Thus, if we consider him as second person

Haoc beatissima unio inter Patrem et Filium, itemque inter divinam et humanam naturam in Christo, origo est et fons spirituals illius unitatis quam Christus (hoc loco) credentibus precatur : (And we must consider that our union is the thing prayed for) quia per Christum, propter Christum, in Christo fiuut filii Dei et divine natunc participes, 2 Pet. i. 4. And again, more largely upon the same place, he sets it forth thus : Quia Christus secundum humanam naturam est unum nobiscum, secuudum divinam naturam unum cum Patre, et quia assumptse naturae humante per unionem personalem datum est esse unum hypostaticum cuni Filio Dei, qui cum Patre est unum per essentise unitatem ; inde nobis hoec felicitas contingit, ut per Christum Deo uniti etiam Deo uniri possumus: atque ed respicit Christus quando dicit gloriam illam unitatis quam credentibus dedit, se a Patre prius accepisse: ut enim Pater dedit Filio per aeternam generationem ut haberet vitam in seipso, Johan. v. 26, ita quoquo per seternam illam generationem dedit Filio esse unum per essentise unitatem cum Patre : juxta humanam naturam dedit esse unum personale cum divina natura, quam Xoyog communem habuit cum Patre.

510 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. simply, he is the Son of God by natural generation: if we consider him as man, he is the Son of God by personal union unto the second person. If we consider ourselves, it is by adoption, by marriage with him who is the natural Son, that we become sons unto God.

And besides what the weight of these things, reipsd, or in the thing itself, have in them ; let us but look about us, what glory it is he speaks of before and after in this his prayer. We find it thrice spoken of : first, in ver. 5 ; secondly, in this 22d ver. ; thirdly, in ver. 24. And let us view the aspect and correspondency which these three verses have and hold one with another ; and let us commensurately expound each of them.

1. Let any one attentively read the 5th verse, And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are, before the world was. Then this 22d verse, one. Surely the glory which he said, I had with thee before the world was, there is the same which, and upon occasion of which, he utters, the glory which thou gavest me, here, and refers to it. Now I have shewn, that the glory of his person, as he is God-man, is meant the glory of which the second person then existing took upon him, God having predestinated him thereunto, and wore it afore his Father. He took on him that person, and correspondently the connection of ver. 22 and ver. 5 is filled up thus : Thou having given me that glory of the personal union, and predestinated me to it as proper and peculiar to my person, I being constituted such by thee, do freely concur with thee to give the like union and glory pro suo modulo (as Brugensis s word is), to be imparted to them.

2. Let us then look backward, and compare this 22d verse with ver. 24, that follows. There, saith he, that they may behold the glory which thou hast given me. This certainly is the same glory that is meant here, ver. 22. For he goeth on to prosecute the same argument, speaks ad idem ; and there shews the way how that glory should be actually communicated to them, and they have it in possession ; which glory here in the 22d verse, he saith, he had given them by way of right and donation. And the way to possess it, according to the intent of his giving, is set out to be by their beholding his glory, in ver. 24. Now what glory of his is that ? It is the glory of his person, that of God dwelling in human nature, the beams whereof break forth there ; and that is his substantial or personal glory, as he is God-man. And that is it which his disciples saw, John i. 18, as of the person of him who was the only-begotten Son of God ; it was the immediate breaking forth and emanation of the hypostatical union. And so when he wrought miracles, which is called his glory, John ii. 11, This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him ; his miracles were the immediate demon stration that he was the Son of God, dwelling in the human nature per sonally, as himself argues, throughout that Gospel, against the Jews.

3. Again, the same glory in the 5th verse and in the 24th verse is meant. For of that in the 5th verse he saith, it was the glory he had before the world was ; and in this 24th verse correspondently, the glory which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. Which again he adds, as the foundation of the gift of that glory which he means, even his love before the world was. So then, it is, the same glory in all three places ; which is his personal glory, as he is Godman, and his union unto that one person, and the immediate consequence thereof, and to be manifested in his very person.

II. Query. What that glory is which is given us thereupon ? Ans. It is the participation of our sonship-union with him, in our degree and proportion, which we have from him, and the glory that flows from him by reason of this, as it shall in the perfection of it break forth in heaven in us.

This is the glory which Christ hath given us. We know that our sonship and adoption is called glory, Rom. ix. 4, and Rom. viii. 23. Christ s glory, being the glory of the only-begotten Son of God, gave us power to be sons. John i. 12, But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Compared with ver. 18, No man hath seen God at anytime; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. And if sons, then heirs, co-heirs of glory with Christ. And it is the utmost glory which breaks forth in heaven in Christ, from his personal union, and in us, from our sonship and union with Christ, that is there meant ; arid the reason is, because it is that glory wherein, and whereby our union is said to be made perfect ; John xvii. 23, I in them, and thou in me ; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me ; which explains this ver. 22, * And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one. And therefore, as Gerard observes the words, * that they may be perfect in one is not taken, rs Xixug, as noting the end or the effect of that glory given us, as whereby, as the means, we come to be perfect in one ; but it is taken, sidixug, as explaining wherein that glory lay, namely, in a perfection of union ; but we may take it in both. Now our relative union with Christ is in this life as perfect as ever, and we are sons as much as ever ; and the man Jesus was as perfectly united to the Son of God while he was on earth, as he ever shall be, but the perfection of it, he saith, is in the other world. And therefore the glory which he intends is, as it breaks forth in the full enjoyment and manifestation of it in the other world, founded upon his personal union with the Son of God on his part, and our glory upon our union with him on our part. And therefore it is that our Saviour Christ calls it glory, both on his part and ours, rather than sonship. The same may he urged out of John xvii. 24, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. And our Cartwright thus pitcheth the connection and order of ver. 22 with what follows ; that whereas he had in the former part of the chapter prayed for sanctification and preservation afore for us, as the means to bring us to glory, now, saith he, he frames his prayer for our glorification,* which Christ founded upon this ground, The glory thou hast given me I have given them. And therefore they pitch short who interpret this glory of grace as the means to glory here after, or the beholding of the glory of Christ in this life ; 2 Cor. iii. 18, for here it is the very glory itself which grace is to bring us to, which God s and Christ s heart in their several degrees were so intent upon in the pri mary intention thereof, even the glory of that sonship, both of Christ and us that should be in the other world ; and was first given, both to him and us as being intent io finis, the intendment of what should be the ultimate end of us and Christ. And with that view of it, it is that Christ prays here. And let any man give a more suitable, harmonious, congruous, genuine interpretation than this. For what is more suitable, or indeed can be, than that our glory, both of sonship and possession, should be founded upon * Nunc pro glorificatione petitionem instituit.

512 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. our union with Christ ; and that Christ should found both our union and glory on his personal union with the Son of God, and the glory that thence follows, and is due to him ? What more genuine, what more consonant, what more suitable can be thought of, to fill up the meaning of these words ?

Obj. This interpretation will strengthen the hands of those that hold the saints have the same personal union with the Son of God, the second per * The glory thou hast given me son, that the man Jesus hath ; for he saith, I have given them. .. Ans. 1. Our Saviour on purpose hath interwoven a difference between our union and his, our glory and his, whereby to prevent this very objec tion ; for our union and oneness with God and Christ is declared to be but secondary and derivative ; and his not of the same order or rank with ours, I in them, and thou in me, as it immediately follows. Ours is a collateral line, far off removed, of an inferior house ; but Christ s union with the Father is in a direct line ; for his divine nature is the same with the Father s, by which they are one God ; and his human nature is one by an immediate personal union, whereas ours is afar off removed. Our union with God is but by our union with Christ ; it is a copyhold of this Lord of glory. It is a certain rule, that what is derivative of an original, never riseth to be the original. It is Christ s glory here, so that it is he who gives us our glory. And this is the glory, and top of his glory, that he hath glory so in himself, as he is the Lord of it to bestow it. This is far otherwise in our case ; and Christ notes it out in that speech of his, the Father hath given the Son to have life in himself. That is his prerogative, he hath it independently, he hath it in himself; whereas of us (he saith), Ye live in me; and that he is our life ; we have it not in ourselves.

2. Of their glory he saith, It is but by a beholding his, and in that manner

Father, I will that they also whom thou it is conveyed to them ; ver. 24, hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me ; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. And how infinitely distant then must it be accounted from what is the glory of his person ? Ours is but by beholding his ; it is but as the shine of the sun upon the stars, which though it be called a glory by the apostle, the stars differ in glory, 1 Cor. xv. 41, yet it is not that glory as it is subjective in the sun, but susceptive in them, that they are such bodies as that the light of the sun can be reflected from them, and thereby leave and cause a glory to appear in them.

3. This agrees with the main scope here, which is not to shew it is iden tically the same glory, but that it is derived from his, and he is the bestower of it, and he is the Lord of it. I have given it them, saith

Brugensis, that is, pro illorwn modo et modulo, according to their capacity and measure.

III. Query. Unto what time, or date, the giving of this glory should be referred; either concerning that of Christ s, when it was that the Father gave this glory to him his Son ; as also the time which Christ means when he saith, I have given it them. This in general we are sure of, that both are spoken of in the time past.

Ans. 1. For the Father s giving this glory to his Son, it was from everlasting given, as Christ intends it, even that in predestination. For this first corresponds with ver. 5, as I have opened ; and, secondly, with ver. 24, The glory which thou gavest me, for thou lovedst me from the foundation of the world.

2. If the question be of the time of Christ s giving us this glory, we must take this along, that giving it here is not his giving it, only as he is the second person simply considered. That act of his, as such, is included in his Father s ; but we must interpret it of him, considered as God-man also, as hath been opened. For it is a gift to us that flows from that per sonal union of his to us, and is founded upon it, and so supposed it first. So the query will proceed anew, whether it is to be understood of him, taken as man, after his actual union with the Son of God, made at his conception, or of him as God-man, the second person considered, as bearing that personage, and undertaking it afore God, as hath been explained.

For the first ; If it be meant of him as God-man, after he was united actually, &c. Then,

1. It is certain his consent, as such, was to the glory of every name or person of us whom God means to bring to glory. The man Christ knew

But he that his sheep by name, for he calls them by name, John x. 2, 3, entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth ; and the sheep hear his voice : and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And it is the man that speaks it, ver. 16. He means not only the Jews that were godly, and then converted, whereof many he saw, as man, with his bodily eyes, but the sheep that were among the Gentiles, scattered in all places, and in all ages ; these in like manner he then calls by name, and saith, that he must gather them, as being not yet called, nor many of them extant in being. And therefore that book, or copy of this deed of gift, which his Father presented him, for him to put their names into it, it is called The Lamb s book of life. And we

I have given it them, even all whom his Father had given him ; for he prays for the whole flock. And yet speaks it now as in time past, I have given it them. It was fit that God should shew him, both whom he was to die fdr, and whose sins he did see, that even here, before he is crucified, he saith, bear. And so his deed of gift was concurrent with his Father s, as to the persons and things given.

2. Understand it of him, as now he is actually man, it is said to be a gift of his, and a gift of his such as his Father s gift to him had been, so : and why? Because that he was free in it, as his Father also was in his gift

the Lord of glory, as he is sometimes called, James ii. 1 ; and this is spoken of him even when he was crucified, in that that Jesus Christ was * Which none of the princes of this world knew : for had they known it, the} would not have crucified the Lqrd of glory. And therefore had power to dispose of it as freely as any lord hath of what he owns. And 1 Cor. ii. 8, his Father, in setting him up as God-man, as he gave him to have life in himself, John v. 26, so a free power in himself to quicken whom he would as freely as his Father, as it is in ver. 21 of the same chapter: For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them ; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. And perhaps, therefore it is he speaks here in the next words in the manner, as nowhere else, and in no point else but of * Father, I will that those which thou hast given me be with me where I am, to behold my glory ; for he, out of the freedom and domi nion of his will, did give it them as well as his Father. this ; There is a question started by the Jesuits,* Whether Christ, as man, was a mere executor of his Father s will ? That slur they would put upon our doctrine of God s absolute limited decrees, as in the case of Christ, * Vide Lessium de Pradostinatione Christi. VOL IV. K k

514 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III whether he were not an arbitrary designer of whatever he doth himself also ? which they hold to maintain the dominion of free-will, according to their tenet. But though they think they have us in a noose in this point, we easily solve it by saying, that though he as man, and as God-man, doth not any thing, or act, nor to whom, but those whom his Father s will is tojhave him to do, yet that therein he concurs with his Father as freely as the Father himself; and therefore it is his free gift as well as his Father s. To go no further to confirm this answer than that of John v. 21, 1 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them ; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. And this he speaks of himself, as he is * And hath given him autho the Son of man, as it is expressed, ver. 27, rity to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. And yet be * Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do : for what professeth to do nothing of himself without the Father ; ver. 19, soever things he doth, these also doth the Son likewise. He indeed did not first name the persons, but his Father named them to him, and gave them to him ; yet whom his Father did give to him, he gives this glory to ; and it is a free concurrent act with his Father, both to consent to the name and the gift, as free as his Father was, out of a special love. Let us there fore honour Christ so far as to say, that his hand, his vote, his suffrage went unto and was requisite to all these things as well as his Father s.

Yea, and therefore, those apostles, of whom, in ver. 6 of this 17th chapter, he saith, * Thou gavest them me out of the world, are yet said to be chosen by him as well as by his Father. The apostles were, by the choice and will of God and Christ, Gal. i. 1, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. And though some may say, that, as apostles indeed, in respect of their office, they were chosen by Christ, as man, as well as by the Father ; and so indeed that speech of his in the 16th of John is to be understood : yea, but in John xv. 19, Christ is said to have chosen them in respect of salvation, If you were of the world, the world would love his own : but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. You must know that Judas was gone out when Christ spake these words, and his eleven elect disciples were left alone with him. Christ had given him his doom and sentence, John xv. 6, If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. But I Jiave you now only alone with me, whom I speak these things to ; who are to be, and shall be eternally saved, ver. 3, Now you are clean, &c. You are not of this world ; ver. 19, And I have chose you out of the world. And yet some of these were called savingly before he saw them by face ; for some of them were John s disciples, con verted first by him. But, however, Jesus Christ had chosen them first ; that is, the man Jesus had done it, and then the end and issue of elec tion, you know, is glory ; and so giving them glory, is here to be under stood, as to the time that I have given is referred to, after the man Jesus was united.

But, secondly, what if we put the query, upon the person of him as Godinan, whilst he bore that personage before his Father, in the sense that formerly we have spoken of ? What should hinder us to ascend to ever lasting, as the time whereof this is intended you have I chosen here was given by him ; as he being second person, did bear and sustain the

glory of that gift of being God-man all along from his predestination thereunto ? And so, as his Father s gift was from everlasting to him, why not Christ s concurrence from thence also ? What should stay his hand from doing it under that consideration ? What ! should he stay till he was of age and capacity to give, and so arrive at the time when he, as man, was actually united ? This we may be certain of, that what the man did, when actually united, concur to, that the second person did afore from everlasting, and did it then in the man s name ; yea, and undertook he ehould concur to it when he was united. The man s actual concurrence was but a confirmation of that act which the second person in his name afore had done. I shewed you, in opening the 6th verse, upon these words, those which thou hast given me, that the gift of his Father to him, as it was first from everlasting, so it was not only to him as second person, singly considered, but as marriageable, and constituted their hus band ; which can be understood in no other way than that the second person bore the personage of God-man before his Father, as in opening the 5th verse I have shewed.

Obj. But you will say, There is this that hindered, still the man existed not actii ; how then can it be said that he, as God-man, did this act ?

Am. Yet he was before God-man really and dejure, God-man contracted; as I have shewn in the instance of a new elect to an office, before he enters actually upon it, he hath the title and honour accordingly. And if he had the glory of it afore his Father, then why might he not as then do such acts in the name of his being God-man, as a general doth before he goeth into the field ? I would ask this question, before he came into the flesh, he appeared to the fathers, and was with the people of God in the wilderness, and appeared as captain of the hosts of Israel were these acts done then merely as second person, and in the name of the second person simply as such ? You would say, that these acts were done as bearing the personage of God-man, in the name of the person that was to come. And therefore

Christ saith, Abraham saw my day, for he appeared to him, as also to Jacob, and, as some think, in the likeness too that he was to take. These ware acts meet for that season, and virtually the acts of him as God-man. And so at the creation, when all things were made by him, as the Word, as John interprets it, chap. i. 1. I would only add this, if he took that personage in his acting and appearances to the fathers, and the church, then why might he not, bearing that personage afore God his Father, act with his Father as such, and concur in all acts with his Father that were proper in that season, if I may call it so, from everlasting, and therefore concur in choosing of us as such, in giving glory to us, when his Father had predestinated him to that of his, and he undertook it? I would say, that all along from everlasting he acted as such in that capacity, to gether with his Father. I would urge but this, in Isa. ix. 6, one of his names is the everlasting Father, that is, a Father from everlasting; and to whom it is of being so to us that it is spoken, and therefore he must be said to have borne that relation of a Father to us from that time. It is not his concurring as second person merely with his Father, for that is in cluded in his Father s act, with whom he did concur as such ; and then the second person should be called Father in his personal propriety, as he is the Son, as well as the first person of the Trinity, to whom yet the style of Father among the persons is only proper. No ; in the Trinity, take them as mere persons considered, there is but one Father; therefore that title must be given him in God s decrees upon, and come under, some other con

516 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. sideration annexed to him, over and above his being second person. And what other can that be than this, of his being considered as God-man in his undertaking and sustaining it, and as acting accordingly ? Father relates to children, and this we find in Heb. ii. 13, where Christ is brought in as a proof that he is man of the same nature with us ; that as a Father ae saith, Lo, I and the children that thou hast given me. God the Father s relation to us, as a Father, is not so founded, nor is the relation in the second person, simply considered, so to be confounded with that of the Father s. Paul tells us, in that second of the Hebrews, that Christ is a father as he is considered man ; and he argueth it from that relation. And Isaiah tells us, Isa. ix. 6, he was this from everlasting, which could not be by his having actually assumed the same nature ; and yet Christ s father hood to us is, because he is supposed of the same nature, as Heb. ii. 14 hath it, * Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part in the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Why, then, he must be the everlasting Father representatively, and by bearing that personage of Godman, and undertaking, afore his Father, that relation, and so as considered by his Father as God-man from everlasting ; and for him to give us glory as such, and act accordingly with his Father, was but to act according to what a personage he was aforehand ; and among other things he must act as such, in concurring with his Father to give us glory, as hath been said.

And so the issue of all comes to this, which explains the text, that God having in his decree first settled an estate in him, in the glory of that per sonal union proper to him alone ; then his Father gave us to him as so constituted, and he agreed, and concurred in his decree and suffrage, as such ; and so is said to have given us, in and at the same instant, that glory that was ordained by the Father, and by him as God-man.

4. Motive. He represents to his Father the glory (which had been fore ordained by him in his decrees) that would accrue to himself and his Fattier in the accomplishment of this design, when the union and glory of the .saints should thereby be perfected, as at the latter day it will, and then appear before all the world ; and this to have been the great contrivement of God in our election we all know. And it is not only the glory he will have in the saints themselves at that day, when they shall appear with him in glory, of which the 2 Thess. i. 10 speaks, When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, be cause our testimony among you was believed, in that day. But what a glory this is will appear before the rest of the world of mankind, who shall all be present at that day, and see the issue of God s decrees, unto the amazing astonishment of unbelievers. And this I take to be the meaning of the latter part of ver. 23, * that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. The world there I take to be the rest of mankind, who shall have no part in that union. And the time intended wherein they shall know this, is that at the latter day ; for it is. when the saints union is made perfect in one, as in the words before.

