their obedience to their great Creator to restore them to the uprightness and integrity of their natures and thereby to a state of friendship with God This was the end of his holy Laws and precious Promises and exemplary Life and meritorious Death and glorious Resurrection and powerful Intercession for us to deliver us from the Power and Dominion of Sin to make us first holy as God is and then to receive us into that Blessed place where God dwells But now acquaintance with the Person of Christ makes just such a discovery of sin as it did of the naturalness of God's Justice to him i. e. that the desert and demerit of sin is such that it is impossible to make any atonement or satisfaction to the justice and wrath of God but only by the Death of Christ otherwise Christ had died in vain that is that God could not forgive it without full satisfaction which nothing but the Death of Christ could make Thus we learn our disability to answer the mind and will of God in all or any of the obedience he requireth that is that it is impossible for us to do any thing that is good but we must be acted like Machines by an external force by the irresistable power of the Grace and Spirit of God this I am sure is a new discovery we learn no such thing from the Gospel and I do not see how he proves it from an acquaintance with Christ. But still there is a more glorious discovery than this behind and that is the glorious end whereunto sin is appointed and ordained I suppose he means by God is discovered in Christ viz. for the demonstration of Gods vindictive justice in measuring out to it a meet recompence of reward and for the praise of God's glorious grace in the pardon and forgiveness of it That is it could not be known how just and severe God is but by punishing sin nor how good and gracious God is but by pardoning it and therefore lest his justice and mercy should never be known to the World he appoints and ordains sin to this end that is Decrees that men shall sin that he may make some of them the Vessels of his wrath and the examples of his fierce vengeance and displeasure and others the Vessels of his mercy to the praise and glory of his free Grace in Christ this indeed is such a discovery as nature and revelation could not make For nature would teach us that so infinitely a glorious Being as God is needs not sin and misery to recommend his glory and perfections and that so holy a God who so perfectly hates every thing that is wicked would not truckle and barter with Sin and the Devil for his glory And that so good a God had much rather be glorious in the happiness and perfection and obedience of his Creatures than in their sin and misery and Revelation tells us the same thing that as much as sin is for the glory of his vindictive justice yet God takes no pleasure in punishing delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that he should return and live that is he had rather there were no occasion for punishing than be made glorious by such acts of vengeance and therefore though God be so holy as to punish incorrigible Sinners and so merciful as to forgive all true Penitents through our Lord Jesus Christ yet he did not ordain and appoint and decree sin to this end for vindictive justice and pardoning mercy are but secondary Attributes of the Divine Nature and therefore God cannot primarily design the glorifying of them for that cannot be without primarily designing the sin and misery of his Creatures which would be inconsistent with the goodness and holiness of his Nature Thus Nature and Revelation teaches though these men pretend to have learn't otherwise from an acquaintance with Christ. Thus much for the knowledge of our selves with respect to sin which is hid only in the Lord Iesus But then we learn what our righteousness is wherewith we must appear before God from an acquaintance with Christ. We have already learnt how unable we are to make atonement for our sins without which they can never be forgiven and how unable we are to do any thing that is good and yet nothing can deliver us from the justice and wrath of God but a full satisfaction for our sins and nothing can give us a title to a reward but a perfect and unsinning righteousness what shall we do in this Case how shall we escape Hell or get to Heaven when we can neither expiate for our past sins nor do any good for the time to come why here we are relieved again by an acquaintance with Christ his Death expiates former iniquities and removes the whole guilt of sin but this is not enough that we are not guilty we must also be actually righteous not only all sin is to be answered for but all righteousness is to be fulfilled Now this righteousness we find only in Christ We are reconciled to God by his Death and saved by his life that actual obedience he yielded to the whole law of God is that righteousness whereby we are saved we are innocent by vertue of his Sacrifice and expiation and righteous with his righteousness Now this is a mighty comfortable discovery how we may be righteous without doing any thing that is good or righteous And I confess we could never have known this but by an acquaintance with his Person for his Gospel makes a different representation of it tells us expresly that he is righteous who doth righteousness that without holiness no man shall see God that the only way to obtain the pardon of our sins is to repent of them and forsake them and the only thing that gives a right to the promises of future glory is to obey the Laws and imitate the example of our Saviour and to be transformed into the nature and likeness of God and though our obedience be not in every thing exact and perfect if it be sincere we shall be accepted for the sake of Christ and by vertue of that Covenant of Grace which he hath sealed with his blood which admits of an Evangelical instead of a strict legal perfection such different discoveries doth an acquaintance with the Gospel and with the Person of Christ make The third part of our Wisdom is to walk with God and to that is required Agreement acquaintance a way strength boldness and aiming at the same end and all these with the Wisdom of them are hid in the Lord Iesus The sum of which in short is this that Christ having expiated our sins and fulfilled all righteousness for us though we have no personal righteousness of our own but are as contrary to God as darkness is to light and death to life and an universal pollution and defilement to an universal and glorious holiness and hatred to love yet the righteousness of Christ
of the Gospel if they understand any thing more by them than expecting to be saved according to the terms of the Gospel Covenant that is by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ And certainly they must mean something more than this or else they raise a great noise and clamour in the World and confound mens minds with obscure and unscriptural phrases to no purpose as will appear more in what follows CHAP. III. Of the Knowledge of Christ. SECT I. THE happiness of Mankind consists in the Knowledge and Love of God who is the greatest and the best Being and therefore our good God who is never wanting to his own glory and the happiness of his Creatures hath taken care in all Ages by one means or other to make known himself and his will to the World In the first Creation of all things he left such visible impresses of his own Divine Wisdom and Power on the works of Nature and planted in the mind of man such a natural knowledge of himself that it was as easie to discover the first Author of all things as it is now for a well disposed eye to see the Sun when it shines And while man preserved his innocence God himself did not disdain to converse with him and to give him very present and sensible demonstrations of his Power and Providence In after Ages as Mankind grew more corrupt and declined to Idolatry God afforded good men the frequent apparitions of Angels who were the great Ministers of his Providence and to instruct the more degenerate part of Mankind he raised up some great examples and Preachers of Righteousness such as Enoch and Noah and Abraham and gave such plain and undeniable proofs of his acceptance of these men as might reasonably incourage others to imitate their examples He translated Enoch immediately to Heaven and preserved Noah and his Family in the Ark when he destroyed the rest of the World by a deluge of Waters which was a signal warning to that corrupt Generation while the Ark was preparing and a great example to Posterity he sent Lot out of the ruins of Sodom and made Abraham the Father of a great Nation which was a convincing argument how dear these good men were to God and what others might expect from him who would worship and fear him as they did But when the World would not be reformed by these single Examples God chose the Posterity of Abraham to be a publick and constant demonstration of his Power and Providence and care of good men For when God chose the Posterity of Abraham to be his peculiar people he did not design to exclude the rest of the World from his care and providence and all possible means of Salvation as the Apostle argues in Rom. 3. 29. Is he the God of the Iews only Is he not also of the Gentiles Yes of the Gentiles also which argument if it have any force in it must prove Gods respect to the Gentiles before the preaching of the Gospel as well as since because it is founded on that natural relation God owns to all Mankind as their merciful Creator and Governour which gives the Gentiles as well as Jews an intrest in his care and providence This plainly evinces that all those particular favours which God bestowed on Israel were not owing to any partial fondness and respect to that people but the design of all was to encourage the whole World to worship the God of Israel who gave so many demonstrations of his power and providence For this reason God brought Israel out of Aegypt with great signs and wonders and a mighty hand when he could have done it with less noise and observation that he might the more gloriously triumph over the numerous Gods of Aegypt and all their enchantments and divinations and that he might be honoured on Pharoah and all his Host. For this reason he maintained them in the Wilderness at the constant expence of miracles fought all their Battles for them and many times by weak and contemptible means overthrew great and puissant Armies drove out the Inhabitants of Canaan and gave them possession of that good land I say one great and principal design of all this was to convince the World of the Majesty and Power of the God of Israel that they might renounce their foolish Idolatries and Country Gods and consent in the worship of that One God who alone doth wondrous things this account the Psalmist gives of it that God wrought such visible and miraculous deliverances for Israel to make his glory and his power known among the Heathen The Lord hath made known his Salvation his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the Heathen Psalm 98. 