Then it is that they shall know, by the saints union with me, and by them thus perfected, which shall be made conspicuous to all the world, that thou hast sent me, and hast loved me ; and hast loved them indeed, as thou hast loved me, when they shall see that I appear in thy glory (as at that day I shall), and that therefore I am one with thee, whereas before

they who would not believe, nor embrace me for their Christ, and come in for a share of this union with me, but refused me, or unworthily fell short in seeking me, and would never apprehend that I was such a glorious Messiah as then I shall appear to be, but undervalued and despised me ; but when they shall see that I also was able to bring about such a union of my church and body together with me and thee, and not lose one of them thou hast given me, and therewith to have filled them with such a glory as they shall appear in, by which it will be as conspicuous and visible, that they are one with us ; they will then know, with wonderment, that thou indeed hast sent me, of whom they had, the most of them, by hearsay at least, heard, for the sound thereof went forth to all the world ; and that those whom they hated and despised together with me, whom they persecuted, and would have driven out of the world, that those are thus so nearly united to me and thee, as it will appear, thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me ; lovedst me as their head of union to them, and for that nearer union which I have with thee, hast loved them as my body, and for my sake. All which, when the world hath once seen and known, then I shall further fulfil what I pray for in the 24th verse, even take them into thy kingdom, where they shall ever be with me, the Lord, and behold my glory, and adore thy love, both to me and them : Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. And the appearing and apprehension of this, to and by the wicked world, will be a new and great, though a more secondary glory, which will arise unto his Father by that union then perfected, which he prays for to be his own.

CHAPTER VII.

That God constituted from eternity Jesus Christ God-man, to be one universal Lord under himself, over all the creatures he intended to make.

And one Lord Jesus Christ. 1 COR. VIII. 6.

I desire this to be noticed aforehand, as touching this part of the text I am now entering upon ; that though all things are said to be of God, both his creation, &c., of them, and our union with him to have been first de signed by God, that yet our apostle doth evidently withal here declare, that all things, both the creation and government of the world, as also our union, yea, even all that ever God did, was ordained by him to depend upon Jesus Christ as Lord, as well as upon God the Father as God.

Hence, at this our beginning to treat of what belongs to Christ s part, we must again climb up to the supremest top or pinnacle of eternity, and place our thoughts in the first instant thereof ; and as yet suppose that our God being but about to purpose and decree all things, or any thing which his will should pitch upon, that none of these things concerning us and the creatures had their determination without a supposition of our Christ hishaving been first constituted the Lord, and a dependence of all things upon him as Lord, to have been first ordained also. Or thus, That God in his decree and purposes, for the effecting of all these, did presuppose and take in his Christ to be the Lord of us and of all things ;

518 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. of whom all did and should depend, as well as npon himself, though under himself.

So as for an entrance to this discourse about Christ s interest in all these, we will make a stand, or rather go backward again aad make a recognition, and set our thoughts down in this supposition, that we consider all these concernments of us, and of the whole creation, in the first instant of eter nity, but as yet lying in the mind of God in a simple or pure idea of them, or in a bare contemplation and chart or model, in God s mere and simple knowledge and intelligence ; they lay as a mass of gold or silver in the ore, without their having a decree of his will as yet passed upon them that they should be minted. They had not the conclusive decree or fiat of his will, what they should be, although he stood ready and propitious to set that his seal or imprimatur for their coming forth and publishing into actual existence. But having them and all in view or model ready afore him, he was pleased in one and the same instant or moment of eternity, wherein he brought forth these, or any other purposes of his to a determination con clusive ; he was pleased (I say) to set up as the first-born of his purpose chiefly, or afore all, and to lay for a foundation and corner-stone, a midst or middle person between his creatures and himself ; but especially be tween him and those first-fruits or choice of his creatures he would draw up into a high union with himself, to set up his Christ a person who in the language of the text should be a one Lord, who should be a joint com peer with him, or rather God s commissioner and plenipotentiary in all his works of wonder ; and that is, one Christ, not considered barely and singly as he is second person, one God with the Father, blessed for ever, but as God-man, having the office of Lord and Christ put upon him by the Father, as one that should be a one Lord under this one God considered as he is God, and in that relation and respect lower than God himself ; and yet constituted in that supreme sovereignty of lordship over them his creatures, that both all his creatures which he should with him decree to make, they all, and their very creation and government after their creation, should depend on that one Lord. As also, that all of us, whom he should decree to be taken up into that special union and communion, should owe all thereof to, and have the same dependence on this one Lord, as upon God the Father himself. Than which nothing could be found more to honour and greaten this one God as God, before the whole creation; thereby being shewed and manifested the infinite distance of God from the whole creation, in having so supreme a Lord over them, as this same Lord of his designing should be, who yet should be under God himself, and so between him and them.

And there is this general corollary from this founded on the text, that if all things and our union with God depended upon this person as he is Lord and Christ, and that these titles import his office, and not simply his being second person as Son of God (though that be the substratum and foundation of all), that then he must have been first set up and constituted God-man, and in God s decrees invested with these offices, and constituted and made both Lord and Christ, as by whom all things should be, and we by him, as well as by the Father. Which is one great notion I drive at, and I carry with me in mine eye all along to make forth : and do therefore upon any just occasion, everywhere draw it out unto notice and observation, as a great gospel truth.

My present task is, to begin with this his title. He is (as hath been said) first decreed unto his title of LORD.

The following explanation of which will make way for the clearing of that great truth last noticed ; as also of many other things concerning Christ previous to what are to follow. Now as to that, 1. It is an ancient title of his, and one of his first titles given him in the Old Testament, and continued to him by them in the New, and of a larger extent than that of Saviour. And though distinct from that of one God, yet necessarily denoting and supposing (as the foundation of it) that withal he is God.

In the Old Testament, Ps. ex. 1, The Lord said unto my Lord ; and though our translation observes no distinction, yet it is in the original, * Jehovah said to my Lord, Jehovah unto Adonai ; that is, God the Father unto Christ or the Messiah, as Christ himself interprets it, Mat. xxii. 42, 43. To whom that name Adon or Adonai is made specially peculiar, and had been traditionally let down to the Jews. For Enoch had prophesied of him under that title afore the flood ; which as a tradition the apostle Jude

The Lord namely, the Christ, cometh with ten thou sand of his saints. To name but one more out of the Old ; Dan. ix. 17, quotes, ver. 14, 1 Hear, God Jehovah, for the Lord s sake ; where Christ, in distinction from God the Father, is called Adonai, the Lord. Which title of the Messiah, because thereby he was more eminently known by them than by any other, the angels when they bring the news of his birth to the Jews, Luke ii. 11, do proclaim him by and under the style of it : To you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. They describe his person under the notion which he had been more vulgarly known by under the Old Testament, than that of Saviour; Christ the Lord. And afterwards the same began to be, by the unanimous vote of all the apostles, given him, Acts ii. 14, publishing it in the ears of all Israel, and applying it with an appropriation to our Jesus, as that title which answered to the general expectation of the Jews concerning their long looked-for Messiah ; Acts ii. 30, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made this same Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ. And is as if he had said, Lo, he is that very person whom you expect, who hath been generally and indeterminately known to you under those names given him by your fathers all along in the Old Testament ; whom God hath now made, and set up, and declared so to be, by exalting him in heaven, and putting all into his hands. And know (saith he) assuredly, that that man Jesus is he. It is strange that the Jews should so conspire to forbear, everywhere throughout the world, to read or pronounce the name Jehovah, the name of God s essence ; and that instead thereof they should substitute, and still use the word Adonai or Lord, which, as you have heard, is some times in the Old Testament appropriated to the Son. Yea, and that their own Cabalists should confess the mystery of it to be, that that name Adonai, or title of Lord (and so the person of him, the Son, that more particu larly bears it), is to be the key to Jehovah, which latter is the name of his essence, which is hidden to us (as they speak), to be as a.treasury in which God Jehovah hath hid all the riches he means to communicate to us. And further, this Adonai, or Lord, to be the great ruler and governor under God

Jehovah, nourishing arid sustaining all things. And that without Adonai, or this Lord, there is no way or means for any man to come to this God Jehovah. Thus Masini hath out of their own records observed ; * which * Adsentiuntur nobis, verlris saltern, diviniores Hebrseorum pliilosophi, quos Cabalistas vocant, cum tradunt illud verbum Adonai esse tanquam clavem qua patcfit aditus ad Deum Jehovam ; hoc est, ad Deum veluti in sua essentia latentem. Esse

520 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. is a clear, if not a full explication of the office of our Christ, as he is Adonai, or Lord.

The New Testament speaketh the very same in ternrinis, God not being known to any but to whom Christ reveals him ; in whom are hid all the * supporting all by the word of his treasures of wisdom ; he ruling and power ; as to whom God hath communicated the execution of all judgment, himself visibly judging none. Neither is there any name under heaven but this, whereby men can be saved, and approach to God; there being one God, and one Lord, as here, 1 Cor. viii. 6. And this title of Lord, in distinction from Jehovah, or God, as thus under stood and used by the Jews, conduceth somewhat towards an answer to that objection of the Socinians, that Christ being usually thus styled the Lord, but the Father God, that therefore Christ is not God. For not only according to the Jews sense Adonai, or Lord, is all one with Jehovah in this respect, that it is one of the names of him that is God, for they ordi narily, in naming God, put it instead of God, or Jehovah ; yea, and it is attributed to none other but him that is God, as they acknowledge. But yet so as withal it is evident also, that in their sense it likewise signifies an office of Lord and mediator for us put upon him, and in that respect distinguished from Jehovah, yet so as still withal Christ himself is also the true Jehovah. And therefore the Old Testament in a very usual way joins both together, the Lord God ; and when it speaks in that manner, doth usually mean Christ, who was then the great dispenser of all things under the Old Testament, as well as now under the New. It was he that appeared to the fathers, who is and was to them both Lord and God also, as well as Lord and Christ to us. And thus the apostle Thomas, John xx., when once convinced of his being the Messiah, cries out, ver. 28, My Lord and my God ! He spake it of Christ. For whereas other disciples had called him the Lord (as in that chapter again and again, and frequently elsewhere, as his usual

We have seen the Lord, that is, him whom we have and do own for the Messiah ; and then the Old Testa ment having still put both titles together of Lord and God, as you heard ; hereupon Thomas, his faith being on the sudden struck, and enlightened with a fresh and new conviction, he cries out, My Lord and my God, title), and had said to Thomas, ver. 25, thereby acknowledging Christ to be both. And he doth it with application to himself, My Lord and my God. And whereas in Eph. iv. 5, 6, when it is said, There is one Lord, and one God, the Father of all ; and in this text, 1 Cor. viii. 6, To us there is but one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ ; it is not to be understood, nor doth it follow, that his Father s being said to be one God, in distinction from Christ, should exclude

Christ from being that one God, no more than Christ s being termed that one Lord, in the same places, would import that therefore God the Father is not Lord. Yea, of Christ, as well as of the Father, it is said, that he is the only Lord ; and that with his being God also is inserted, to second it and put this matter out of all doubt. Thus Jude 4, the last words of thesaurum in quo ea, qusea Jeliovanobis iinpartiuntur, omnia sunt recoudita. Esse insuper ceconomum ilium magnum qui res omnes dispensat, nutrit, vegetat per Jehovain. Denique neminem ad Jehovam penetrare posse, nisi per Adonai. Neque enim ullam aut viam aut rationem ad ilium perveniendi aliam esse prorsus. Hsec et his similia scripta extant in eo libro cui titulum illi fecere Portam lucis, et in libro quern vocant Nomen explicatum. Masinus in Josuani. See also Ainsworth on Exod. vi. 3.

the verse, Denying the only Lord God, xai rov /ULOVOV dsffKo-qv Qebv xai

and Lord of us, Jesus Christ ; affixing but one xugiov rt/jtZv Iqaouv Xg/tfrov, article at the first unto all these three titles that follow, Lord God, the only Lord God, and our Lord ; * as meaning but one and the same person ksown by all these titles, not two persons, as of God the Father, and of Christ both, but one person only, namely, our Christ who is the subject of all these titles ; whom he there names our Lord Jesus Christ, all three spoken of one and the same Christ ; which that of Peter added to it also clears (and all know Jude s epistle to be a counterpart of that second of Peter ; and he writing as Jude also, against the very same heretics in those times), he there says of them, * denying the Lord that bought them ; and it is our Christ is the person he speaks of too, as the proper character he sig nifies him by, the Lord that bought them, and paid the price of buying them as a Lord. And as he names no other person but Christ only, so both Peter and Jude do name the very heresies the heretics of those apostles times run into, naming the very things themselves wherein their heresy consisted ; namely, in their denying him to be God, the only true

* the Lord that

God, which together with that additional character of bought them, was the very point they denied. Add to this, It is well known that those first heretics of the primitive times (who pretended to Christianity, and against such they only wrote), did not deny one God the Father, or his being the only true God, but that Jesus Christ was the only true God, this they denied ; and therefore it is that Jude speaks this of Christ alone.

And last of all, an angel from heaven, in the close of the whole New

Testament, speaks the very same, thereby confirming and sealing what all the apostles and scriptures had spoken of Christ ; thus in Revelations, the very last chapter, ver. 6, And the Lord God of the holy prophets, who inspired them, sent his angel to shew unto his servants, &c. Now who is it to whom the sending of this angel is attributed? Read ver. 16, I Jesus have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the churches ; even the same person (Christ) ; the same he it is, that is the * Lord God of the holy prophets, ver. 6. And this is for certain our Jesus. For ver.

16, I Jesus have sent my angel. And who in like manner concludes his speech, ver. 20, He which testifies these things saith, Surely I come: Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus, says the church. And quickly this is our Lord and our God, as Jude and Peter said in their epistles.

And by all this, the Socinian objection is sufficiently obviated and gone beyond.

That the Syriac translation, and the Complutensis Edition read it, et Graecanica apud Oecumeniura, see Beza, De Quiros, A Lapide in locum. Of the like to which, Eph. i. 3, The God and Father of Christ is understood of one and the same person.

522 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

CHAPTER VIII.

That the title of Lord, though it imports him that is God, and connotates with it his being God; yet in this Corinthian text (and elsewhere), doth primarily note a relation to an office or a dignity put on him by the Father, as con sidered to be God-man, and not simply his being second person, God with God only. The apostle s intent here is, to set him forth in the dependence that all things, <&c., have of him as such, and not upon him as second per son, simply considered. It is a title of office which he bears afore God, con sidered as God-man. The fitness, fulness, and sufficiency of this person, Christ, God-man, to discharge this office of one Lord. For what reasons it was necessary that he should be God-man in one person, to qualify him for the employment.

We do, or may know, that there is a twofold Lordship of the second per son : one natural, absolute, and underived, belonging to him, as he is con sidered singly, second person, God with God, and Lord with the Lord, to whom therefore all the royalties of the divine nature do equally and alike in common belong, even as to the Father and Holy Ghost ; which Lordship is in them all founded on this, which is common to all three persons, namely, that they had a joint concurrence in the making of all things, and also in governing of them. But then there is another lordship, that is, a derived, economical, dispensatory, which is set up by commission from God, for effecting all his works of wonder for him, and under him ; and this is a lordship proper and peculiar unto Christ, considered as God-man, to whom as such the Father hath committed all judgment as the Sonof man : John v. 22, 27, For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.

And hath given him authority to execute judg ment also, because he is the Son of man. And of this lordship it is that Peter speaks, Acts ii. 36, Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made him both Lord and Christ. So then, there is a made lordship of his, who yet, by virtue thereof, makes all things. And this is the very same in other equivalent terms, that are elsewhere spoken of him by the other apostles ; as by Paul himself, Heb. i. 2, Whom he hath appointed heir of all things. Heir there is equivalent to Lord in that Acts ii. 36 ; and appointed there unto made in Peter s speech, Acts ii. 36 ; and of all things there, unto one Lord, of whom are all things, here in the text.

Hence therefore, his being Lord evidently imports an office or economy committed to him, and undertaken by him, even as his being Christ also doth. And indeed, we find both those titles of Lord and Christ joined often together, and attributed to him as being, in this respect, of like kind or con stitution, that is, as being both made titles of office. And to this sense, as we meet them joined, Acts ii. 36, so also we find him to have been publicly proclaimed with and under these titles by the angels, as the militia sent from heaven at his birth, Luke ii. 11, to proclaim their own new Lord, as well as of men : To you is born a saviour, which is Christ the Lord ; where they add a third, Saviour ; all which three titles are also here in the text, Our Lord Jesus Christ ; all and each of these three do alike import matter of office given to him, and undertaken by him. And in respect to this investment with an official lordship, it is, he is styled Lord in distinc tion from God, elsewhere as well as here. In those words, Ps. ex. 1, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit, &c., though our translation took no notice of

CHAP. VIII.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

a distinction in the titles given setly to each ; yet in the original it is, Jehovah said, L adonai,* unto the Lord, that is, God the Father said to the Lord or Christ, as Christ himself interprets it, Mat. xxii. 42, 43. And that his being Lord there importeth this his office of made lordship, and not that as second person, Peter evidently shews, in the place fore-cited, Acts ii., where he quotes these very words of the psalmist, ver. 34, to prove that God had made him Lord and Christ ; for that is his inference from David s words, * The Lord said unto my Lord. And Christ himself, in Mat. xxii. 43, 44, 45, He saith unto them, How doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, &c. If David then call him Lord, how is he his son ? In like manner, Dan. ix. 17, Hear, God (Jehovah), for the Lord s sake; where Christ, in distinction from God the Father, is called Adonai and Lord. Yea, and this distinguishing title is made appropriate to him, the Lord, by the angels at his birth, who is Christ the Lord. And before his death, by the evan

And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over gelists, in their mention of him, Luke xii. 42, his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season ? Chap, xxiv. 34, * Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And John iv. 1, When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John. And chap, * Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias, nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks. By Mary Magdalene, John xx. 18, Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her. By the angels, Mat. xxviii. 6, He is not here : for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And in the Acts ordinarily. In the same sense is this my Corinthian text to be understood. vi. 23,

2. This title of Lord, thus distinguished, doth fitly serve as an introduc tory proof from parallel scriptures, that the Lordship of office is also in tended in this title in the text, and not as second person simply considered. For these reasons.

Reason 1. Christ is thereby here distinguished from God ; not only as he is the Father, but as he is one God. Now, if Christ were styled the Lord only as second person, then he is not so to be distinguished from the Father, as the Father is one God ; but as such he is included therein with the Father, for he is one God with him, and not to be excluded from that title. God forbid ! But it is evident that this title, one Lord, is to shew a distinction from the one God ; and therefore it must import, as something more in his person, so his office of lordship ; by which, as in relation to the dependence of all things upon him, he is termed Lord. And otherwise, if his meaning were to express that he is God, as he is second person, singly considered, he should say but one and the same thing by two several words, viz., that God the Father is God, and that Christ the second person is one God also, whilst he thus saith of him that he is the one Lord. And indeed then there were no difference at all ; for God the Father is one

Lord, in that sense of being Lord. And it is common to the persons, and so it belongs to the Father as well as to the Son ; and the Son is one God as well as the Father. Neither could the Sociriian objection be answered, unless we interpret this one Lord to be spoken of Christ respectu officii, in respect of his office, and not of what he is as second person simply. For there is no distinctior between one God and one Lord, if his being God

524 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEK, [BOOK III. were simply meant in both ; but there is a manifest distinction between God the Father and Christ, in these two titles intended to them.

Reason 2. He is here set out such an one Lord, though holding an oppo sition unto, yet withal as beareth some semblance, in an opposite way, with what the heathens did conceive of their lords many in their subserviency unto their many gods ; and we must suppose some analogy or semblance here to hold. Only they affirmed that there were many gods, and that * but to us there is but one God and one Lord. And yet the parallel between both thus far holds, that as these heathens there were many lords ; supposed that these lords they fancied were such as were appointed by their gods to govern the world under their supposed deities, so we must think of Christ, this one Lord, as under the great God, in an instrumen tality and subserviency unto this one God. And as a midst betwixt God and us, and in a perfect opposition to their many false gods and lords, he makes this the glory of the Christian religion, that they held but one great and sovereign true God, high above all gods, as the psalmist often expresses it, whereas they made many, falsely so called. And that that Jesus Christ whom we worship is but one Lord, in defiance of their many lords, whom they fancied to be mediators and agents between God and them, and as placed in the middle betwixt God and men ; that was their religion. And the apostle outvies them. We profess such an one Lord, who is an universal Lord over all, and a mediator betwixt men and God also. And for the verifying of this notion, as thus stated, I refer the reader unto what a more learned hand hath writ, alleging this very scripture to the same purpose I now do, for the confirmation of my assertion.

This distinction (says he) also, of sovereign gods and demons, I suppose our apostle alludes to in 1 Cor. viii. 5, where he saith, Though there be many that be called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be $so) <7To\\oi, gods many ; that is, dii ccelestes, sovereign deities, KOLI ycvgioi croXXo/, lords many, that is, dai(j,ovzg s<7rt%66vioi, demons, presidents of earthly things ; yet to us Christians, there is but one sovereign God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we to him ; that is, to whom, as supreme, we direct all our services ; and but tig, xvgiog, one LordJesus Christ, instead of their many mediators and demons, $/ ov ra <7rdvra, xai ^/xe/g 5/ aurou, by whom are all things which come from the Father to us, and through whom alone we find access to him. The allusion, methinks, is passing elegant, and such as I think cannot be well understood, without this distinction of superior and inferior deities in the theology of the Gentiles, they having a plurality in both sorts, and we Christians but one in each, as our apostle affirmeth. There wants but only the name of demons, instead of which the apostle puts lords, and that for the honour of Christ, of whom he was to infer, fig xvgiog, the name of Christ not to be polluted with the appella tion of an idol ; for his apodosis must have been otherwise sig ddi/jLuv. Or maybe, he alludes unto the Hebrew name Baalim, which signifies lords. And those lords, I told you, were nothing else but demons : for thus would Paul speak in the Hebrew tongue ; There are DOT Dv and DQT OTPN, many gods and many lords. (Mr Medes Apostasy of the Latter

Times, p. 13, and part of 14.)

They had heard of one God, of whom are all things, from the wisest of their own philosophers, but never of one mediator between that God and them : they had stumbled at this in the Christian religion, that they wor shipped a man Jesus raised from the dead, as Acts xvii. 18, 81, when yet themselves held that the souls of men dead (though not risen) were medi-

ators for them to their gods, and thus imprecated them to interpose for them. The apostle therefore, most wisely and aptly, and most elegantly, sets both these religions together in a parallel comparison, and yet in oppo sition of the one to the other ; and so maketh the false notion of their lords thus far serviceable as to let in to these heathens minds, by a similitudinary glimpse, that whereby these heathens, at least confusedly, might understand and apprehend (if they would but reflect) what manner a Lord or Christ it was we Christians believed and adored, and for what use or end. Thenfancies indeed ran upon many lords, and mediators many, and those dead men s souls : but the apostle presents them, instead of theirs, with one great mediator, according to the Christian profession ; and him, though a man raised from the dead, yet such a Lord as, being more than a man, was not a mediator only betwixt that one God and them, and we by him but was a Lord over, yea, a founder of all things else, together with God, one

Lord, by whom are all things. And thus he outshoots them infinitely in the mainest principles of their religion they doated on, and accounted their glory and highest wisdom.

In the next place, I come to manifest the fitness, fulness, and sufficiency of this person, Christ, God-man, or of the Son of God united into one per son with a man, to bear and sustain this office of one Lord, both in relation unto all things to be by him, "and especially to us the elect.

Let it be remembered that this discourse of Christ s fitness in this place is wholly confined unto that notion in general of his lordship, as in the universal extent thereof over all things ; but what is proper to set forth his fitness to be the head of angels, and more particularly as an head and redeemer for men, the discovery of that fitness is to succeed in its proper place,* when redemption comes to be handled, as that fitness of his person is suited to that work of redemption.

If we, the chosen of God, and all things, were able to speak, as they are brought in speaking at last, Rev. v. 11, and were permitted to give their fcto design forth and choose one (and but one person, as the text voices speaks) to be the universal Lord, they nor we could desire no other, none but this person of God-man, thus constituted and made up as he is, and is now to be set forth.

The allsufficiency that is in this person for this office, the narrative thereof proceeds on thus.

1. Though in respect of the office itself, he that is to have it, is said to be made, that is, appointed, as coming under God s will appointing ; yet in his person, as the foundation of it, it was absolutely necessary he be one that is not made, that is, not a mere creature. One that had been but a mere subject of God s, according to that tenure of the law of creation only, had not had an intrinsecal worth and dignity in his person to fill up and carry forth this his office of lordship with port and comely honour enough, nor suitably to that place. For he must be so over the creature, as that himself might challenge worship and honour from ths creature as their Lord, as truly and justly as God the Father, in that he was to be one whom all things should depend upon, as well as upon the Father ; in whose person also a demonstration might be given, how great a God God the Father was in his distance from the creature, in that he that was his appointed Lord should yet naturally hold so great a sovereignty over all his creatures. Whoever had been but a made person, and a made lord

* See tlie Sermons on T

^ph. i. 10, and Christ s fitness for the Work of Kedemption, on Heb. ii.

526 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. too, and wholly both, he were too mean stuff to make God s Lord of, that * one Lord as this text sets out, and which became God to set is, such a up. His person must be able to bear and to fill up his Lordship and * many lords the former verse speaks of ; yea, if you would suppose one so subli mated as to be the spirit of the whole creation, and in whom the several dominion, for else he would but fall into the same rank with those species of the whole were, by way of eminency, contained and comprehended, and out of whom, as an elixir, they all might be extracted (asjsome philosophise concerning our Christ), yet still, in that he were but only made, his distance from mere nothing were but the very same that his inferior fellow-creatures have, he could never have been a midst between God and them, because in his person he held not a proportionable distance between God and them, and thereby he had been as subject, by his original make and constitution, to the same mutability and weakness that any other of the creatures were, and so would have proved but a mere quick-sand to the upholding* and bearing up the weight of all things that were to be founded on him, and depend upon him. Look, then, as in the case of man s redemption, like as men that had infirmity, were laid aside for the office of the eternal priest hood ; and God sought outgone that was perfect for evermore ; so, of all mere creatures, it must be said, as to this his office of Lordship, they all had infirmity.

If it be said yet, if God would, could he not have made one great enough for this ? The answer is, even for this very reason, that still all would have been but merely a made greatness ; even therefore, suppose what you can or will, it proves too little, and falls short. For, alas ! it were all but wholly borrowed ; yea, and of which greatness these very stones were as immediately capable without him, by God s sole raising them to such an estate, as himself once was thereof. God could have made as good such

Christs, and Lords of them, as the Baptist says, Mat. iii. 9, sons of Abra ham out of stones. He that is capable of so high an office, must be one that is God, which we have even now proved.

This for the first, that this one Lord, here in the text, is and must be God.

And yet again, 2dly, if he be to be made a Lord, and Christ (as the Scripture speaks also of him), he must, together herewith, be something tliat is made, as well as God, who cannot be made. He is to be (in respect of this office) under God, lower than God, between God and all things made by God ; otherwise, this great end, which was to greaten God as God, by shewing visibly and demonstratively that infinite distance between God and all his creatures, had not been attained. For such a person as was God only, as well as himself, had been equal unto him. But God, to shew his greatness, designed such a one as should be also under him, and yet God ; and withal, a sovereign Lord of all his creatures. And we find

* my Father is greater than I. So,

Christ accordingly speaks of himself, then, some one of the creatures must be taken in, to make up this Lord, to be made one person with him that is God, and so this Lord will take his place in the midst, between God and all things.

For, 3dly, this creature (whomever this honour is to fall upon), in God s eternal purposes (for we are still in the same sphere of mere possibility), must be made into one person with a person that is God ; for else, still he is not one Lord. God, you see, would have but one Lord, as God himself is but one. The text speaks it both negatively, not many lords ; and * The phrase, Heb. i. 2.

t also affirmatively, one Lord. Two complete persons of them can never make one, and these two must be made one person. A king and queen, though one in marriage (the nearest conjunction), never did, nor never can, make one king, or one prince (as Philip and Mary with us did not). And, again, if we would suppose that many creatures, and not one only, had been taken up into union with some person that was God, yet still there would have been lords many. But God will have such a Lord as is perfectly one, who therein shall be the perfect image of his sovereignty and monarchy over all things, and therefore will have but one, to whom all things else, without exception, are to be subject.

4thly, Which of the three persons in the Godhead, and what sort of the creatures, was fittest to make up, in a way of personal union, this one Lord?

(1.) As to the person of the Trinity, it must not be the Father ; it was Ho way proper for him, that was the fountain of the persons, and of the whole creation, to undertake any office whatever, and so not to become this Lord, which is an office under God, as the text expressly affirmeth. Who then ? God the Son is next, who in that he is the Son, is, by a proper natural right, Lord of all things, for he is the heir unto this his Father, in that he is the Son ; and it is the common law, even from God to creatures downwards, that the heir is lord of all, Gal. iv. 1. It is fittest then that he, the Son, should have this office and title of Lord transferred on him, and none so fit to be the appointed heir of all things, Heb. i. 2, who, in his person, is naturally next God the Father, the begotten heir of all things. who is not made, but begotten, and the only begotten, namely, of this one God the Father. John i. 3, 14, 18, compared, All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ; and we beheld his glory, tho

No man hath seen God at any time ; the "only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. And so truly, a person to whom of special right this honour, as conferred, doth belong. This title of Lord was not to be severed from the natural heir : not so, as that one per son should be the natural Lord by inheritance, and another made Lord and glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Christ by decree and appointment, upon this account also, that still there must be but one Lord. And, therefore, he who had a natural right to be Lord, as heir of all things, and he who was made so by decree and appoint ment, must meet in one and the same person.

And as for the pretension of the third person, the Holy Ghost ; so it was in God s design, that he that was to be this Lord, was to have such a multi tude of elect to be united to him, as he must be a person who was able to give and send the Spirit himself to make that union, and to effect all for him, and complete all from him; John xvi. 15, All things the Father hath are mine ; therefore I said, that he (the Spirit) shall take of mine, and shew it to you.

And again, the intendment of erecting this office of lordship being, that God might have an outward representative of himself, or a visible adminis tration of all things, and to whom the whole creation should owe their sub sistence and their all ; and accordingly he was to be owned and honoured by them, and at the same rate that God is ; hence therefore, for this honour, God comelily singled forth and constituted this Son to be that person that was next himself, as fathers *se to do their sons. God the Father so loveth the Son, that he sheweth and revealeth all of himself to * and hath committed all judgment to him, visibly to be him, John v. 20,

528 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK administered by him ; and that with this professed purpose and intent, all men (yea, and angels, and the whole creation) might honour the Son, as they honour the Father, John v. 20, 23. So then, the Son is he that is made this Lord, under our one God the Father.

We have seen which of the three persons was fitted for this Lordship. Now, (2.) As to what sort of the creatures (we are still, as was prefaced, in the supposition of all things as yet to be decreed, and so considered by God in the foresight of his simple intelligence) should be meetest to be taken Up in this high privilege of one Lordship.

It so pleased our great and wise God as to single forth the nature of man ; not in order only to the work of redemption of us men (that is but one branch of this work and office), but in order to his being Lord of all things, he took that nature of man to choose. Yea, it is said, that so it became him (namely, God), for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, so to do ; in Heb. ii. 10, 14-18 verses, For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffer ings, Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same ; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels ; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. And although God did thus design and determine in a more eminent respect to man s salvation (which was the occasion of what he there speaks of this, that he took on him, not the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham) ; yet it is withal said, that that great God, of whom, and for whom are all things (which is the preface to that more eminent part for which Christ was ordained, namely, man s redemption), had together in his eye at once all things, and all ends and designs of his whatever, as that phrase, for whom are all things, imports ; whiles he speaks of his ordaining him to be a redeemer for man ; and accordingly it became him to extend to, or rather grasp in, a respect unto all things in his great design ; which this my text, collated and brought unto that, confirms and discovers in saying, < one God, of whom are all things ; and one Lord

Jesus Christ, by whom are all things. And over and above, that ire (those elected and redeemed men) should be by him also.

And how fit it was. that the person of the Kedeemer of us men should himself be man ; this you all acknowledge. But I further add, if a lord be to set up over all things, that is, the whole creation, what sort or species amongst the whole creation so fit as the nature of man ? True indeed, that nature, for its rank, is a little lower than the angels ; but that mattered not in this business. For this dignity of Lordship depended not on the dignity of the creature that was to be assumed. But the dignity or the substantial worthiness and grandeur of the person was to arise from the dignity of the Son of God who should assume it. The nature assumed contributed nothing of worth, but had that wholly communicated to it ; only it brought a fitness and a meetness with it into this union, for this office, above all other natures whatsoever. And that was it which God had

a regard unto herein (besides his good pleasure) to choose that nature above all other, as is plain by that in Heb. ii. And certainly this comely capacity doth every way fall fuller upon the nature of man than upon any other ; for who of creatures so fit to be made Lord of all things, by that God for whom are all things, but he that is the sum and contract of all sorts of creatures that ever God should make. Yea, and perhaps of all sorts of creatures possibly to be made, even from the angelical nature upwards, than which (they being merely spirits) nothing could be higher of kind up wards, between God and them ; and then downwards to the meanest atom, or dust of the earth ; or if you will, to the chaos, out of which all was made, you cannot thrust in a new species or kind between any two of the whole order and descent of them. No new middle link between any two links of that chain of creatures from top to bottom ; and what we see are made, man is the abstract and epitome, and contains all in him. If therefore we could suppose that all the creatures had had a tongue, and so a voice in the election of their one Lord, they certainly would have pitched upon that nature to be their Lord, in which they all had such an interest, and have cast it, that all things epitomized should be this constituted Lord. And God, who is wise in working and excellent in counsel, considered this, and fitted them all with such a Lord as themselves, if to choose, would, for this respect, have chosen.

This was so happy a match, and so well thought of, as being that which perfectly suited this general administration, as it was no sooner thought of, but instantly it was concluded and agreed on by the three in heaven, and particularly consented to by the Son himself ; who, as Peter s phrase is, was pre-ordained before the foundation of the world was laid ; all things else depending on this, God s first resolve about him. No sooner was it agreed, but instantly God the Father, and the Godhead in the other two, embraced and possessed him (as the expression is, Prov. viii. 22, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old ), possessed him as a rich and complete treasury and magazine of all his counsels laid up with him ; and also a most able minister and agent for the execution of all his works. Christ, who is both the wisdom of God, and the power of God, executively ; his universal instrument, by whom, a * in whom to manifest all his glory ; and ver. 30 of the same chapter, I was as one brought up with him, as it is translated; it complete subject, is a word so full of significances to our purpose as nothing could be more comprehensive. The word |JQN in the Hebrew signifies,* any one that was nulritius, the nurse or nourisher ; as unto whom God had committed all his works, as men do their children unto a nurse, to cherish, bring up, and govern to all his ends he had designed them for ; yea, as the word also signifies, to be his artist, architect, or master builder of them in their first creation ; who took the fabric of the whole universe upon him, to con trive and frame the rearing of it with the most exquisite skill, to the most beautiful fashion that might be. For these things and many more doth that word signify. So as God presently said with himself, I have found a servant that shall perform all my pleasure, a chosen shaft, a meetful uni versal engine, adequate to all my purposes and thoughts, a sufficient ground work and foundation for any manifestation of himself he should desire to make ; so as I need not to , go out of him or leave him out in anything I have a mind to do. And all this over and above, or besides, his being my * See A Lapide on the word, which also Mercer doth acknowledge and enlarge upon, in Prov. viii. SO. Ho;c omnia potest vox Hebreea significare. VOL. IV. L 1

530 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III delight in his person unto myself, whom alone and simply I delighted in for himself alone, which there follows, I was his delight, &c. Thus was he appointed Lord of all, as fitted and suited, both to God and his whole creation, and the designs thereof, which to bS meant of him as God-man, I have (I hope) elsewhere made evident.

And this is no other than that which I afore observed to be generally the sense of the Jewish Cabalists, who speak on this wise of the Messiah, that he is a treasure in which God or Jehovah hath hid all the riches he means to communicate unto us. And further, to be the great steward and gover nor under God Jehovah, nourishing, cherishing, and dispensing all. With which this scripture in the Proverbs agreeth.

CHAPTER IX.

That all things do depend upon Christ as one Lord, as God-man, as well as upon the Father, as one God. God s eternal purposes concerning the whole creation were made in Christ, as God-man. By him God made the world. The more peculiar dependence, which the elect have on Christ, God-man, as their head. Tkey hold of him the tenure of a spiritual being, above what tliey had by creation, and of all supernatural blessings and benefits.

By whom are all things, and we by him. 1 COR. VIII. 6.

We have seen what the import of this high title, one Lord, is, and that in this place it denotes an office put upon him as God-man, and the fitness of that person alone for this universal office or dignity.

I am as yet but upon generals, which lead on to many particulars that are to follow, and at large to be discoursed and beaten out ; I intending, God assisting, to dilate upon all, or the most particulars, wherein Christ, considered as God-man, is found subservient unto God his Father, in and for the giving being to, and effecting of, all his works ad extra, or which are out of himself. But the present purpose on this text is to touch rather upon two generals, according as Christ s Lordship is divided.

First, His relation unto all things, whatever they be, that are distinct from the we. All things in nature or providential.

"cThe second is, What concerns the elect, either in their supernatural being and new constitution of them ; in a word, what they are, theyare by him, the whole of them, and what belongs to them supernaturally.

I come to the first. For we must remember that this mediation-work between God and man is but one part of his Lordship, although the greatest for moment and glory ; but it further contains a commission from God, to be a Lord over all things ; as Peter speaks, Acts x. 36, as that which is another part of it. And again, a Lord not only over all things to rule, and govern, and order them for God, and under God, when they shall be once made, but with a commission from God, for the making of them, by virtue of that his office which was given him long afore the creation itself; that although the second person did only personally then subsist, yet he bore or sustained the personage of God-man in the very creation itself. All these you have full "in the text, in that title one Lord. And then his Lordship is parted into two administrations and commissions, one towards all things, the other towards us. And that towards all things,

CHAP. IX.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST

extending to their very beings, by whom are all things ; even by whom all things are what they are, or any way shall ever be, from the first foun dation-stone of being, unto the full perfection of them.

And these being wrapt up here but in generals, I shall therefore do no more, but for the confirmation of this first head, give one general proof comprehensive of all things, and which ascends far higher than to prove Christ s being only instrumental to the execution of all ; but further, that God s eternal purposes concerning all things were made in Christ as the forge, or machine, in which they were all formed. And this, if proved, we must needs acknowledge the dependence of all things upon this one Lord, to be great indeed, when God s very purposes of them shall be found to be in him. And therefore still, that himself was purposed first ; and this dependence is superior, and metaphysical (as I may so speak), unto his being the executor or administrator of them all. For his purposes are the supreme cause and original of all things. And therefore in that sole in < through him stance, I shall over and above make good, that all things are indeed.

I shall now, in this general part of my discourse, allege but one scripture for this head ; and add, for the proof of the creation of all things to have been through him, a neighbouring text thereunto, bordering upon it, which will be sufficient in this metaphysical part to have performed, as touching this head.

I. God s eternal purposes concerning all things were made in Christ, as God-man.

God s eternal purposes concerning the creatures, or his works that are out of or without himself, are immanent acts of God s, remaining in him self. And yet God so honoured this our one Lord, as not to purpose any thing which was to be out of himself, ad extra, without the contemplation of his being God-man, on whom (as such) all things should depend. In Eph. i. 9, it is expressly said, Which he purposed in himself; involving therein his very purposes of working all things whatsoever, as well as his purposes of grace to his elect ; as appeareth by comparing ver. 11, In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. And in like manner, chap. iii. 11 of the same epistle, it is said, * According to the eternal purpose which he had made (so in the original) in Jesus Christ our Lord. Which purposes there, as to the object matter of them, do in like manner involve, and take in all the various goings forth of God, of what kind soever, even the whole system of God s works, wherein and whereby the manifold wisdom of God had, beforehand, contrived to manifest God by ; for that is the matter immediately afore treated of in the verse foregoing, ver. 10, To the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. And unto this it is that those words cited out of ver. 11 do relate : that is, the whole economy and dispensation of God in the works of creation, providence, government of this world, and of his church hitherto under the Old Testament, being now set together, with the work of redemp tion performed by Jesus Christ, and under the times of the gospel begun to be discovered, and thereby being all viewed in one prospect by the angels, who before had but by piecemeal been the curious observers of all, and each all along observing, and laying still each in their hearts, as they had passed and been acted ; but then it came to pass, by the discovery of the gospel, that the infinite, various, or manifold wisdom of God in the whole,

532 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEK, [BOOK III. broke forth in the person of Christ, to their admiration and astonishment ; that all had been purposed in him, even all these purposes whatever, of one as well as of the other. It is there said, that they were made in Jesus

Christ, as he is our Lord, verses 10, 11, To the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. So as this was it which became the matter of the wonderment to them, to see and behold how both their and our Lord Christ was made the centre of them all ; and that the works, yea, the purposes of them in God s heart, about creation, providence, and all sorts of works, wherein the manifold wisdom of God had so appeared, all dispensations to the Jews (the church of old), and now the calling of the new church, the Gentiles, were founded all in this one God-man Jesus

Christ.