2. That the Heathen might fear the name of the Lord and all the Kings of the Earth his glory i. e. that all Nations might worship God and all Kings submit their Crowns and Scepters to him Psal. 102. 15. that by this means they might be instructed in that important truth That the Lord is great and greatly to be praised that he is to be feared above all Gods for all the Gods of the Nations are Idols but he made the Heavens Psal. 96. 4 5. And as God set up the people of Israel as a visible demonstration to all the World of his power and providence so he committed his Laws and Oracles to them from whence the rest of the World when they pleased might fetch the best rules of life and the most certain notices of the divine will In such ways God instructed the World in former Ages by the light of Nature and the examples of good men and the Sermons of the Prophets and the publick example of a whole Nation which God chose for that very purpose But when long and sad experience had proved all these ways ineffectual to reform the World at last God sent his own Son into the World to make a full and perfect Declaration of his will to give the best rules of life and to encourage our obedience by the most express promises of a blessed Immortality This was one great design of Christ's appearing in the World to reveal and declare God to us Iohn 1. 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 and in Math. 11. 27. All things are delivered unto me of my Father no man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him That is God hath now committed unto Christ all the secret purposes of his Counsel concerning the Salvation of Mankind which were concealed from Ages None of the Prophets which lived before did so fully understand it nor have we any other certain way of knowing this but by the Revelation Christ hath made to us Thus in Iohn 14. 6 7. Iesus saith unto him I am the way the truth and the life no man
cometh unto the Father but by me if you had known me you should have known my Father also and henceforth you have known him and have seen him That is I alone declare the true way to life and happiness and no man can thoroughly understand the will of God but by learning of me and therefore whoever knows me i. e. whoever is acquainted with the Doctrine and Religion I preach knows my Father also that is is thoroughly instructed in God's mind and will as he proves in the following Verses So that to know God is to understand the will of God concerning the Salvation of Mankind and to know Christ is to understand that Declaration he hath made of Gods will to the World i. e. the Gospel which he Preached which is therefore called the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Iesus Christ. 2 Cor. 4. 6. That is that glorious manifestation God hath made of himself to the World by Christ for the face of Christ signifies all that whereby he made himself known as a man is known by his face that is his Laws and Religion and Miracles whereby it appeared that he was the Son of God the great Prophet and Saviour of the World by all this the glory of God was manifested in which the Apostle alludes to that shining glory which appeared on the face of Moses when he came down from the Mount which was but typical of that bright and glorious manifestation God would make of himself by Christ. God was seen in Christ he that hath seen me hath seen my Father that is in plain words the will of God was fully declared to the World by Christ upon which account too as well as with respect to his divine Nature he is called the brightness of his Fathers glory and the express image of his Person Hebr. 1. 1. those discoveries Christ hath made of God being a bright and glorious reflexion of the Nature and Attributes of God of his Eternal Wisdom and truth and holiness as true a representation of the divine nature and will as any Picture is of the person it represents It is plain that in this sense Christ is called the image of God 2 Cor. 4. 4. Lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ which is the image of God should shine unto them Where Christ's being the Image of God comes in very abruptly unless we understand it in this sense that he is the Image of God with respect to the glorious Revelations of the Gospel which contain a true and faithful account of God's Nature and Will The result of all is this that God is the last and highest object of Religious and saving Knowledge i. e. that the only Knowledge necessary to the purposes of Religion is such a knowledge of God's Nature and Will as is sufficient to direct our actions and encourage our obedience and whereas God was formerly known by the light of nature and the works of Creation and Providence and those partial and occasional revelations of his will which he made to the World now the only true medium of knowing God is the Knowledge of Christ who came into the World to declare God to us He knows God best who is best acquainted with those Revelations Christ hath made of God's will i. e. who understands the Gospel in its full extent and latitude This is the meaning of that expression in Iohn 17. 