For the concluding of this there are three things particularly and emi nently observable to my purpose out of those words, and their coherence.

The first ; That all those several sorts of purposes are termed but one single purpose ; for so in the original it is in the singular number, all being but one act in God, and all made in one and the same Jesus Christ, and as one single purpose, though comprehending a whole system and lump of purposes.

The second ; The phrase made is used concerning this one big purpose, made (which is the phrase) in Jesus Christ.

Observe, I say, concerning it, that whereas in the former chapter, ver. 9, you read, that God purposed all in himself; yet here, that he made the same purpose in Christ, even as when it should and did come to the execu tion, itis said, that all things are through and by this one Lord, as well as of one God. As they are coupled jointly in execution, so in purposes. Only as the apostle, in another case, says of him, the purpose of making and ordaining Christ himself, in whom all else are, must necessarily be excepted. And this notes out that they were made in him, as he was made Lord and Christ ; as Peter, Acts ii. 36, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. They were verified all in Christ, as the French phrase is, of the sanction to their laws. So all God s pur poses, taken up in God s own heart and bosom, are said to be made in Christ ; they had their ratification in Christ, God brought them to a firm subsistence and ultimate resolvedness in and through his Christ as a Lord.

For, seeing all things purposed were to be brought into existence by him, therefore the honour God gave him in his very decrees was, that the very purposes of them are said to be made in him, without whom they would, as to the effect and issue of them, have been made in vain, he being pre sent and by, and undertaking to effect them all ; therefore they are from the very first purposed in him. So as all God s eternal purposes depended on this Lord, The third thing I observe is, that to shew this universal dependence of all God s purposes on his one Christ, he answerably mentions all his titles.

1. Of Saviour, in that his name of Jesus. 2. Of Christ. 3. Of Lord. Which three do comprehend a respect and foundation unto all his pur poses of what sort soever. The words afore mention all three, In Jesus

Christ our Lord, which issues fully to the point in hand, and falls in with the words here to the Corinthians, my text.

CHAP. IX.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

Thus of God s purposes, which were the matrix, the womb of all things.

II. Christ is the medium of God s creation, &c. But more particularly, let me here add one instance, which may yet serve for all other, and I add it here, because it neighboureth so near this form, as I could not well leave it out here. And it concerns the execution of all things begun by the same Christ, as the former did thepurposes of all things in Jesus Christ. And so we have proof and instance in both kinds, both in God s purposes and in the execution of them, out of the same chapter.

When God should after, as he did, come to effect or put in execution all or any of these the purposes of his heart, still this Lord presents himself as fit and able to subserve him in the execution thereof, as an universal agent or instrument, in the virtue ofwhom he effected them all, and brought them forth to act.

For instance : The first purpose of God that was put into execution, and which was indeed the groundwork, the materia substrata, or subject matter of all other works that were to follow in execution, was that of creation ; the putting of all things into being (as the ultimate or bottom-subject, the matter which his decrees were to have to work upon) ; of this it is expressly said, in Eph. iii. 9, and indeed is added by the apostle as the eminent instance of all the rest, Who created all things by Jesus Christ, not one thing excepted, but was created by him.

And again ; If when God, setting his hand to create, would make more worlds than one (as he hath made two, viz., heaven and earth), in the vir tual influence of this Lord, God-man, it was, that these worlds were made, Heb. i. 2, Whom he hath appointed heir of all things ; by whom also he made the worlds. And herein, likewise again, this Lord is the maker of all and every thing in each and both these worlds ; so Col. i. 16, visible or invisible, whether things in earth or in heaven. All which is to be understood of him as God-man. But of these things afterwards, upon that Col. i. 16, &c., more particularly. III. The church of the elect have a more special dependence upon the one Lord Christ, as God-man, 1 Cor. viii. 6, * And we by him.

I shall lay down only some generals, that shew the tenure that the church of the elect hold on the one Lord Christ, as God-man.

Two things are imported in these words, And we by him.

1. A super-creation being and existence given us in him.

2. Supercreation blessings, and benefits by him, which appertain to that being in him. Which blessings are of two sorts.

(1.) Of redemption, as sinners, through this one Lord ; as he is Jesus, that we hold of his merits.

(2.) Of blessings abstractly considered from those of redemption ; that we hold of him as he is Christ the Lord, through our relation to, and union with his person. We have had a general view presented to us, how all things, that is, the whole creation, do and did depend upon our Lord Christ, even in God s very purposing of them.

It is therefore meet I should next speak the like generally to this other part, the tenure that the saints, the elect of God, have, and do hold of Christ : to the end, that this part of the structure may correspond with \v" ich had but in general treated the dependence that all things have upon him. that which is foregone,

534 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

And it is this latter is infinitely the more eminent of the two, and yet both necessary to shew the completeness of Christ, as God-man ; as in his person, so in his subserviency to God, in all his works whatsoever.

And we by him. 1. The we here are God s church of mankind, selected out of all things which he created, and here separated from them, as a company standing out apart by themselves, and who were separated and appointed by his Father to be a body unto him as a head. Now, if we consider them in their first creation state, so they are to be counted among the all things, and as such efficiently depending on him as one Lord, the creator, &c., of them. But when here he adds, and we by him, this imports their being a chosen generation, a peculiar people to God, the chosen of God out of all things else ; and his being a peculiar, special founder unto them of a super-creation state, and a dependency upon him for the whole of it, as he is Jesus Christ the Lord, which they have from him de novo, and by a newer kind of title than that of creation a state, and all things belonging to it, wholly supernatural unto that whichwas by creation.

And here again, like as was said in way of premise to that former first head, of the dependency of all things upon Christ, our thoughts and con templations must mount up again to that supreme age, or highest point of eternity, the*top of that vast sphere and circle that comprehended us and all things, considered as yet decreeable by God, and but in decreeing ; and considered,-- that there lay afore our great God, in his divine understand ing, a platform of far higher and momentous designs than those, and be yond those of the first creation and providence towards all things, together with man, after his kind, in common with them, namely, of calling in, and bringing a certain first-fruits (as the apostle James s word is, James i. 18, * Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures ) of that his intended first creation, to consecrate them to himself, through a super-creation union and communion with himself a state which was to be utterly superlative in all the things belonging to it, comparatively unto that state of and by their first creation, and all and everything whatsoever that appertains thereto a state, in the ultimate end and perfection of it, such as in heaven, after the work of redemption is finished, the saints and angels shall enjoy to all eternity ; and in bringing us to which he carries us through variety of means preparatory, or conducing thereunto, and all and each of them supernatural also. He, in his infinite grace and wisdom, found his only begotten Son, Christ, God-man, to be the person. Yea, and in his person as such, every way accomplished, adapted, and furnished to accomplish this design so fully and completely, as that whatever be designed by such a gracious decree, proceeding out of sovereignty, and such a love that should so far transcend that love which by creation he bore to us (a pure supercreation grace, I style it), whatever (I say) should enter into the thoughts of such an exceeding riches of grace, to bestow on them he would so love, this great Lord, his Christ, was adequately fitted and enabled to be the founder of. This Godman was a person after God s own heart, to the very utmost extent of his gracious purposes and counsels ; and in his person empowered to accomplish, at the first instant of his undertaking it, whatever God could think of for them, or had a mind to give them.

Now all and the whole of this super-creation state we have by him, are reducible unto two principal heads.

* Qu. consider? That is, we must consider.

1 ED.

First, What ice are, or rather that ice are, or are endowed with a new super-creation being, -f

Secondly, The endowments which that being is invested withal, or the supercreation benefits that appertain and belong to it. And both these, and all of these, we are by him ; he is the foundation of all we are or have.

1. He is the founder of a new super-creation being, which is the subject of all benefits bestowed ; as God s giving Adam a natural being after his image, that was the subject and recipient of all the blessings he enjoyed, and a thing distinctly to be considered of.

We commonly say, when a subject hath been raised up unto a great estate, honours, offices, whereunto he hath a legal right given him by his prince, in whose power it alone was to invest him therewith, we use in like manner of speech unto this here to express it, that what he is he is by him, and therefore call him his creature ; which is but translatitious, when yet he had not his existence, which is the subject, or the person, unto whom all these privileges do belong. But this our Christ is not only the founder of our right to all those supernatural, super-creation benefits, but God hath also founded for us in him a supercreation being and exist ence (and not only that actual existence we have from him), when we are made new creatures : a workmanship created in Christ Jesus more truly than the child may be said to be formed and fashioned in the mother, and the foundation of his being lay in her womb. And it is this new creature, superinduced over the natural person, which is the subjectum of the first creation, which in Scripture is termed the man ; Col. iii. 10, Put on the new man, after the image of him that created him, namely, Christ, the creator of it. That is the man and the him in the apostle s account. And observe the language the apostle useth, when he speaks of himself, 2 Cor. xii., I knew a man in Christ, &c., ver. 2 ; Of such a man I will glory, but of myself I will not glory, ver. 5. And yet it was himself he spake of. But he reckoned not himself by the creation-roll, but what he was in the King s book ; no, nor of the new creature neither would he glory, but as it was in Christ, and so it had a being. But further, we had a super-creation existence given us in Christ afore the world was, which was the foundation of the new creature, and which makes us thus capable of all those benefits which were then also and therewith given. And supercreation benefits must have a supercreation being, or state of being, given them, superior to our first creation being, and the benefits thereof, which in God s decrees we were appointed unto, as well as naturally to exist, by virtue of which we come to have a title unto those blessings.

For if our first creation members were all written in God s book of his purposes, so all the members, which are the various graces, the new man or creature consists of, they were all written in God s everlasting purposes. Yea, and all the blessings that belong to this new creature, are altogether therewith given us in Christ, as is express in 2 Tim. i. 9, * Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. The work in God s calling us, is the forming the new creature in our hearts ; styled therefore there an holy calling, as working holiness. And this foundation-blessing is said to have been given us in Christ, according to his purpose of grace in Christ, that was afore the world began ; and they could not be said to have been given us in Christ, unless we were considered some way or other in Christ then. God did not

586 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. take up naked purposes of grace and good-will to us, with a firm intent and resolution to bestow those blessings on us, though his purposes are as mountains of brass, as the prophet speaks, Zech. vi. 1. But he was pleased to fix and ratify them in his Christ ; and in like manner us and our per sons he founded then in Christ, and considered in Christ. God had as then his Christ present with him, and by him ; and reckoned of us as members of him, and elected us as such. And God thought not his bare purpose of election of our persons enough to satisfy Christ, who at that present undertook for us ; nor to comfort us when we should come actually to exist in this world, and to lay hold of his grace ; nor was he contented, if I may so speak, with Christ s bare concurrence, as second person, in choosing us, as well as the Father himself did, but further to strengthen his own heart in those his purposes towards us ; as in the 8th of Pro verbs it is said, our Christ was with him, strengthening and support ing his intended creation to him. He thereby engaged himself unto Christ then present for us, yea, and constituted and set up Christ as a represen tative of us, and common person for us. And Christ accepted us, took us into himself, and owned us as his, and pieces of himself. And in these respects the elect had a being afore God ; such as was far more than what was simply given them in God s decrees, or purposes of grace, or good-will, or bare choice on God s part. But his choice did find a foundation of their existing. For this his Christ was there present with him, actually existent, and at his request to bear the person of God-man ; and therein to estate us all, at the instant of his choice, as far as he should name them to him, to be his body, spouse, members ; and he from that instant also to bear and represent their persons afore his Father, and so to give them a represen tative being in himself, which other creatures then had not, but were left singly to their own fortunes, stations. And in these respects it is that Christ, as God-man, is styled the everlasting Father, Isa. ix. 6. Father of us, namely, from everlasting ; bearing us then in his heart, as a mother doth her children in her womb. So as by means hereof it came to pass, that the elect were not as branches hanging in the sunbeams of God s single purpose of grace only, to produce and bring them forth into actual existence by its single influence, but such as have withal a soil, a root they were planted in, the person of Christ ; he and we being cvfj Ltpvroi, as twin-plants, planted together in God s heart from the first. Hence that high foundation of election, which is called the election of grace/ is said to be in Christ. He hath chosen us in Christ afore the world began. And though God chose the persons, yet completed he his choice of them in Christ, and gave us a being in him, as in a head, and then gave them this being in Christ ; but chose them in Christ, from the first cast of his thoughts to choose them. God never considered us as single persons out of Christ (though in this respect that he determinately and distinctly foreknew, and pitched upon each of our persons), but chose us one in and with his Son, as a head, or common person, taking our persons and undertaking for them. He never abstractedly considered or viewed us apart from, or without Christ, but as one in him, and with him, constituted and made one head and body at once. And this aforehand gave them a subsistence of another kind than what by creation they were to receive. Insomuch as their state in him is termed a being, a new being and existence ; as the subject upon which being first constituted, the benefits do fall. Of him ye are in Jesus Christ, says the apostle, 1 Cor. i. 30. Lay that as our foundation of Christ his being made wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption to us ; which are the

benefits that belong to that being. In him ye are or have a being, says the apostle. And before God Christ had it, from that time wherein we were given to God by him. And we began so far to be, as we were considered in him, and that was at our everlasting election ; and he to be sure had an actual being, and bore an actual representation of us. And this laid a corner-stone of a higher being supernatural, even from eternity, than what our first creation came unto.

This super-creation being having been thus settled, I come to the second head proposed, viz., II. A general consideration of the benefits wholly supercreational. These super-creation blessings we hold of Christ, are of two sorts, and distinct,

1. Such as are supernatural, even in respect of our first creation estate, unto which for that cause I give the style of super-creation benefits, which do far exceed in value the first stock of creation blessings: such as that of adoption of sons, heirs of glory, an unchangeable love of God to us, and of an immutability of our love, and of perfect holiness in us unto God again.

2. The second sort of benefits are those that are supernatural in respect unto our sinful, corrupt, miserable estate we are fallen into, and delivered out of. Such as are pardon of sin, justification, and a restauration of that original holiness we lost, and had once in Adam ; together with that high superinduction of the image of Christ in his dying and rising ; which involves in it the original holiness we had once in Adam, conformable to the holy law. These I call purely redemption-blessings, and may wholly be called supernatural, as aforesaid.

And these two sorts of benefits, as they are apparently distinct in them selves, so answerably they have a distinct foundation of Christ. For The first sort have their foundation in his very person, through a given relation of us to him, and him to us ; and these are abstractly considered from redemption, or the benefits belonging thereunto, and purchased thereby. So as God giving us unto him, and he accepting us for his body, and to be one with us for ever ; even by virtue of this relation there is a wonderful sphere and round of blessings, which have a foundation thereby, and might have had, if God had so pleased, if men should never have fallen. And although man falling, God decreed that other sort of redemption mercies ; yet so as these first sort were originally decreed, as being more glorious, without the consideration of the fall. And though (as I acknowledge) they were upon man s fall purchased all anew, upon the account of redemption ; yet the interest of his person, and our very relation to his person (as afore said) was in the original decree of God about us, and continues to be the main foundation, with a distinct consideration from those of redemption, of our right unto those blessings, although also purchased by redemption, so as for us to have a double title to them. v The second sort of benefits are wholly by virtue of redemption, and flow from the merits and influence of the acts thereof, and wholly so arise from an acquired interest of his obedience, death, resurrection, &c. And again, although the merit that purchased these benefits do wholly arise from the worth and dignity of his person ; as namely his death and blood, that it was the blood of God ; and the obedience of him that was offered up by the eternal Spirit, the Godhead in him, and is therefore called the right eousness of God ; yet these benefits are not founded and conveyed merely from our relation to bis person, abstractedly considered from his redemp tion ; as if that relation to and union with his person could have produced

538 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. or procured these redemption blessings, as I style them, without a superadditional merit acquired, over and above, and beside that of the interest of his person.

CHAPTER X.

How all things depend on Christ, God-man; and what influence he hath into them ; further proved and illustrated by that text in Col. i. 16. Some cautions premised for the understanding it aright. What is meant by those expressions, in him and by him are all things.

For by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, risible and invisible, ivhether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or rjoicers; all things were created by him, and for him. COL. I. 16.

Now is to succeed that other title of glories due to our Lord Christ, con sidered as God-man, namely, in his relation unto the works and counsels of God, and the influence he hath in them, the dependence they all have, either actually or virtually, upon that personal union of the Son of God with our nature ; and this is the second thing in order in the text, or a second crown of glory, which our apostle here setteth upon our Lord s head, who is yet, moreover, above and besides all this, an head unto his church, &c., as ver. 18.

That these things here are spoken of him as God-man, and not as second person only, I shewed in the first chapter of this book, in the latter part of it, wherein I opened and sorted the particulars of this text into their due method.

The only difficulty that here occurs (ere we proceed any further) is, that seeing the Son of God did not assume that man Jesus into one person with himself until four thousand years after the creation ; how can the work of the creation be attributed to him, considered as God-man, that by him all things were created ? And so, why should it not still rest upon this account, that by him, simply considered as God s Son, and second person, all things were made.

Towards the clearing of this I cast in these ensuing particulars.

I. That there is a double influence which causes have into effects ; one virtual, the other actual. Not to instance in other causes (if any such like to this might be found), it will be enough to give a parallel instance in Christ himself, whose actions performed by him, when come in the flesh, had yet a virtual influence into many things that were done long before, either the actual existence of him in the flesh, or the performance of those actions ; yea, the virtue whereof reached to the beginning of the world. Thus by virtue of his death, Adam, and Eve, and Abraham, and all the fathers, were saved. Not to prove this by induction, but by the lump ; Peter having spoken of all the fathers under the Old Testament, Acts xv., in the last words of ver. 10 immediately subjoins and pronounceth this as common to the Jews and themselves now in the times of the New Testa ment ; We believe that, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they, ver. 11, that is, they and we both alike are saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yea, and further, this their salvation is attributed to his death ; which though once, as a sacrifice offered

CHAP. X.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

up in the end of the world, Heb. ix. 26, yet was offered up for sins past ; Rom. iii. 25, Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. And that under the Old Testament, saith Heb. ix. 15, And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testa ment, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

And as there is this double influence, so answerably, a double existence may be conceived of him.

A virtual existence, which is affirmed of him in that speech, when he is said to have been the same Christ, yesterday as well as to-day, to all be lievers ; Heb. xiii. 8, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Yea, and his death, in respect of the virtue of it, hath existed from the beginning of the world, as that speech, Rev. xv. 8, evidently imports, * the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. Let us first see what the text will speak in favour of this interpretation, yea, let us but compare phrase with phrase, as things are spoken of him; in this text, he is said to be the first-born from the dead ; and, 1 Cor. xv. 20, the first-fruits of them that slept, in so much as, ver. 23 of that chapter, the priority of order in rising again is given to Christ, but every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ s. But is it so, that Christ, in respect of an actual priority, was the first of all the elect that rise again ; so as none of them afore him, though you know

Lazarus, and divers others at his death, rose out of their graves ? And yet, still he is the first-born, the eldest Son, whom that womb of the earth gave up, the first fruits that soil brought forth, which therefore must neces sarily be understood of a virtual existence and priority ; and so, as because by virtue of him, all others do and have risen again. Then you may, by these and the like parallels, easily conceive how this assertion is to be * all things were created by him, as God-man, and as that one Lord or Christ ; as also, that there is not a necessity to ascribe all such things spoken of him, or to put the account of his being second person alone, as abstracted from the consideration of his being Lord, and Christ, because said to be done by him afore the human nature existed. understood, that And so the plain sense of this assertion is this, that the Son of God, per sonally and actually existing as the Son of God with God, afore the world or any creature was made, he undertaking and covenanting with God to become a man (yea, that man which he hath now taken up into one person with himself), as well for this end as for other ends more glorious, God did in the virtue and fore-knowledge thereof, and in the assurance of that covenant of his, proceed unto the creating all things which he hath made ; and without the intuition, or having this in his eye, he would not have made any thing which he hath made.