3. This is life Eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent i. e. the only way to Eternal Life is to know the nature and will of God and the only certain way of attaining to the knowledg of God is by knowing Christ whom God sent into the World to publish the Everlasting Gospel who hath made more perfect revelations of Gods will than ever the World had before and who alone hath brought life and immortality to light so that to know Christ is not meerly to know his Person which we can have no other knowledge of than what he hath been pleased to reveal to us but to be acquainted with the whole Doctrine of the Gospel in its native simplicity as he published it to the World which I observed before The Apostle calls this learning Christ and being instructed in him as the truth is in Iesus For when we speak of the Knowledge of Christ we must consider him as our Prophet and so to know Christ signifies to know his Gospel and to preach Christ is to preach his Gospel to expound all those rules of life and Articles of Faith which are contained in it whether they are concerning the nature of God or a future State or his own Nature and Office and Mediation Thus Philip preached Christ to the Samaritanes Acts 8. 5. which in Verse 12. is called preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Iesus Christ. That is the whole Doctrine of the Gospel This should make all considering men ashamed of those unreasonable and groundless clamours that Christ is not preached unless he be named in every sentence whether the argument require it or not as if preaching Christ were to be understood in a literal sense of preaching nothing but the name of Christ those preach Christ most who are careful to confirm men in the belief of the Gospel and of that great promise of immortal life who expound his Laws and the true nature and design of his Mediation for every part of the Gospel is part of the Knowledge of Christ and his Laws as principal a part as any because the design of the whole Gospel is to make us obedient to these Eternal Rules of Righteousness whereby we are transformed into the nature and Image of God and qualified for the happiness of Heaven There is indeed a larger notion of the Knowledge of God and Christ which includes the vertue and efficacy of this knowledge for the design of all Religious knowledge being the Government of our lives and actions how true soever our speculations are the Scripture brands all those as ignorant of God who do not love and reverence and obey him and though we be acquainted with the whole Doctrine of the Gospel unless we heartily believe it and obey all those Revelations Christ hath made we know him not Iohn 1. 2 3. Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his Commandments And Verse 4. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a lyar and the truth is not in him And 1 Iohn 3. 6. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not whosoever sinneth hath not seen him neither known him Not but that bad men may have as true a speculative knowledge of the nature and design of the Gospel as good men have but the meaning is that this is a knowledge which serves no end which wants life and sense and makes men no better than if they were perfectly ignorant and therefore is of no other
his constant care and providence over his Church of the influences of his Grace and the supply of all our spiritual wants and of that glory and happiness to which he will advance us at the last day All this we learn from an acquaintance with Christ's Person as these men call it and it were easie now to draw the whole plot and design of Christianity to search into the deep Councils of God and to discover those principles and motives he was acted by and the infinite Wisdom of the contrivance and the true methods of a Sinners recovery by Christ and what that homage and worship is which we owe our Saviour As to make some short Essay of it Those natural notions which we have of God acquaint us that he is infinitely good and the History of the Creation assures us that God made the World to be an image and representation of his own glory and perfections but especially Man who was made after the image of God and endowed with that Wisdom and Knowledge and all those Principles of Piety and Vertue which would have made him a living and active image of the Divine perfections This was the glory and the happiness of his nature to know God and to be like him to praise and adore his great Benefactor and to be inseperably united to him by those natural tyes of love and obedience For nothing else can be the happiness of a reasonable Creature but Conformity to the Divine Nature which is the pattern and measure of all rational perfections and happiness And therefore when Mankind apostatized from God they miserably defeated the end of their Creation and intercepted those natural Communications of the divine goodness by making themselves unworthy and uncapable of them and now we may easily imagine how much a good God was grieved and offended with this not as a haughty and Imperious Prince would be with the miscarriages and rebellion of his Subjects but as a kind Father is displeased and grieved for the disobedience of his Children for their refractory and unmanageable temper not so much as an affront and contempt of his own Authority but as it is a necessary cause of the ruine and misery of his Children whose happiness he so passionately desires and designs