II. The second particular is, the adding some cautions touching the under standing of this assertion.

1. It is not to be understood, as if I meant, that God had not sufficient power, or absolute sovereignty, to have created, unless the Son of God had become man. God was God, blessed for ever, and all-sufficient in himself, without this design about Christ ; so as it adds no new power to him, which he had not in himself afore. Thus take that power which is in God to sanctify us now, when fallen into sin, and which is in the Holy Ghost to effect it in us, is one and the same essential power, which is in God as God,

540 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. out of which he made man at first, and created him in holiness, and no other. And Christ s redemption, or dying for us, adds no new degree of essential power to God, or the Holy Ghost, whereby to enable him to sanc tify us, as if else he wanted power to do it. No ; and yet we say, as to the exerting or putting forth that power, that it depends morally on Christ s having died, as without which it would not have been put forth ; as also, for that his death purchased the power, and also the mercy that was in God, to have it demonstrated, in raising up men dead in sins and trespasses ; and so we say it is to be attributed to his death and resurrection virtually, which also the Scripture affirms, Philip, iii. 10, That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.

2. As to the point in hand, I assert not neither so high and so great a dependence of this creating power upon the personal union, as is of sancti fying us upon Christ s redemption, for by his death he purchased that power. But so it is not here, as if that his undertaking to assume man s nature had purchased this putting forth God s power to create ; but the dependence thereon refers to God s will, and so is ex hypothesi, that he would otherwise never have gone about to create, he would never have been pleased with any creature, or all creatures, he could have made, without this ; and so in him, and from him, as so considered, it was, that God condescended thereunto, as the reasons of this * point, annexed to the proof of it, will give the ac count of.

3. When this is attributed to Christ as God-man, it is not exclusively to be understood as if, as second person, he did not concur to create as well as the Father and the Holy Ghost, because he virtually concurred as Godman. No ; for look as in redemption, the Son, as second person, concurs as well as the Father and the Spirit, as it is one act in common of the three persons, yet so as over and above, Christ, as God-man in one person, doth in especial effect it ; so here in creation, he hath, over and above his com mon concurrence as second person, in this, and all works else, a special honour attributed to him, as God-man, from his virtual hand in it.

III. It will much conduce to the right stating of this point, as I assert it, to take notice of the aberrations from, and yet dark gropings after this truth.

- 1. Arius, he would have Christ to have been a great creature in the form of God, and as a God by office, and like unto him in all things, existing afore the world was, "as the medium or means by whom God made all things ; and that without the intervention of such an immense and divine creature, he would not immediately himself have created any thing.* But then, Arius withal denied that this Christ was also God essentially, and of the substance of his Father, and so asserted him to be but a mere creature.

2. Others of late have in like manner thus endeavoured to set out the person of Christ to us ; that he was put forth by God out of himself, a mere creature, and under the covenant of works ; yet so as in his person he was the Spirit, the seminal or prolific virtue of all the creatures that could or should be made, being the whole mass of what God had in him to afford to make creatures out of, distinct from himself ; as man hath to afford what if let out of himself is the foundation or matter of a son, or children from him ; and that this great Son of his thus put forth, finding himself distinct from God now put forth, and so as a mere creature mutable, as under the covenant of works, as all are by the law of creation, and that * See Kivet in Gen.

so he would die and perish if lie remained alone and thus out of God, he therefore, by the supernatural guidance and impulse of God, willingly died to that creatureship and the state and condition thereof, and giving that up to a oneness with God in spirit, he rose and ascended up to a being in the form of God, and one with God in Spirit, and in this respect was termed the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, and then did create, as God, and as being in the form of God, and put forth angels and this world, and all things out of himself, and thereby is become the head of the first creation*; and by his appearing in flesh in that man at Jerusalem, did, by the like example acted by him, teach us men to die unto our being creatures, which hath been commonly termed by them, destroying of flesh, &c., and then to rise up in spirit unto that being in the form of God, and one in spirit with God, even as Christ himself afore the world had done, and thereby preserved himself from ruin. And this is the covenant of grace, say they ; thus Christ became the head of the new creation, as he was author of the first.

3. That great and excellently learned man, Sir Francis Bacon, in a con fession of faith, which I had in manuscript, under his hand, about fortysix years ago, and since printed, 1641, but without his name, his words are these : I believe that God is so holy, pure, and jealous, as it is impossible for him to be pleased in any creature, though the work of his own hands ; so that neither angel nor man could stand, or can stand one moment in his eyes without the beholding of the same in the face of a mediator ; and therefore before him with whom all things are present, the Lamb of God was slain afore all the world, without which eternal purpose of his it was im possible for him to have descended to any work of creation, but he should have enjoyed the blessed and individual society of three persons in the God head only for ever. But that out of his eternal and infinite goodness and love, purposing to become a creature, and communicate with his creatures, he ordained in his eternal counsel, that one person of the Godhead should be united to one nature, and to one particular of his creatures, that so in the person of the mediator the true ladder might be fixed whereby God might descend to his creatures, and his creatures ascend unto him.

And in his fifth paragraph it follows : * That by virtue of this his eternal counsel, touching a mediator, he de scended at his own good pleasure, and according to the times and seasons, to himself known, to become a creature ; who by his eternal Word created all things, and by his eternal Spirit doth comfort and preserve them.

There are two things in his stating this which I do not readily assent unto.

1. That Christ was considered by God as the Lamb slain ; and from the foresight of his death, and the second person undertaking to become the Lamb slain, it was that God designed to create, even as through and for his death, as afore considered, he ordained to redeem man, considered then as fallen. But this needed not as to creation, there being no supposition of guilt in that which was nothing, which all things afore their creation were ; and besides, though his taking our nature was designed and proved to our redemption from sin, yet sufficient alone to move him simply to make and create mere creatures was that other reason which he gives, that one person of the Godhead should be united to one of his own creatures ; in whose person, so united, God s holiness and purity would fully be pleased to descend to create other fellowcreatures for him and his glory. Let

542 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

Christ s blood then stand to reconcile sinners, or those that were in danger to sin ; and let his bare undertaking to be united to a creature be a sufficient relief against the meanness of mere creatures, and by their defects to set forth his glory. The creature alone considered had not been worth the making without this design ; Christ s person alone was an abundantly well - pleasing medium or mediator of union to the elect, and of stability unto the frailty and unworthiness in creatures.

2. The second thing (which may stumble some) in this assertion is, that he says, it was impossible for God without this counsel or decree (namely, of Christ s incarnation) to have descended to any work of creation, &c. Which expression, unless understood of an impossibility ex hypothesi, by way of supposition (that God would not have been pleased with any or all works his power could make, unless this personal union of some creature with God had been added and undertaken), would have a danger in it, and a great absurdity. Only as of a wise man it is said, he cannot do that which his wisdom and will, guided by counsel, thinks no meet for him to do ; so the same may be affirmed of God, which also seems, by the tenure of his speech, to have been his scope.

But the state I would put this assertion into, in distinction from this, and in perfect opposition to those forementioned errors of others, is, That indeed, according to the Scriptures, and the very foundations of our religion, God needed not any mere creature to help him to create, but it is his own immediate power that doth it, as the book of Job and Genesis tells us ; therefore (to obviate that objection) our Christ is truly and by nature very God, of the same substance with his Father, begotten by him, and equal to him, and that afore the world was ; as also at the creation, he existed as God with God his Father, afore any creature was, or any way assumed by him.

His subserviency to God in the creation is set forth in this Col. i. 16, in three particles.

I. Ev awry,* In him.

II. A/ auroij, By him.

III. Eis avrbv, For him.

I. In him, as the exemplary cause, so some schoolmen of old interpreted it ; for it is not in him all the creatures can be said to be as in a head, for that is the peculiar and proper privilege of elect men and angels, that are homogeneal to him. He is a Lord to every creature, but not a head, therefore the exemplary cause is intended. And this was one reason, among many others, why God, in his decree about what creature the second person should assume, pitched upon man s nature rather than that of angels, be cause man s nature is the compendium of all, and so fitted to be (as in Christ it was) exalted the exemplar, the crwrdYLKrov, the pattern of the whole crea tion. The poets feigned a piece out of every creature to have been taken to make up man, the perfection of them all. In his reasonable soul, which is a spirit that can subsist of itself, he agrees with angels ; in his body, and the lives thereof, sensitive and vegetative, with beasts and plants, &c. Now therefore God set up Christ as the pattern of all perfection (for so that human nature, united and quickened by the Godhead, must needs be even above the angels themselves, though having a body, and more excellent than * So in the original, "On Iv O.VTW sxrttfG r) rd xavra, rd ev roTf ovgavoTg xat rd lit] TTJg 7?J, *"a coard xai rd dogara, i/re Sg&Of, g/Vs xu/6r7jr, /Vf i, rd vdvra di dvrov xai elg dvrov txnffrat. ^1i- 16.

CHAP. X.J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 543 they), and drew in scattered pieces the several perfections met in that human nature in the rest of the creation from this pattern. And in man s creation (whose nature it was he was to assume) this seems to have been considered by God, in that speech then uttered, Let us make man accordto our image, which in Christ as decreed to be God-man, and in which, as such, he is styled, the image of the invisible God, as hath been shewn (which some, both ancient and modern divines, have interpreted of Christ, as to be made man, notwithstanding Austin s objection). Even as that speech used when man was created, Man was made a living soul is in terpreted by the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 45, &c., to have an eye to Christ, as the type or shadow hath to the body, so likewise that speech uttered before * Let us make man after our image, that man re concerning his creation, fers to whom God was to be united to, and is as if God had said, whom we in our decrees have set up as the pattern and expressest image of the invisible Godhead, common to all three persons, to the utmost liveliness ordained to be set out, in him who was set out. Therefore the first in in tention, and decree, and therein before this man Adam, and all things, and of whom this man Adam is but a shadow.

II. The second phrase is, 3/ aurou, By him all things were created ; so Eph. iii. 9, where speaking of the mystery of the gospel itself (whereof Christ was the great founder, and apparent author in all men s eyes), he adds, how the same Christ had also created all things, he having been some way the instrument, as he is Christ, God-man, anointed of the creation, as well as actually of redemption. And the coming of it in there, so by a mere occasional addition, imports as if this Christ indeed had been concealed, and came not into the world, but then when the gospel was to be revealed and manifested (of which he there speaks as a mystery hid), yet unto him, as thus to come into the world, was the world beholden for their creation. And this glory of Christ, God concealed until the full revelation of him in the great work of redemption, that so all his revenues of glory might come in together. Yea, if he were at all to be made a creature, it was his due personal privilege ^to have been first himself made, and him self to have been God s instrument in it, and to have uttered those words still which were spoken by God (yet as on purpose relating to him, as Cameron well observes), Let there be light, Let there be sun, moon, &c. Even as it was his due, when he assumed our nature, to have been filled with all that personal glory which he hath now in heaven ; but that for accomplishment of other ends also it was suspended, namely, that he might first become sin and a curse for us ; so, I say, it was his due to have existed in his human nature first (supposing such a decree that he should assume) ; and then he, as God s Word and instrument, to have created all things, as he wrought miracles when he was on the earth. But God having a further and more glorious end, suspended that (as he did his personal glory due to him, when he came), and contrived his coming after the fall, in order to redemption. He yet gives him that glory of creation virtually, and that he created all things by him, and by virtue of his incarnation ; and in creating (to shew he should have done it as his Xoyog, a Word to be made flesh) he accordingly acts his part, as in Gen. i., God said, Let there be light, and the like, which but for this very mys tery needed not have been. Yea, such seems to have been his subservi ency to God herein, that John contents not himself only to have said, that all things were made by him, but further adds, and without him nothing was made that was mn.de, Unto the interpretation of which place, hereto

544 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. annexed,* I refer the reader for a further explication and confirmation o this truth.

And the reason of this is, partly to honour his Son, to make that his act of undertaking to assume our nature (whereby the Son should be made less than his Father, even in the greatest height of glory that could be put upon him ; and yet he did this to manifest the Godhead to the utmost), the foundation of the creation, as he did his incarnation in frail flesh, together with his sufferings the foundation of our salvation (for upon the decrees of God s will we will suppose the connection of these to depend) ; but yet partly withal, because it was not meet, nor did it become the great God to make any mere creatures, though never so glorious, but upon Christ s undertaking first himself to be a creature, and that for two reasons.

First, For if God glorify himself by creation at all, he will glorify him self as God the utmost way that may be, or else he doth not like himself. God is curious in the works which his hands mean to make, and will mani fest his Godhead unto the utmost. Now all that could have been held forth and manifested of the Godhead, in and to mere creatures, had fallen short, had not been to the utmost ; therefore if God satisfy himself, it must be by that which is the utmost, or he would have torn all projects of models of worlds in pieces, and never have put them in execution ; for still he says with himself, I shall do my best and utmost, if there be not an union of some creature into one person with us. Nothing else would have satisfied his vast desires of being glorified.

And, secondly, the holiness of mere creatures would not have come up to a contentment of his, as the manifestation of the Godhead in the creation of mere creatures would not have given full contentment to his power and wisdom, so no mere created holiness to his holiness. He finds folly in the angels, possibility of mutability, an imperfection; but there is none in God incarnate. Now, therefore, if his Son will undertake to be a creature, he is so pleased herewith, as he can be content to condescend (as the psalmist s word is) to look down upon the making works of a lower nature. Which all serve also to illustrate this highest work of all, by their several subordi nation thereunto in their several ranks and orders.

It is strange that in the text there should be three phrases used concern ing the creation in relation unto Christ. The creatures are said to be created in him, and created by him, and created for him.

In him, as a head, they are not. The creatures cannot be said to be created, as the elect are said to be chosen, in him : that is proper to those creatures that are homogeneal to him. In him, therefore, may well be understood virtually, as in Eph. ii. 10, we are said to be his workman ship, created in him to good works : so the old creation is also in him in * I was brought up with him (speaking of Wisdom), I remember Junius translates it actively, Edua virtual respect. That place in Prov. viii. 30, cat; I was he that did foster the creatures, he did foster the purposes of God in the creation of the world ; he was Educans, nursing up and foster ing of the old creation in his purpose. In Eph. iii. 9, the apostle saith, that it was given to him to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who (saith he) created all things by Jesus Christ. He speaks of the mystery of the gospel. Now that Jesus Christ was the founder of the gospel, that was apparently known, * See chap, sii., infra. ED.

CHAP. XI.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 545 it was in all men s eyes ; but he addeth, by the same Jesus Christ he created all things, that is, by Jesus Christ as anointed God-man. And to me the words came in thus (for it is an addition by the way), that though the gospel only began to reveal this Christ, and he did not assume man s nature till the times of the gospel, and for evangelical ends and purposes, for the redemption of man took frail flesh ; yet, saith he, know this, the world was beholden to him for its creation ; and this is one glory of his that is not to be laid aside, and the revelation of it, saith he, is by the gospel. He brings it in here with the other, that Christ might have all his revenues of glory (which in the 8th verse have been styled his riches) come in together.

CHAPTER XL

That Christ as God-man is the Creator of all things, proved by scriptures. The first proof out of the former text reassumed : 1 Cor. viii. 6, By whom are all things. Some further explanation how this is attributed to him as God-man, in answers to some queries respecting it.

I allege, in the first place, that preliminary text I took, of 1 Cor. viii. 6.

Shewing thereout, that the one God had set up Christ as the one Lord under himself, a Lord unto all his creatures. I then proved that title of Lordship there given him was not meant of his natural Lordship, as he is God, or singly as second person, but as God-man. For evidence of which I must refer the reader thither.

That particular improvement which I now make of that passage in that scripture, By him are all things, is to set it in the front to the rest of scriptures that follow, to lead on to the proof of the point in hand founded upon this.

That if this title of one Lord be given him as God-man, and in respect of an office he sustains afore God, as was there proved, the inference is strong, that then he was as such first and chiefly forelaid in God s designs and everlasting purposes as a midst or foundation unto ALL, as upon whom all things in common for creation, and we in special for our supernatural estate, had a dependence, and not merely as second person. And it is of all things, as well as of the state of the elect. For,

1. If all things be by him, as the Lord, then he, under God, is a founder of them, as the Lord of them. For that which is by another,* must needs be acknowledged, as such, to be before that other. Nor is it said only that all are for him, as if in that respect only he were their Lord (which yet is true) as Adam, his type, was lord of all the visible world, and yet the world was not by him. But here he is such a Lord, as by whom or through whom all things are. And not only of them when they once are, but through whom they are and have their being. And so he is their founder as well as their end. Nor is he said simply to be Lord of all, as Acts x. 36, and Lord over all, Rom. x. 12 ; but here it is further, Lord, by whom all.

2. It is indifferently spoken of him, that all things are by him as one

Lord, as that we (the church) are by him. Now all will and do acknowledge, that we, and all that belongs unto our salvation, do and doth depend on him as God-man, and as our Lord ; and that that is the intent of that speech in that same 1 Cor. viii. 6, * and we by him. In that respect, therefore, * Qu. By which another is ? ED. VOL. rv. Mm

546 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. in their kind and proportion, all things else ; for both are there set toge ther and yoked in one and like parallel expression.

3. And indeed, 3dly, The dependence of all things on him, merely as God and second person, is afore included in that preceding speech ; There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things. And Christ, considered as second person, is one God with the Father, as our divines upon this place do affirm against the Socinian objection. And the Father is set for the other two persons, both the Son and Spirit ; as in John xvii. 3, And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. And here the Son is evidently implied in saying, * One God, the Father, spoken in relation to Christ as the Son ; and because they are both thus included, therefore it is that the Spirit is not mentioned at all ; when yet upon him is the same dependence that is upon the Father ; yea, and of the Son and Spirit it is that all things are, as well as of the Father.

To conclude : what is that great truth the apostle sets the primitive churches a-work to pray about, and that the generality of the then heathen world might come to the knowledge of, but this very thing thus stated ? God would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Tim. ii. 4, 5. And doth not this Corinthian text speak just in the same parallel language, one God, and one Lord,? So then it is not Christ, simply considered as second person, the apostle here intends as the one Lord here ; that sense would be too narrow in compari son of this other, that comprehends the whole of our Christ, both as God, the substratum, of his person, and also man, and the whole of his office in the relation he stands thereby unto God, to us, and all the whole creation.

There is a query or two may be made.

Query 1. Is not Christ s Lordship rather thus to be understood, That as God indeed he hath a natural right over all things, because as God he made them ? And the title of God s dominion over all is founded on this, that he is the maker of them ; and so, that Christ s official or commissionated

Lordship over all as man is but only for him to be the end or ruler of them, which Ps. viii. 4, compared with Heb. ii. 6, gives him ; But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? or the son of man, that thou visitest him ? What is man ? Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of thy hands, &c., that is, when they are once made by him, considered as he is God ; and therefore in that respect of his being man, is not to be extended to their creation, or to his being author of their very beings themselves.

I answer ; That if Lord here in the text be meant of that commissionated

Lordship he hath as God-man, as hath been proved ;Uhat then, asjruly as that all things are said to be of one God, as God, in respect of their crea tion, so truly are all things said to be by this one Lord, though in a dis tinction from God. All things is a reaching word, and comprehends the very beings of things ; and we see that in as full an extent of latitude it is spoken of Christ, that all are by him, as the former is of God, that all are of him ; only with this note of difference, of him, so of God ; but by him, so of that one Lord, shewing that God hath that dominion originally, but Christ derivatively, as a commissionated Lord, as he by whom God doth all things, that yet are of God himself. Now, when it is here said of God, all things are of him, all readily understand it, that all things have their beings of him, and their very creation from him. Therefore also, when it

CHAP. XI. J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. 547 is said of Christ, all things are by him, it is in like manner imported that they all depend on this commissionated Lord for their beings and creation also. And the Scriptures fall in with this phrase and manner of expression, whilst they frequently say of Christ, all things were made by him, and that God by him did make the worlds ; whilst they particularly express Christ s share of efficiency in their making and creation. This is the common language with what is here.

Ans. 2. The assertion is not that as man, singly considered, this is attri buted unto him, but as God-man. Singly and alone as man he hath no such Lordship at all, either over all the creatures to rule them, much less to create ; for a mere man was not capable of it (as was said). Nor, on the contrary, is it true that as he is God, singly considered, he only can create ; but that as God-man he can create also (especially having been therewith commissioned thereto as such by God), even as well as forgive sins ; which he takes on him as God-man to do. The Jews in a like man ner objected, Mark iL 7, This man speaks blasphemies: who can forgive sins but God ? It is true, none could but he that is God. But it was not true that it was not so a property of God, considered singly as God only, that a man that was one person with God, or God-man, could not be par taker of it, as his personal privilege, by virtue of that union, or have a virtual influence thereunto, as well as God. And to put an end to that controversy, Christ gives this real demonstration of it, ver. 9 and 11, Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee ; or to say, Arise, take up thy bed and walk ? But that ye may know the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins. Yea, Christ as God-man, doth greater works every day than create worlds. He creates

new creatures, and thereby causeth all old things to pass away, and all things to become new. And he will create new heavens and a new earth ; and change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working of his mighty power, whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself, Philip, iii. 21. Which are all spoken of Christ as God-man, even him whom visibly we look for from heaven, as it is there in the verse afore.

Ans. 3. Nor are these things attributed to him merely by way of com munication of properties ; whereby what is proper only to the divine nature singly as God is attributed to the manhood ; but these all by way of in fluence and virtual efficacy are attributed to him as God-man, as truly as the works of redemption, mediation, and forgiveness of sins, all which are secundum utramque naturam attributed to Christ, in respect of both his human and divine natures, as we affirm against the papists.

Ans. 4. To affirm this is (as not any of those other afore-mentioned) no way derogatory unto God. It is proper indeed to God to create by his own sole power originally ; all the essential power is solely his, and the man Jesus can add nothing of power thereunto. Yet derivatively the person of the Son, as God-man, may be and was empowered thereto, over and above what simply, as God and second person, his power was for. As by way of difference, it is said, all things are by him, as Lord ; but of God, that 1 all is of him. Ans. 5. Nor is it true that the sole foundation or rise of God s being Lord over all is, that he is maker of all things ; and that therefore this is * Lord over all before they were made, in that he could make them, &c. His Lordship as God is founded on a peculiar to God as God ; for he was sovereignty in himseli. And accordingly doth learned Cameron speak upon

548 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

This essen this occasion of Christ himself; Dominium illud essentials, &c., tial dominion (namely as God) belongs not only to Christ for the cause or ground that he is the Creator of all things, but upon that height and sove reignty of the divine nature ; which is such, and so high and lofty in kind above that of all the creatures, that although the world had not been made by him (which yet we cannot so much as feign the supposition of), he had yet been the Lord of all things, namely, as God.

Query 2. That seeing he existed not as man at the creation, nor until four thousand years thence after ; as also by Peter the first date of his being made Lord, as God-man, is made upon his ascension into heaven, Acts ii., ver. 34, 36 ; how then can his having created all be ascribed unto him as God-man, the Lord ?

Ans. 1. This hinders not his virtual influence (as God-man) into the work of creation, no more than his not having existed as man did hinder his virtual influence (and that as God-man) into the work of redemption all along under the Old Testament, in which Christ is so often styled the Redeemer. And further, by the same reason (if this allegation should avail) he should not have been made the Christ no more than the Lord neither, until he had ascended ; for both are there equally joined, Him hath God made both Lord and Christ. But as Christ, and Jesus also, he

the same yesterday, in the Old Testament ; and to-day, in the New ; as well afore his ascension as after, and for ever, Heb. xiii. 8, and there fore as Lord also.

Ans. 2. The actual execution by the man Jesus (he now actually existing as such), was indeed first more openly and publicly entered upon, and manifestly declared before angels and men upon his ascension ; but was afore secretly executed and performed, in all the works and parts belonging to it, by the Son of God, who was the person then existing ; and yet not as then by him, as singly considered, as merely second person, but as having been appointed and commissionated thereto by the three persons in God s decrees, and himself having also undertaken to be man, and there with he sustaining that personage, he performed and issued forth all acts afore his Father, sub eo nomine. Observe how the second of the Acts

Let all the house of Israel know assuredly (by this open and speaks, visible demonstration given) that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Ans. 8. Nor doth he say that when he ascended (the visible effects of which ye now see and hear, says he, ver. 23, were the evidence for this, that God had made him Christ, and Lord ; which effects the apostle refers them there unto), that then first God made him the Lord and Christ, or that then first he had entered upon that office ; but he produceth it as an undeniable testimony, that God hath made him so, &c., and that he was the person whom God had made ; but when first made, is not there said. Ans. 4. These words hath made do as well, and as effectually speak, and involve his having been appointed to it, as now to note out the actual exe cution of it, by the man as actually ascended. Appointed is put to express being made, and e contra ; so Heb. iii. 2 treats of Christ, He was faithful to him that appointed him ; the Greek is, that made him. And his being appointed Lord, Mrill allow us, and send us to an higher date, even to afore

God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. the creation, yea, even to eternity : Heb. i. 2, The subject_of these elogies is not singly the second person, but the whole

CHAP. XII.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

of Christ as now made man, and by whom he had now in the last days spoken to us as such. And yet, because he had said, that in the last days this was done, and not till then ; to pre-occupate the very same objection we have been answering, he goes on, * Whom he hath appointed heir of all things, &c. As if he had said, Although our Christ, as man, actually existed not until four thousand years after the creation (at which period it was the last days began, or perhaps rather at his ascension), yet he was long afore that appointed the heir, that is, Lord of all things that were so long actually extant afore him as man ; yea, he was so appointed long before the very creation of them ; and therefore he sets this his being appointed first, and afore that of their creation, by whom also he made the worlds. Yea, and because as God-man he was appointed the Lord of them, therefore it was also that God commissionated him to make them, as being considered Godman, to make his title of Lordship, even as Son of man, proper and direct, and adequately full to him. So then God appointed him to all this, and the Son of God then existing, and consenting to and taking this office of Lord on him, and person of God-man, and Christ acting accordingly in all that was done, as the Lord and heir of all, there needeth no more to verify this we are upon, namely, that as God-man he made the worlds, and vir tually as man, as well as efficiently both as God and man, in the sense it hath been explained in.

CHAPTER XII.

That Christ, as God-man, is the Creator of all things, proved from John i. 1, 2, 3. Whether o Xoyog, the WORD, import not as the second person existing, as God with God in the beginning, so withal connotating that person, as sustaining before God the personage of God-man, by whom as such all things were created. An interpretation of Prov. viii. from ver. 22 to 32, with a parallel between that scripture and this of John i. 1, 2, 3. A brief exposi tion of the first chapter of John, continued unto the lth verse.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same ivas in the beginning with God. All things were made by him ; and without him was not any thing made that was made. JOHN I. 1, 2, 3.

In the prosecution of this assertion of Christ (as God-man) his being instrumental to all God s purposes, and decrees, and works, as namely, the creation, providence, &c., I shall further add what the forepart of this chapter, which speaks of the creation by him, under the title of the Word, may contribute hereunto. Wherein it will be meet to inquire whether that title, the Word, be to be understood of him merely as second person, or also as bearing the personage of God-man ?

In discoursing of the person of our Lord Christ, I fell upon that title of his, whereby John here styles him the Word ; and then discoursed how it importeth both his being,

1. The image of God the Father, which he is as second person. 2. The image, the manifestation of God unto us in a human nature. Which two are suitably consistent ; the Word in both those tongues the scripture was written in. signifying the inward image, orconceptus of the mind framed within itself, and also that which is uttered in speech, which is the

550 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. truest interpretation or index of the mind, and the most immediate lively image and manifest of what the mind conceives within itself to others.

Many of our modern protestant divines have (as I then observed) alto gether declined the first sense, and betaken themselves to the latter, namely, that Christ is called the Word, as in relation to his being manifested in a human nature, and therein to manifest the whole of God unto us ; for as manifested in our nature, it was only that he was to manifest God to us. In the Old Testament, besides those other titles of Shiloh, Messiah, Son of God, the Seed of the woman, Adonai, The Lord, &c., this of his being the Word was known and used among the Jews. Nor otherwise had the Greek

Septuagint so often used it, when Christ was spoken of, naming him o \6yo$, the Word, as it is found they have done. That it is not appropriated to him only as Son of God, and second person, is manifest, as in the discourse of the person of Christ I have shewn, that in the New Testament he is styled so, as Son of God united to that human nature ; and as such is evident from Rev. xix. 13, And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. For it is spoken when he came to do execution as God s deputy. Now John gives him that title here, long afore he had assumed it, even in the beginning, and at the creation, which was the first appearance or manifestation that can be supposed of him, seeing creation was the first of works God himself ever did act of himself. What I have commented from those other former scriptures, hath put me on a further inquiry, viz., whether the title be not given him then, in respect of God s having set him up, and himself undertaken, and as then acting the person of God-man (in the sense hitherto driven) one day actually to take flesh, but in the mean time, under the name of the Word, performing this part. I proceed to it by degrees.

1. It seems fair to me, that if he be thus termed the Word, after the assumption of our nature, and as acting in it, why should not his being termed the Word, before his incarnation, by John, have relation to his under taking that office or person afore ? Now it is evident that he is termed the Word of God in this sense, as subsisting in a human nature, and therein executing the decrees and counsels of God, as king of his church and nations ; thus expressly, Rev. xix. 11-16, And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse ; and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true ; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns ; and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself : and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood : and his name is called THE WORD OF GOD. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations ; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron : and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God. And he hath on his vesture, and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And we know also, that he acted virtually as man, afore he came into the world as mediator, and so as God-man, and appeared as a man ; for in such an appearance, he, the angel of the cove nant, conversed with the fathers. For the angels that came into Sodom, the inhabitants took for men. Among the Jews also that style of the Word, as that of Wisdom, Prov. viii. (which is all one), was the usual title taken up among them to express the mediator by. It was the name he was called and known by as such. One eminent evidence of this is that

CHAP. XII. J AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST

of the Chaldee paraphrast, who hath enstyled him the Word, as mediator, and thereof as God-man, in the paraphrase and translation of that promise made to Abraham, Gen. xxii. 15, 16, By myself have I sworn, in blessing I will bless thee, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The Chaldee turns it, By my Word have I sworn. Now compare with it Heb. vi. 17 : the apostle s paraphrase on that oath is this : his words in the original import, that God did intermediate by oath ; the margin itself varies it, interposed. So then, put both together, the effect is this, that God, in making the promise to Abraham, swore by that Word of his, his Son, that was to be the mediator and interposer, &c., to make that oath good through his interposition ; who being one in essence with God, God is therefore also said to swear by himself. Or perhaps, rather thus, that the Son of God being that person that appeared to the fathers, did swear by himself, as to become the Word, and by oath undertook to mediate, and to that end to become, as Heb. ii. 16, the seed of Abraham, and to bless that nation. But still, out of either sense is collected this, that Christ as me diator is the Word.

2. Secondly, At other times he is spoken of as mediator (and so Godman), under that title. So in that great promise to Abraham, God inter posed by his Word. So to David, for his Word s sake (as Daniel, chap, ix. 17, for the Lord s sake ). And these were the two great persons in the Old Testament to whom, and in whose name, the promises were made. And,

3. Thirdly, I found, that here this title is given him in respect of his being 6 Xoyog, and so that to be esteemed the first title of all other, in rela tion unto God s works ad extra; and that by him as second person, all was created : and comparing it with those other Scriptures, I considered whether it might not be given him, in relation to his having undertaken to be man, as well as merely the Son of God.

4. Fourthly, I found that title of Wisdom (which is near akin, if not all one with this of the Word ), to be understood of him as God-man, as set up in God s decree, with his own undertaking that personage ; so in Prov. viii. And that under that title, he is there spoken of as set up with God long before the creation. I compared that Scripture with this, and found them parallel in many respects.

5. I then, fifthly, found Christ applying that title unto himself as Son of man, as sending out prophets, which Wisdom is said to do ; and in the Proverbs, Wisdom s calling upon her disciples under the name of children, Prov. viii. 32, Now therefore hearken unto me, ye children : for blessed are they that keep my ways. And Christ referring to it, says, Wisdom is justified of her children, Mat. xi. 19; and that speech doth verily sup pose him God-man. Also he is found delighting in the sons of men on earth, which Ps. xvi. 23, is spoken of Christ as man, My righteousness extends to the saints on earth, with whom is all my delight ; which are almost the very words in Prov. viii. 31, Kejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men.

6. Sixthly, When I came to the creation, as in Gen. i., from whence this title is given him, as by comparing John and Moses appears, I considered, whether God, by a word within himself, did speak it as in corde. Now so he had said, Let there be light, and that from everlasting ; and therefore why may we not suppose it to have been uttered at the beginning of every day s work ? And that voice being a creature, whether that clothing with words at creation, shewed not that Christ was to be clothed on with a crea-

552 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. ture, to speak God s mind unto us creatures, and that he had so undertaken, as being that Wisdom who had sustained it in God s purpose, and now ap peared to execute it.

The interpretation of the words, John i. ver. 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

These words do willingly, and without constraint, offer up this one im port of them, that he that was known as the expected Messiah, by the usual name of the Word of God, both as the image of God to himself, and as who was ordained to be the Wisdom of God, the manifestation of God to us, the great interposer and mediator in a human nature, to come one day into the world ; his person was existing in the beginning, and was God, and with God. Thus for his personal existence, which having affirmed, as to this existence of his person, * The same was in the beginning with God. This being in view but a repetition of the former, and indeed meant of the existence of his person, is no other in the sense of it. I inquire there

Then, ver. 2, he adds, fore, whether this expression, The same was in the beginning with God, be not distinct from the former in this, that qua Xoyog, or as the Word, as sustaining that personage (as I have often distinguished it), that eo nomine, et persona, he was then with God ? He was this same Word in the begin ning with God ; and not only that he that was the Word, was from the beginning with God. He had said afore, ver. 1, that he was in the begin ning, and that he was with God. To what end repeats he this ? Say I, to this eminent meaning, which as yet John before had not spoke out, namely, that as the Word he had existed in the beginning, and was with God as such, and so read it thus : this same Word spoken of was with God in the beginning ; or, he was this same Word from the beginning. The existence of his person, and his being God, and with God, the first verse holds forth ; but his existence also with God tanquam, as the Word or mediator, this the second holds forth ; and that as a preface unto that which follows concern ing the creation.

Ver. 2, The same was in the beginning with God. 1. It imports that the second person, besides his personal existence, spoken of, ver. 1, and relation of a Son which he stood in towards God, did then between him and his Father, sustain, and took on him another relation, or person of the me diator ; and not only undertaking it, but further, even then entering upon the office of it, and acting the part of it, sustaining the place and reputa tion of it.

2. He was so in God s repute or esteem, as we use to say, one is so or BO with another one, or, he is all in all with him. Such speeches import not only a real existence, but also a being such or such in real repute and esteem with another. Thus, that second person (who also personally then existed, and was with God, and in God, and one with him) was in God s real repute and esteem the Word, and sustained that name, and relation, The Word was with God, that is, he was with God, the Word. God had that account or honour for him ; and in their actual converses, God owned him as such, and himself took it on him to be such, afore God, and with God. In which sense the man Jesus, praying for the possession of that glory he hath now in heaven, urgeth that he had it with God afore the world was, when yet the man actually existed not, John xvii. 5. It is the same phrase there and here. And there it is necessarily to be understood of the glory of God-man, which he had in God s decree and designment; and the second person then existing and taking the name and thing upon him, God

CHAP. XII. J AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

conversed with him under that title, &c. For it was that glory which, during the term of his humiliation, after the man had been actually united to the person of the Son, was suspended until now the time of his praying. And therefore he prays to have it as then bestowed, in the real possession of it, according to the model which was in God s heart and design about it before the world was, that so he might be existently and really possessedof it in and with God, as he had been ordained to it and bore the repute of it with God. This to be the meaning of that his petition, and of that phrase with God, I have at large elsewhere handled upon that text. And when I say in repute with God, I understand it thus : it was among the three persons, and their converses afore the world was made, as if three men, who purpose to erect a company, or to found a college, should in their contrivements, long before they set upon the work, take several relations on them, and offices aforehand, which they mean executively to bear, when that corporation is erected, or the adventure begun ; one of them being reckoned treasurer or purser, to lay out all ; another, master or governor, &c., and according they beforehand esteem and call each other such, in their speech of and to each other ; and in the very first founding that college, the treasurer lays out the money out of his purse as treasurer, and so manageth it afterwards.

3. The words are to be understood that he did then virtually exist as such, as being considered the foundation of those works that follow creation, and the like. Thus in the like phrase of speech he is said to be, the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, Rev. xiii. 8, that is, from the fall, for so the phrase from the beginning there is taken, the meaning of which is, that Christ s death was considered from that time as virtually existing as if it had been past, in that upon the consideration of that his death, God saved Eve, yea in that respect Christ did exist as mediator, during all the days of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever. In like manner may Christ be said then in the beginning to be the Word, as virtually under that consideration, being the foundation of the world, and all God s works therein. So then, it was not only an existence in God s decree, as in like manner that glory he is said to have had with the Father afore the world was (John xvii.) is not spoken simply in decree, for the like speech is nowhere said of any elect man or angel, nor is compatible to them, as if they had a glory with God afore the world was. No, it was peculiar to Christ ; and the reason of the difference is evident, because the person then existing actually (as men and angels did not) might well undertake and bear this person apart, as in the Old Testa ment, de facto, he did before he was incarnate. So besides the essential glory as second person (which he there speaks not of), he had the honour, repute, renown, and glory with God, as the mediator and saviour of his church, which now in his prayer the human nature challengeth to be bestowed upon him as his ancient investment and endowment ; the second person having before the world was, by an agreement and complot with his Father, under taken to assume human nature, and all that while, bearing and sustaining and acting that person, his Father did as between themselves repute and converse with him as such, and gave him reputatively a glory, a name be tween themselves correspondent to that glory, which now (when God-man glorified in heaven) he actually hath bestowed upon him, which is thus ex pressed by him the glory which I had with thee which yet had been his due actually to have received from the first moment of his assuming human nature, but he had laid it down both before God and men, taking

554 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

the form of a servant, and becoming of no reputation (as it is Phil. ii. 7), neither with God, so far as God s outward dispensation held forth, nor with men during the time of his humiliation ; during which he had given up even that glory, in the respect he had had with God before the world was. Hence, therefore, he having finished that work of humiliation for man s sin, (which was but part of the work, which as God-man he was to do by the way, whilst in the world) he now desires God to give him actually and visibly before saints and angels that glory, and cause it to break forth in that human nature he had assumed, which reputatively between themselves he had given him before the world was, when he had undertaken it, and bare that person of God-man, which glory was but his due inheritance, whenever he should take our nature. And this I truly take to be the genuine sense, and fairest meaning that can be given of these words of Christ, John xvii. 5, Now, Father, do thou glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was ; namely, that which then he had in real repute in relation upon his bearing that person, before God, which now he had assumed, and now seeks to have actually and visibly bestowed upon that nature which he had, according to his ancient under taking, assumed.

It is well known unto those who have met with that question, Whether

Christ, as a Kedeemer, was the first intended in God s decrees, or whether considered as man simply, in order to other glorious ends, were not [the primitive great decree ; which hath been agitated both by papist and protestant writers ; it is well known, I say, that those which are for the latter, do insist and urge much that of Proverbs viii. ; where Wisdom, that is, Christ, for so Christ expressly takes it on himself, in those words spoken of himself by himself, Wisdom is justified by her children: Prov. viii.

22-31, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth ; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled ; before the hills was I brought forth : while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there : when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: when he established the clouds above : when he: when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment : when he appointed the strengthened the fountains of the deep foundations of the earth : then I was by him, as one brought up with him : and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him ; rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth ; and my delights were with the sons of men. These things (say they) cannot be understood of Christ simply as second person, or as a Redeemer.

1. Not as Redeemer, which supposed this world first to be decreed to be made, and man to be created, yea, and fallen ; but as God-man, and con sidered as such, as subservient to other ends of God, as well as redemption, in the utmost latitude of God s vast purposes, which he made in Christ, be sides those of man s redemption, and the beginning of all his ways, ad extra.