This made the divine goodness so restlesly zealous and concerned for the recovery of Mankind various ways he attempted in former Ages but with little success as I observed before but at last God sent his own Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the World to be the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls to seek and to save that which was lost And that we may be able in some measure to comprehend the infinite Wisdom and goodness of this contrivance and how well the means is fitted to the end we must consider that the whole Mystery of the recovery of mankind consists only in repairing the Divine Image which was defaced by sin that is in making all men truly good and vertuous Sin is our apostasie from God and doth as naturally make us miserable as it makes us unlike the most happy Being But holiness restores us to our Primitive State to the perfect constitution of our Natures and makes us good and therefore happy as God is And this was the great difficulty to perswade men to be good to work upon the different tempers and inclinations and passions of mankind and to reduce them to the forsaken and untrodden paths of vertue and though the laws and precepts the great promises and threatnings of the Gospel confirmed by so many stupendious miracles and by the resurrection of Christ from the Dead have in themselves a mighty power to reform the World yet the consideration of Christ's Person of what he did and suffered for us gives a peculiar force and energy to them Sin and guilt makes men fearful and it makes them disingenuous they are apt to distrust goodness or to abuse it will either believe God implacable which makes them desperate because there is no hope of pardon or believe him to be fond and indulgent which makes them saucy and presumptuous and to prevent both these extreams of superstition which are such profest Enemies to a sincere and unaffected Religion God sent his own Son into the World and by the greatness of his Person and the manner and circumstances of his appearance did confute them both If guilt make us afraid of God as an angry and severe judge behold here the distance taken in the Incarnation of the Son of God who condescended to come down to us cloathed with our nature as a mild and a gentle Prince by all the methods of love and sweetness to reduce us to our Allegiance and subjection to God in him we see the good will of God to Sinners here is a demonstration of condescending goodness which stooped as low as earth and did not disdain the nature and appearance of a man nor the Conversation of Sinners nor the shame of the Cross nor the pale terrours and agonies of Death and the Grave And to remove all possible suspition concerning Gods love to Sinners the Son of God dies as a Sacrifice for our sins to make atonement for us and with his blood Seals the Covenant of Grace and Pardon and all the promises of Eternal life And still to give us the greater security of the performance of all this our dying and suffering Lord is raised again from the dead and advanced to the right hand of power and Majesty to intercede for us Thus God deals with us after the manner of men and to encourage us to return to our duty hath given us all the security of our acceptance that guilt it self though infinitely jealous and suspicious could desire for what could we wish for more than that God should send so great and so beloved a Person to us on an Embassy of Peace than that the Son of God should be our propitiation and Advocate our Lord and Judge he who took our nature and our infirmities on him who knows our weakness and our temptations who died to expiate our sins and is entred into the Holy of Holies to intercede for us in the vertue of his blood and in the power of his glory and the triumphs of his Conquests and with a tender and compassionate sense of our infirmities But then on the other hand to cure our presumption that we may not think God to be so easie as to be reconciled to Sinners and to their vices together the death of Christ upon the Cross assures us what the merit is and what the portion of sin shall be that all Sinners deserve to die and shall certainly have their deserts without a sincere repentance and reformation of their lives for to expiate sin by death can signifie no less than this that death is the proper recompence of sin and therefore that those sins which are not expiated by the Sacrifice of Christ as none are till we repent and reform shall
out of the Christian Religion Our Union to Christ is perfected while we are unholy and when we are united to Christ there is less need of holiness than before for now the Merits and satisfaction of Christs death is imputed to us to remove the guilt of sin and to deliver us from the punishment of it and his actual obedience is imputed to us to make us righteous and to give us an actual right to Glory so that if men will obey Christ out of a principle of good nature and thankfulness to him they may but according to this notion there can be no necessity of it because they are delivered from the wrath of God and have a right to eternal life without it And this is a plain demonstration that these notions are so far from being an essential part of the Christian Religion that they overthrow all Religion by leaving it at every mans liberty whether he will worship and obey God or not but I have discoursed this at large already