2. Not as second person singly considered, for he is there made the object of God s decrees ; which as God s Son simply considered he did no way come under. But only as God-man, 1 Pet. i. 19-21, But with the pre cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was mani fest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him

up from the dead, and gave him glory ; that your faith and hope might be in God. And yet Wisdom, or Christ as here spoken, is made the object of a decree of God s, I was set up from everlasting, and the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way ; that is, he so designed and decreed me afore all his other ways, and as the foundation of them ; or as the Revela tion hath it, The beginning of the creation of God : Rev. iii. 14, And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write ; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

Now compare but this Prov. viii. with this of John i., from the second verse. Besides that the titles are in effect and significancy the same in the original languages, the Word, and Wisdom, you will find that Solomon speaks but the same things of him there that John doth here. He calls him by the same name (that is, the same in sense and meaning) for Wis dom and o X&yoc, * the Word, are all one, and both respect us; that which * he was in the beginning, is, ver. 22 of the 8th of Proverbs said, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way. And so it may explain what is meant by in the beginning here, namely, of the creation alluded to there. For the ways of God are his is there in John said of the Word, that goings forth towards the creatures, which are called opera ad extra; and therefore is not meant of his eternal generation ; for so Christ is not the beginning of God s ways. That speech is all one with Col. i. 15, where he is called The first-born of every creature, being in God s decree of creation the first, the corner stone, and beginning of the rest. So as it must be meant of Christ as God-man, and not simply as second person. Again, that which is here said, was with God, is there said, the Lord possessed me. They dwelt together ; he was with God as possessed of him. And ver. 30, Then was I by him ; and from ver. 23 to ver. 30, he rehearseth the particular works of creation by parcels ; as here they are in this one sum, all things were made by him. And ver. 30, that which is * I was brought up with him, as a nourishing,* or one nourished, translated passively taken, is rendered by Junius actively, educans, as one nourishing; that is, by my power supporting the creatures, and God s decrees about them, and his purpose to create. And that which is here said, that he was the life of man, is there said, ver. 81. Icctificans, that is, blessing, or with blessing, making joyful the sons of men ; so Junius out of the Hebrew reads it ; and Cartwright also, with others. So as the one place may interpret the other.

Nor doth this interpretation weaken or derogate anything from alleging these texts as strong proofs for the actual existing of the second person, as Son of God, begotten by him from everlasting. For look, as the greatness of a personage doth argue the greatness of the person in his birth (when such or such an office or dignity goes by birth), so here, all this said hitherto doth necessarily suppose and argue our Christ to have been God (as John affirms), and natural Son of God ; and that he did then also actually exist, as bearing and sustaining this dignity and office afore God, of being his Word and Wisdom. Insomuch as if this natural greatness of his per son were not as the substratum, first supposed and laid down, all these assertions we have insisted on would fall at once to the ground, as having no basis or foundation to stand upon ; if there were not a person of original worth for such a place and employments. And accordingly, the apostle, Heb. i., argues and infers from the one to the other ; and also this 1st of John, that he is God.

* Qu. nursling ? ED.

556 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

To come then to that which is eminently and summarily intended in his being called the Word, in respect of his then sustaining and assuming the person of God-man, in relation to all God s works, ways, and counsels, whereof John gives instance in the creation, and the like; John i. 3, 4, All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men ; We find, 1 Cor. i. 24, that Christ is said to be * the power of God, and the wisdom of God, both which are spoken of him not as they areessential attributes, in God s nature, for the person of Christ is as a person distinct from the attributes which are common to all three ; and so he is not styled the attribute of wisdom, but they are thus spoken of Christ manifestatively, and instrumentally, and executively, and as he is from God, and made use of by God towards us, and in things that concern us to be the whole scene and manifestation of God s wisdom, and substratum of his counsels concerning us, and so also the executive power by whom God effects all he doth. And that this is the meaning is evidently interpreted by that which follows, ver. 30, God hath made him to us wisdom, &c. And although it be a maxim applied to that particular of preaching the gospel unto us men, which is the wisdom and power of God to our salvation, yet it is a general maxim brought in to confirm that particular. Such generals the apostle often useth to allege upon particular occasions, as in Eom. viii. 29, our predestination to be conformed to Christ s image is brought upon occasion of afflictions ; so then Christ, in relation to what he is as a medium between God and us who are creatures, is both the wisdom of God and the power of God. Neither is it said of him* simply as second person, but as Christ, God-man ; for so only he is made these to us. Now these two which as there spoken of Christ, in what he is to us as saints (which is the strict scope of the apostle there), serves yet summarily and particularly to express what he is as he is termed 6 Xo yog, or the Word, by John (as that title relates to the manifestation of God by him, and instrumentality of him to us), both that he is the wisdom of God and the power of God.

1. That it expresseth him to be the wisdom of God, and is congenial with the proper import of the word 6 Xoyog, ratio, conceptus, the mind or counsel of God about the creatures, or to be manifested to the creatures, those that are versed in the languages the Old and New Testament were written in, will universally acknowledge ; and the correspondency of that title of Wisdom, Prov. viii., with this of John, is an abundant confirmation of it.

2. And that the executive power of God as erected and put forth in the creatures is therein fitly comprehended also, and thereby intended, that observation evidently demonstrates, which Cameron and many others have made, by comparing Moses, Gen. i., and this 1st of John together, which many things parallel lead to ; that whereas Moses in the creation mentions God the Father, and the Spirit, two of the persons, that he veils the Son under that so often repeated speech used of the creation, that * God said, Let there be light ; God said, Let there be a firmament, which could not be without mystery ; and what other than Christ was that Word by whom God created all things ? Whom therefore when John speaks, referring to Moses s In the beginning, and of the creation of all things, he terms, 6 Xo/os, the Word. God s power was erected and put forth by his Word ; Ps. xviii. 4, 5, He commanded, and they were created ; as, where the word of a king is, there is power, Eccles. viii. 4 ; so God s word and his

executive power are all one. When therefore Christ is termed the Word of God, the meaning is, he is the power of God in being his instrument and agent in all he doth or means to do.

I shall therefore distinctly insist on these two : I. How Christ as thus God-man, the Word, is the wisdom of God.

II. How he is the power of God. And then proceed to add an interpretation of the forepart of this chapter, unto ver. 14, which is all of Christ.

I. He is the Wisdom of God, and that in a double respect. 1. In respect to the manifestation of God unto us; for Christ considered as God-man, and through his assuming human nature, was to be the sum of that wisdom or revelation by which the Godhead would make itself known, that whereas the persons and nature of the Godhead were invisible, they should be uttered or revealed in him as the Xoyoj, or the Word of God ; and so he, by taking on him this person of God-man, became God s Wisdom or best image to express his mind by, Xoyos, est mentis imago, the image of God s mind and thoughts. Now as that Christ should be God-man was the first great and most comprehensive thought of God to express himself by ; so he assuming or taking upon himself so to be, did accordingly become Xoyoj, or the image of God who was invisible, but in him made visible, as hath been explained, Col. i. 15. This I take to be John s meaning, as appears by ver. 18 of this first chapter, No man hath seen God at any time ; the onlybegotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

2. And, secondly, his being thus constituted the wisdom of God, as God-man then with God, imports how all God s counsels, thoughts, and purposes which God took up, and from all eternity was contriving of towards his elect, they all depended and hung upon this as their foundation, that he would become Xoyog, the Word, or God-man, to manifest God. Thus, in Eph. iii., as to that part of his counsel, the gospel, the whole model of * the manifold wisdom of God ; ver. 11 is said to be purposed from, eternity in Jesus Christ, because he from eternity took on him that person of being the Christ ; and so in him, considered as such, did God proceed to frame all his other counsels, the whole frame of them depending upon that one engine. Thus God elected us and bestowed all things upon us before the world was, even in Jesus it, from first to last, ver. 10, is called

Christ (Eph. i. 4), as then bearing this person of God-man. And thus all the promises which the written word of God contains, were made for us unto Christ, as really bearing that person ; and 2 Tim. i. 9, * They were given us in Christ before the world began. So that Christ then, as sus taining the person of God-man (with promise one day to become man) between him and his Father, was the original Word or Wisdom to be revealed to us, and so more truly called Xoyo& than the word written, by how much the original in God s breast deserves the name better than the extract or copy. Notable to this purpose is that place, Tit. i. 2, 8, where the apostle first says that God promised eternal life before the world began. A promise is a word given forth, and is more than a purpose with one s self, for it is to another. There was a promise made to Christ, as then with him. Now, as merely second person, he is capable of no promises, but only as he is God-man. It is the Son of God, as he is Jesus Christ, in whom all promises are yea and amen. 2 Cor. i. 19, 20, * For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all tiio promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen,

558 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHEE, [BOOK III. unto the glory of God by us. Secondly, the apostle, in that place to Titus, adds, that God hath in his due time manifested his Word through Breaching. By Word is meant that original Word then given before the world began, which was founded on Christ, and his undertakings for us ; and further, as he did then sustain a person, to whom the promises for us were made, as a public person bearing our persons, so was he likewise the thing promised, and in both these respects called Xoyoj, the Word ; and so * the Word of life. In Titus is termed by John, 1 Epist. chap. i. ver. 1, it is termed the promise of eternal life (for all promises and counsels of God were rooted in him, Eph. i. 4) ; and so most properly called 6 Xoyof, then but still as God-man considered. Thus he was the Word in respect of the elect, even as he was the wisdom of God.

II. But, secondly, he was the Word also as he was the power of God, in a general relation to all the creation. This follows here, John i. 3, All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. And therefore, 1 Cor. i. 24, as he is called the wisdom

the power; which, though there specially brought in to the preaching of him in the gospel, and the efficacy thereof, of God to be revealed to us, so yet is a general maxim applied and specified to that particular. The power of God ; that is, as undertaking to execute, and actually executing, all that God ever meant to do, and in this respect as undertaking to be God-man ; and, as bearing that part, he is termed

God s arm, Isa. liii. 1 and Isa. xxvii. 5. Without him God could, or at least would, do nothing, no, not first begin to create ; and he was then the Word, as taken for the power of God in a double respect.

1. As his bearing this person was in God s mind that which did uphold God s purpose to create, and this before the world was, so Prov. viii.

30, 81, I was by him, then before the world was, educans, fostering, and latificans terrain suam (as Tremelius reads it), gladding his earth. His bearing the person of God-man, one day to be by him assumed, was it that made the creatures exist in God s purpose. God else would never have thought of them but for his sake, as God-man ; therefore he is said

the first-bornof every creature, for whom and by whom all things were made. to be

2. Yea, secondly,"when God came to make the creatures, he did it by him as sustaining this person. The Scripture says, God created all things by Jesus Christ, Eph. iii. 9. John having thus enstyled him the W ord, ver. 1,2, then goes on to shew how from him, as such, it is that all things are : All things were created by him. Yea, it is added, nothing was made without him that was made, merely to shew the instrumental general dependence God had of him in this work. He was his all in all ; as we say of one that is a right hand to another, He does nothing without him. Such was Christ to God, not that God had not power essential to have created without him. For it is by that power that Christ did it, but that this power God s will would never have put forth, but for his assuming to be God-man ; even as although God hath essential power to sanctify a sinner, and Christ adds no such power to God, or his Spirit, which they had not before, but be cause God without Christ would never have put forth that power ; there fore he is said to be the power of God therein. Now, therefore, he is said to create as God-man, not only because he undertook or promised to be come a man, and so in virtue of that God put his power forth ; but further, God created by him, as sustaining that relation, and bearing that title with

God (as in the similitude afore-mentioned), one of a society chosen treasurer lays the corner-stone of a college out of his own purse. And many interpreters and others do observe that the evangelist calls him

6 Aoyoc in reference to that of Moses, Gen. i. That whereas Moses in the creation had made mention not only of God creating, but as by a word

God said, Let there be light God the Father he had been mentioned as the Creator in those first words, In the beginning God created ; and the Spirit as moving upon the waters. But the second person, the Word, is couched, personated, and signified in dixit, that GOD SAID. The greatest objection against this is from ver. 14. For if his being considered 6 Xoyos, the Word, had imported his being God-man, how comes it after to be said that he was made flesh, for that argues he had been spoken of as second person only afore, the manhood not included ?

Ans. 1. That word made imports evidently his having now actually assumed man s nature ; and so in distinction from his having hitherto 4but sustained that person afore God, in contract with God, which now in the fulness of time he, according to his contract, did perform ; and until this performance de facto, he had borne the title of the Word, which he sus tained at the creation, and from thence on still until this assumption. But now, though he bears it still, yet ever after John speaks of him as Jesus and Christ, &c. For now he was actually made man in frail flesh. The second answer lies in that other word, made flesh, that is, a frail man, taking a tabernacle of flesh, not a glorious body afc was his due, as he was Arfyoj, the Word ; and so it carries this with it, that whereas his due, ac cording to that first designed glory and repute which he had had with God before the world was, was to have had a glorified nature, such as now he hath in heaven ; instead of this the evangelist expresseth it, that he took

dwelt with us frail flesh, he took that nature in frailties at the first, and in a tabernacle (as the word is), which was to be taken down. And though he had had a glory with God answerable to his place of God-man as his due, yet he never shewed it (says the evangelist) to us but once, and that was when he was transfigured, at which time we saw his glory (saith the apostle), in that nature, such as could be in none, but the only begotten Son of God. Which Peter also brings as an evidence of his being the Son of God ; as John likewise here doth, who was also an eye-witness of it. The glory of Elias and Moses was not such, for they saw theirs at the same time ; but this was so transcendent as they could easily discern with difference, this to be the glory of God s only begotten, and so to differ from that of theirs, as the glorious lustre of the sun, in comparison of lesser stars. And though Christ always manifested not such a glory (and indeed but once), yet he always shewed himself full of grace and truth, says he, in all his converse with us. Full of truth, namely, in those glorious reve lations of his Father made by him, ver. 18, and full of grace, that is, holi ness, even a holiness transcending Adam s, or any creature s. Neither was this fulness a plenitudo vasis, sed fontis, and a fulness to be communicated to men : for, lo ! we all have received of his fulness, and grace for grace. He presents all the apostles as coming from a dole, with their laps filled with grace, so to encourage others to go to Christ. Afterwards, in the 17th verse, comparing him with Moses, he opposeth grace and truth to the law of Moses. And then by truth there, he means that Christ was not a figure, as the law was, but the substance of all types. So Heb. x. 1, where verttm non opponitur falso, sed figurcc. And he is there called truth, because he made good the covenant and promises, which the law did not. Thus, Rom.

5 GO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. xv. 8, he was a minister of the truth of God, to confirm the promises. And then he is full of grace too, which the law was not, that had neither justifying nor sanctifying grace annexed ; but Christ had both. And, 3, when the days of his flesh are over (as now in heaven they are), then the same John, seeing him in the vision of a glorious conqueror, and coming and appearing at last to destroy all the enemies of the church, and bringing in the thousand years, then he appears as o Xoyog. Again, Rev. xix., and according to the glory he had from everlasting in God s designment and repute. Rev. xix. 11-13, * And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse ; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True ; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns : and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself : and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood : and his name is called The Word of God.

I shall now proceed, in a brief exposition of the following verses of this first chapter of John, unto ver. 14, as they relate unto the WOED ; what fol lows in ver. 4, is to be understood in the same coherence and dependence with the other, of Christ as God-man.

Ver. 4, In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The evange list descends from the creation in general, unto the giving of life, both of reason and holiness, unto men, at their first creation, whiles they were in innocency.

First, In him was life. He speaks not of that essential life in himself ; for that which followsjin the next words, where he calls him the Life, is so to be understood. But when here he says, in him was life, the mean ing is, he was a fountain ofjife to us, being first Life in himself. It is one attribute of Christ s, as he is God-man, yea, as he is man taken up into that union, to have life independently in himself, even as God the Father hath ; John v. 26, * For as the Father hath life in himself ; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, and therefore he is called the Life, namely, to himself first, and so in him is life for us.

Secondly, The life was the light of men.

1. The light; that is, of holiness, or God s image, which is called light, in opposition to darkness, which is*sin (as ver. 5). The life of grace is BO called ; and in Scripture, light is often put for life, and darkness for death.

2. Of men ; that is, of men in their primitive estate of innocency. For, (1.) He joins it with the creation of all things, (2.) He useth the word was, as noting a state past. Now Adam s holiness was from him ; for he was made after God s image. When Adam was created, all the persons of the Trinity acted their several parts ; and the Son acted the part of Godman : and so the Father eyeing him as such, and as him who was in that respect the image of the Godhead, he thereupon says, Let us make man after our image; Christ s human nature, being the vgurorwrov and exemplar. And so he breathed in that breath of life and holiness which he had at his first creation.

Ver. 5, And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. When that light of holiness in man was extinct, and man by the fall became darkness, that is, full of sin, then all that light moral, or the light of conscience in heathens (which is that truth spoken of, Rom. i. 18), and the light of the law (which the Jews had), to convince them of their darkness, all this light that shined in this darkness was from Christ. It ariseth not from any sparks of the old light which was before the fall, and

now left in man s nature, but all light being extinct, this is put in by Christ as the Word and mediator. And therefore, because he speaks of man s

shineth, and in that respect Christ is said, ver. 9, to be that light which enlighteneth every man coming into the world. That phrase, coming into the world, argues that he present condition, he saith in the present, speaks of what is infused by Christ from their birth. For the Jews call man as born into this world, veniens in mundum. And he says, every one, to shew that he excepts no man. So Christ, John xviii. 37, useth the phrase, for this cause was I born, and came into the world. So that it is all one as to be born ; and therefore he speaks of a natural light from our birth, which is all from Christ. He pitied man s nature so corrupted, and put into it all the light and comfort which men now have. So as, not only all the light of holiness, which Adam in innocency at first had, was from him considered as God-man ; but all the light since the fall, which the wise hea thens or Jews had, was from him, considered as the Lamb slain. They all did light their torches at this sun and fountain of light. Yea, not only all natural light in men fallen, but all the light of grace and holiness that hath shone in the hearts, lives, and gifts of the best of men sanctified, it was all borrowed from hence. To this purpose he instanceth in John the Baptist, for all the rest.

Ver. 6, 7, There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that oilmen through him might believe. He was the most known and universally acknowledged holy man in those days and times, whom all the Jews esteemed as a burning and shining light, John v. 35. Yet it is said of him, that he was not that Light, but was sent only to bear witness of that Light, ver. 8. John was but a particular light shining in Judea, and in that age only, as a lan tern hung out in some street ; he was but as the morningstar to this sun. But Christ was and is an universal light (as he is the sun) in all ages, and * not that Light, so if all that grace and light that ever was in all saints were gathered into one, in all places, and to all saints. Yea, as John was yet all would not make that Light who enlightened John and all man kind universally, as the sun doth the stars above, and terrestrial bodies below.

Ver. 9. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And so he is called the true Light, that is, which is naturally, and of himself such (avrb (pug, as Plato called him), not shining with a borrowed light, as John and all else do, and who in that respect are not true lights ; for truth is opposed to what is obtained aliunde, and which is not natural. As you call that false hair which is not, and that true hair which is, one s own ; so Christ is called the true Son, 1 John v. 20, that is, the natural, we being but adopted. And all this is what Christ did; and it was before his incarnation.

Now, having proceeded thus far in this chapter, as proper to the subject I have in hand, I will briefly go over the rest of the verses, from ver. 10 to ver. 15, wherein he shews his coming into the world himself, asjbefore he had shewn how he had done all in the world before he came into it. And therein, First, He describes the manner of his coming ; as, 1. How he was in the world as one unknown. Ver. 10, He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. Like Ulysses, who came as a beggar disguised to his own house, so obscure was Christ s coming mio the world.

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562 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III.

2. He was; implying that he is now gone out of the world again; as having (as it were) secretly passed through it.

Secondly, He sets out the entertainment of him in this world. And herein,

1. He tells what bad entertainment the most afforded him, with the aggravation of this their sin.

2. The good entertainment that some gave him. To illustrate all which he covertly compares the world unto a house, wherein men are the indwellers, but Christ the owner of it, and all things in it (as ver. 11), and that by a double title.

* The world was made by him.

(1.) Of creation, ver. 10,

* He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

(2.) Of purchase, insinuated ver. 11,

1. Now when he came into this his house, and was in it, or conversed in it (as ver. 10), his entertainment was, (1.) That some did not so much as know him, ver. 10.

(2.) Others, though they knew him, yet received him not, as ver. 11. They shut him out of doors, not receiving him into their hearts, which the evangelist sets down as an aggravation of the sin of unbelief; his scope being to persuade to, and work faith, or receiving of Christ into men s hearts, by shewing from what a one Christ is and was to us, what an inhu man sin unbelief is, both against the law of creation and bonds of nature, and also of grace. It is to refuse him whose own we are, as having made the world and us at first, and when we were fallen, bought us and upheld us. So as tho very benefit of creation, and the propriety that Christ hath in us, as a Lord of us, and of all we have, doth oblige us to believe in him, and to own him at least (even the ox knows his owner) otherwise it becomes an aggravation of our sin, as shutting Christ out of his own ; for the word receiving, ver. 11 (being put for believing), is all one with owning him as a Lord and Saviour ; as a king is said to be received in his own dominions, when he is submitted to, and acknowledged, and owned for * the world to be all mankind ; and their king. I know some interpret his own (mentioned ver. 11), to be the Jews ; and his being in the world, to be in respect of the light he gave of himself to the Gentiles. But for this latter, sure by his making the world the Gentiles could not know him, though the Godhead they might ; and that natural light which he gave was only of the Godhead, not of his person as God-man, nor yet of the mystery of the Trinity, there being no footsteps of it in the creation. And I take it, his own is meant also and as well of the world, as made and purchased by him, as of the Jews, his own countrymen. Therefore he says, ra /d/a, as speaking of proper goods, not kinsmen ; his own, that is, his householdgoods and servants.

2. Secondly, Then follows the entertainment of him by the good, and the privilege which he gave them. Even as great persons, entertained well, use to bestow rewards, and as a king usually dubs those knights, or creates them earls or barons, who have given him royal entertainments, so did Christ to those who received him. By which the evangelist does further set out Christ, shewing what he is to his elect, as before he shewed what Christ is and was to all the world. The benefit given is adoption to be 1 sons of God, ver. 12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name ; which he endeareth as the highest favour that could be. So 1 John iii. 1, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we

CHAP. XIII.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

should be called the sons of God. Christ he was born the Son, ver. 14, but to us it is given ; to them he gave, &c. And in being sons, we become heirs and co-heirs with himself, of the world which he made, and of all that is called his. So Rom. viii. 17, And if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. He gave them, efyvffiav, that is, both the dignity and the power to become the sons of God. So it is taken for power, Col. i. 16, principalities and powers: and it is also put for dignity. Thus Rom. xiii. 1, because a magistrate s place of power hath honour likewise annexed to it, therefore the word is put for honour. And so, because this honour of being sons of God hath power annexed to it, even over all creatures (as they are heirs and co-heirs with Christ, and so kings of the world) ; therefore he rightly calls it igouova, to import both power and dignity, and both contained in that privilege of sonship. Only he shews by what means Christ doth convey this to them, which is by their being born, not of blood ; ver. 13, Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Say not you have Abraham to your father ; this dignity goes not by greatness of birth, nor of the will of the flesh, not of a man s own will. It is not in him; nor of the will of man, that is, of other men. Holy men cannot beget their children good, or make them such. The meaning is, that no friend, no means, could confer this privilege, but only Christ. that willeth, CHAPTER XIII.

How Christ, God-man, is subservient to God in all the works of his providence. He upholds and supports all things. He governs the world, and rules all affairs in it. After his government is expired, at the end of the world, he will judge all creatures, both angels and men.

He is before all things, and by him all things consist. COL. I. 17.

Thus we have seen the subserviency of Christ, as God-man, to the work of creation, and the highest ends thereof, the manifestation and the com munication of the Godhead the highest way. The next thing to be con sidered by us is his serving God in the works of his providence, the upholding, governing this world whilst it stands, and his judging it at the last ; unto all these ends also doth Christ, God-man, subserve.

First, For the upholding all things ; that is evident in this text of Col. i.

17, By him do all things consist. He is the corner-stone that keeps the building and all the parts of it together ; Heb. i. 2, 3, it is said, upholds all things by the word of his power, and it is spoken of him not simply considered as second person, but as God-man, for so he is heir appointed, not as second person, but so heir naturally without a decree, and that as such he should uphold all things by the word of his power, is proper to him ; and therefore it refers to it, for to the heir it belongs to have a care of, and to see to his inheritance, that it fall not into ruin and decay. God, as it were, leaves it to him, seeing he hath given it him for his inheritance, to keep it up in repair at his own proper costs and charges. And thus he upheld it virtually in the state of innocency, for John i. 4, he is called that light that then was the life of man, even afore man fell into sin and darkness, a well as after ; as ver. 5 (as God made and created the

564 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. world then upon the virtual supposition of his coming into the world, though to a further end also), for the world was then upheld by virtue thereof, it was the hoop held all together ; God should not have cared else for any creature, for to me those imperfect pieces of his workmanship are alone not worthy enough of his power and wisdom, if this had not been to come, which he had purposed and decreed, as well as the making of the world. And since man fell, it is granted by all, that it is by virtue of his redemp tion to come, that the world stood and was kept from falling about Adam s ears. Christ took the shattered condition of the world, as David did, and upheld the pillars of it, and as a Lord, promised to buy it, and did so, 2 Peter ii. 1, because he had elect to be brought forth in their successions out of it ; and therefore vouchsafed all those mercies which wicked men enjoy, and paid God a price for his patience towards them. He had this into the bargain of his redemption of his church, God else in justice would have destroyed all.

Secondly, Whilst the world stands he governs it, easeth God of that burden, and is his prorex for him. All judgment is committed to the Son : John v. 22, For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg ment unto the Son. And the government is upon his shoulders : Isa. ix.

6, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the govern ment shall be upon his shoulders : and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. He entered upon the kingdom when man fell, for by virtue of the covenant of works given by the Father at the creation, it must have been destroyed ; but he undertook it, to order things so, that a greater revenue of glory should in the end arise to God, out of the confusions and sins of men in the world, and in executions of punishments, and by providences meeting with men according to their own ways, than should have arisen to God out of the state of innocency in a direct way. And what infinite wisdom, power, providence, justice, patience, &c., even all sorts of glorious perfections doth he shew forth in this administration, and ordering things, and the affairs of this sinful world ! This Lord reigneth though the earth be never so unquiet, as the psalmist speaks, Ps. xcix. 1. Rev. v. 2, there is a proclamation made, who would take that book out of the hand of him that sat upon the throne ; and that book is a commission to execute the things decreed and written therein, and the taking of it was an undertaking so to do ; and Christ the Lamb having seven horns of power, and seven eyes of providence sent oat into all the earth, by which he both views and governs all, he undertook it, and is God s King, and the executioner of all God s decrees. And then, thirdly, When he hath thus governed the world with a greater advantage unto God, then this man Christ Jesus will judge it also at the last, and give all men their accounts ; Acts xvii. 31, He hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world, by that man whom he hath ordained. The decree or ordaining Christ, God-man, serves for this also. The Father, John v. 22, is said to judge no man, that is, visibly, sub persona judicis, but hath committed all to this man Christ Jesus, who at present is ready, says the apostle Peter, to judge the quick and the dead, having all the accounts of the world afore him, 1 Peter iv. 5. God would not employ a mere creature in this work, it was too great an honour. And yet it was meet it should be done visibly and audibly, and to the satisfac tion of all men s consciences, both concerning themselves and others. God would have a person in the Trinity, manifest in a creature like unto us, to do it, armed with power and authority, because he is God, that every knee

shall bow afore him, both of things in heaven and earth, and under the earth (which to a mere creature had been too much), and yet a man that should deal with creatures in judging them in their own way, in a rational and audible way convince them, and visibly sentence them, so as they should be able to see and hear their judge as man, and yet fear and dread him as being God. And this is an high and great service, which Christ as man shall do for God, for a man in a vocal manner to be able to clear the accounts of the world (which, how entangled are they !), andpunctually to give every man his due in righteousness. A man that shall be able to con vince all God s enemies of all their hard speeches they had spoken against him, as Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, able to give a full and satisfactory account of all God s ways and proceedings, which men cavil at, to justify God s decrees, which men quarrel with, and think much at, and his children, whom men despise and bear down : one able to bring to light the secrets of all hearts, so as all men shall judge of every man, 1 Cor. iv. 5, * Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts : and then shall every man have praise of God. One able to search the deep things of God, and bring forth his counsels (for the books are then opened, Rev. xx. 12), and lay open the depths of his wisdom, in suffering this and that to fall out ; this man to be punished, and another, a greater sinner than he, to escape ; this kingdom to be ruined, and another, as sinful, to flourish ; and to make that glorious comment upon the obscure text of this world s providence, which we understand not; and to do this out of the original draft and counsel held in heaven, why this or that was done or not done so or so, or not so, and to do this openly and vocally as a man ; and when he hath sent all men convinced, non-plussed, speechless (as the word is in the parable), confounded, to hell, to give up his kingdom, and himself visibly be subject to God his Father : it is a mighty service this. But yet, lastly, after all this, he is the founder of that other world into which he brings his children given him by God, which is his inheritance for himself and them ; and their happiness is expressed by this, to be ever with the Lord. And, John xvii. 24, Christ in his last prayer says, Father, I will they be where I am, and see my glory ; and till then that personal fulness (of which I spake at first) that is in God-man, Christ

Jesus, is reserved by God, as a subject of that depth and glory to take up, together with his own perfections, the thoughts of men and angels for ever. Our happiness will lie in seeing God and Christ as he is ; for unto both doth that speech refer, 1 John iii. 2, Beloved, now are we the sous of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is. And if the sight of Christ, God-man, be not the highest means of the happiness of the saints (because the Scripture mentions also God his being * And the all in all ), yet I am sure it is a main part of it : Rev. xxi. 23, city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it : for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. The glory of God and the Lamb are the light of it. And so Stephen saw the glory of God, and Christ at God s right hand, Acts vii. 56. So that when these two great volumes, this of his word and that of his world, which now in this life are put into our hands, to read the characters of his glory in by faith, when both these shall be folded up and clean laid aside, then will the person of Christ, Jod-man, as the glory of the Godhead, shining in

566 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. and communicating itself to us, through that human nature the Godhead dwells in, be set forth to us, to entertain us for ever with the sight of the glory of God in the face of Christ ; and all our present thoughts and knowledge we have by faith will become vain, and be made unprofitable, and vanish : 1 Cor. xiii. 8, 9, Charity never faileth : but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail ; whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. And that face will make a heaven to us when redemption shall be forgotten, through the present glory viewed and pos sessed, and sins remembered no more ; but the glory of God, and the per sonal glory of the Lamb, shall be our light and happiness for ever.

Use 1. Let us admire Christ that thus serves to all, not our ends only, to save us, but which is more, to all God s ends and purposes, and to ac complish all the desires of his own heart. What an infinite perfection must this needs be ! Nature and art (says the philosopher) make but one instrument to serve in a proper and direct way, but for one purpose ; but this is a person whom God hath set forth for all ends and purposes whatsoever. If you should see an instrument in music serve at once to supply the use and afford the music of all instruments ; or a mathematical instrument so made as all conclusions in all arts and sciences might be demonstrated on it, and it serve for all uses, in arithmetic to cast exact accounts, in geometry to measure all quantities, in geography, astronomy, to give you the exact proportion of all the earth and stars in heaven, how would you wonder and admire at it ! Oh ! wonder then at the person of Jesus Christ ! Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, 1 Tim. iii. 16. Use 2. If Christ, that is our mediator, is so useful unto God in all his other businesses, and serves all his other ends as well as this, this may then help our faith, by persuading us that God cannot but be infinitely well pleased with the saving of sinners by him, and that believe on him (he being as good, if not better, at that than all those purposes forementioned) ; for the person, in whom we are graciously accepted, being pleasing to God so many ways besides this, must needs move him the rather to accept his work in this, and us for it. As for instance, if a king, willing and inclined to pardon a traitor, if besides a work of mercy done, it could be demon strated that the means whereby that is to be done would bring in a mighty profit to the king, ten thousand talents of silver, as in another case Haman said to Ahasuerus, Esther iii. 8, or, as if when David s heart was of itself set to pardon Absalom, only he would do it with honour ; if Joab (the pro jector of his reconciliation) could have propounded a project, not only to have fetched Absalom in again, and reconciled him to David upon the king s own terms, but so as withal he should have all his other state ends com passed whatever he could desire, as to shew forth his majesty, power, greatness, gratify all his subjects, overcome his enemies, hereby have his kingdom governed in peace and righteousness, and have his enemies sub dued, overcome, and all his revenues increased ; would not all the world say, that surely the propounding this would mightily help forward the ob taining Absalom s pardon and reconciliation ? And surely so it is here, the work of reconciliation in Christ s hands (who serves God in all these and many ways more) must needs prosper (as Isaiah says) and[speed. And therefore, in the first of John, and in the first of the Hebrews, and in this chapter, Col. i., all his usefulness to other ends, all his fulness to other purposes, is prefaced and mentioned first, and then purging our sins away

by his blood, and making peace by the blood of his cross, are spoken of; all those other conducing unto this. And therefore, some schoolmen, upon the consideration of these things, give this censure of it, Tanto aliquis modus aptior est ad consequendum aliquem finem, quanto per ipsum plura comparantur.

Use 3. It may invite us to come to him ; as besides the work of recon ciliation, God had the accomplishment of many other ends in him, so may we. Besides pardon of sin and peace with God, we may have all other overplus ends acquired and accomplished. The angels who are in favour with God already, and stand not in any need that way, what would they give to have that near relation to him which we have ? You may come to him for pardon first, but when you are come, his person will further take you. Fulness much invites, it is the aim of all our desires to have a fulness of riches, of honours, of pleasures, a 4&JM*<oa8 the apostle calls it, Eph. iv. 19, that is, a having one s fill ; so the word which is translated

greedi ness signifies. Now in Christ, and in Christ only, it is to be had, in whom is fulness, and all fulness fulness for parts of all sorts, and all fulness for degrees, which is never spent, for it dwells in him, fulness for evermore, as the Psalmist speaks ; Open thy mouth wide, stretch thy desires to the utmost compass, as Ps. Ixxxi. 10, may Christ say, * and I will fill it. The mind of man is nothing but emptiness of itself, it is as the stomach is, a vacuity and want, sharpened with desire and hunger, * empty man, as Job calls him, Job. xi. 12, unto which God hath fitted all things, as suitable to its desires one way or other ; there is no creature but it may take some pleasure in. But, alas ! the creatures are empty too, vanity, that is, emptiness, as Solomon calls them : husks (as in the parable) without a kernel, and Adam made them more vain and empty, Rom. viii. 20, subjected them to vanity ; and at best they serve but for some one particular want and end, and not all ends and purposes. Riches serve against poverty, honour against shame, but Christ he serves to all ends and purposes. God would have nothing full but Christ, that our souls might rest in nothing else, and have him our centre. It pleased him that all fulness should dwell in him, and he hath fitted him to our wants ; all we want he hath, and all he hath we want. And his fulness is not ordained simply to dwell in him, but to be communicated as the sun s fulness of light, which though it resides in the body of the sun, and it carries it with it whither it goes, and leaves nothing but darkness behind it, yet, where it comes it is communicative, it diffuseth all its light, and heat, and influence; and so doth Christ. Therefore, as here all fulness is said to dwell in his person, so elsewhere it is said, he filleth all in all, as Eph. i. 23. As Adam emptied all, so he fills all, and is never diminished ; his fulness it is not plenitude vasis butfontis, which is always full; not as the fulness of the sea, which might be emptied, but as the fulness of the sun, or of fire, which multiplies itself, and loseth nothing itself neither.

Use 4. If Christ be thus full, then let those that love him fully delight in him, and to that end contemplate all his fulness. How will one that is in love with another think over and over again all the perfections in them they love to confirm their choice ? So should we. And not only so, but take our full delight and contentment in him. And that Christ serves to all ends else, besides those of our own, of being saved by him, will, if meditated upon, exceedingly increase our joys and delights in him. A wife that had a husband eminent in all perfections, which perfections yet she had no great skill in, yet the thought of them would make her love him when once he is

568 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK III. hers ; when he is not only a good husband unto her, but also a good com monwealth s man, of eminent place in his country, an excellent soldier, horseman, &c., skilled in all learning, &c., these, because they commend and endear her husband unto others (though she hath not the benefit of them directly) do yet endear him unto her the more that all these are in her husband. So this should do Christ to us.

Use 5. See the love of Christ to us, that having all fulness in him was willing to empty himself for us. We "were not only empty but bankrupt to God, and to redeem us and fill us again he was fain to empty himself. It is the apostle s phrase, Phil. ii. 7; the word we translate, of no reputation, is in the original, he emptied himself, that is, left nothing of all his fulness. So Dan. ix. 26, Messiah shall be cut off, and shall have nothing, so it is in the Hebrew, as well as that which is translated, not for him self, and so varied in the margin of your Bibles. He that had all that fulness, and fills all in all, had nothing left, no comfort in God or any creature. If you should see the sea ebb into some other world, and see not a drop of water left, how would you stand astonished at it ! How much more at Christ ! He might say, as Naomi said, Ruth i. 20, 21, The Lord hath dealt bitterly with me. I came from heaven full, but he brought me to earth empty, emptied of all. For us to leave and abate anything of our fulness, how loth are we ! To leave a full land, a full diet, a full table, a full house fully furnished, a full condition, and lower our sail, though for Christ ! Oh, but Christ did ; he left heaven and all the fulness of it, and removed to earth, where is nothing but vanity; and he who was Lord of heaven and earth, for our sakes became poor, and left himself not a foot of land, not a house to hide his head in. By what a small abatement is to our spirits, let us think what so infinite a debasement, an emptying, was to him.

Use 6. See his love yet further, that though he be in himself thus full, yet that his love is such as he thinks himself not full or perfect without us, but reckons himself defective till he have us knit to him and about him. As Christ said to him that had kept all from his youth, One thing is wanting, so I may say of Ohrist, that still one thing is wanting. Why, what can he want, that hath all fulness ? Even any one of his members ; and he would not think himself completely happy without them ; for, Eph. i. 23, though he be he that filleth all in all, yet the church is his fulness, * which is his body, the fulness of him which filleth all in all. His glory would not content him in heaven if he should want any of our company there ; John xvii. 24, he prays therefore, that they may be with him where he is, to behold his glory

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. As Haman said, when he reckoned up all his riches, and honours, and glory, his places and favour at court, what good will all these do me, says he, so long as Mordecai contemns me ? So Christ in his heart says, If I have not all my enemies down, my children about me, his whole tale and number, if but a Benjamin or a Joseph were wanting, heaven would be less to him. The first Adam, when he had all creatures about him, needed a companion of all his delight ; and so kings that have full pleasures, yet love to have consortes imperil. So doth Christ, and till then reckons himself: From hence imperfect ; and therefore, Heb. x. 13, he is said to expect forth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. Expectation argues defect. Now he had been alone in heaven if he had not died; John xii. 24,

CHAP. XIII.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHKIST. 569 the corn abides alone if it die not : Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

Use 7. Let us applaud our own happiness in such an husband, and keep to him alone, and not doat upon any vanity. Why ? Because, as the * Be ware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the apostle argues against vain learning, philosophy, &c. Col. ii. 8-10, tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. That * in him ye are complete, you need no other learn all fulness being in him, ing, no other wisdom ; for, ver. 3, in him are hid all the treasures of wis dom and knowledge, in comparison of which all the wisdom of the world comes to nought. Like a kingdom that hath all commodities, as China, or a great man that hath all about him of his own, so have you in Christ, you need go out to nothing for any thing. You go to seek for light with a candle, when you have the sun in your hand ; whilst having Christ you seek to be happy in anything else. You need borrow nothing, nor be be holden to any creature ; your husband hath all fulness. We needed not the law to direct us, if we knew his story, and could spell out all the pas sages of his life, by whom the law was transcendently fulfilled in instances of a higher kind. If the lives of all the saints, of Paul, Abraham, &c., and all the law and Bible were burnt, all might be renewed in his story, if that were enough known. They only serve to us to help us to understand him ; we needed no other motives than what may be drawn from him and his love, if our hearts were holy enough and conformed to him. In a word, if Christ serve fully to all God s ends (who hath vaster plots than we) and is adequate to them, then much more to all ours, who have but low contrive - ments. Let us therefore love him, and serve him, and make him our end, and think ourselves complete in him.

END OF VOL. IV.

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