in the examination of Dr. Owens reasons for the necessity of Holiness and Obedience SECT V. That according to these Principles there is no certain way of getting into Christ or of knowing whether we are in Christ or not THus I have made good the first charge that according to this notion of our Union to Christ men may nay must be united to Christ if ever they be united while they continue in sin and this is a great reproach to the Person and Gospel of our Saviour the other thing which I charged upon this notion is a more immediate â—injury to men as exposing them to perpetual doubts and jealousies about their Salvation viz. that according to these principles no man can certainly tell how to get into Christ or know whether he be in Christ or not And if I can make this appear it will be a sufficient reason for every man to reject it who hath any care of his Salvation or any regard to the peace and quiet of his own mind First then according to these Principles there is no certain way to get into Christ Suppose a sinner who hears of those great Priviledges which are consequent upon our Union to Christ should inquire what course he should take to be united to Christ and to have a Right and Interest in all the Excellencies Preciousness Graces and Righteousness of the Lord Iesus the method prescribed in order to this is Conviction Compunction Humiliation and Faith which is the uniting Grace now I observe first that a man is passive in all this and can contribute nothing to it himself any otherwise than as he is acted by an irresistible power and it is a vain thing to give such rules and directions as no man can follow this only tells us by what methods God unites us to Christ not what we must do but what we must suffer in order to this Union A Sinner may stir up in himself some natural conviction of sin some natural fear and sorrow c. and in a sense of this may set upon the work of reformation of leaving his sins and performing duties but all this they tell us is to no purpose for unless this conviction and compunction and humiliation be wrought in us by the irresistible power of the Spirit of God which no man can possibly tell whether it be or not it is not of the right stamp and will avail us nothing So that the sinner hath nothing to do but to sit still and patiently expect till God will do all for him But secondly Suppose a man have this conviction compunction and humiliation is this a sufficient reason to lay hold on Christ by the hand of Faith by no means the end of conviction is compunction and the end of compunction is humiliation and all this carries us no nearer to Christ than quietly to lye down before God that he may do what he will with us turning the other cheek unto the Lord even smiting of us acknowledging that if the Lord show mercy it will be wonderful if not yet the Lord is Righteous and therefore we have no reason to quarrel against him for denying special mercy to those to whom he does not owe a bit of bread and now the Soul is indeed humbled because it submits to be disposed of as God pleases that is to be saved or damned so that this conviction compunction and humiliation contribute nothing to our Union with Christ but their whole vertue consists in bringing us to such a temper of mind as to be content either to have Christ or to go without him as God shall please humiliation makes the Soul in the sense of its own infinite vileness and unworthiness not to quarrel at the Lord and Devil-like grow fierce and impatient before and against the Lord in case he should never help it never pity it never succour it And now you shall see if the Lord intend good he will by this do thee good and this is all men get by humiliation that if the Lord intend to do them good this is the way in which he will do it but though they be humbled they cannot be sure whether God intend to do them good or not and therefore we are told that we are as much bound to submit to God whether he will save or damn us as we are to submit to the disposal of God as to any common mercy though you must pray for mercy it must be with submission to the good will of the Lord saying the Lords will is good whether it be to save or damn but mine is evil though it be to be saved and to have Jesus Christ nay we are much more bound to submit our selves to God whether he will save or damn us than we are to submit to him in the lesser concernments of this life For if it be pride to murmur in case the Lord deny you smaller matters the offals of this life doest thou not see that it is far greater pride for thee to sink and quarrel with him if he denies thee greater the things of another life is he bound to give thee greater who doth not owe thee the least the Lord gives you life blessed be his name but you ask for treasures of Grace and mercy now God hath given you life you would feign live for ever an unpardonable fault this thousands of pounds Christ himself and all that he is worth and the Lord seems to deny you and now you sink and grow sullen may not the Lord now say was there ever such pride and insolence as to be unwilling to be damned for ever though I dare say this is not the pride which cast the Apostate Angels out of Heaven So that though conviction and compunction and humiliation be the only way to come to Christ yet it is such a way as brings us never the nearer him when all this is done we are where we were before we were humbled