tion and salvation of the church, as they are expressed, communicating their blessed effects unto the souls of them that do believe, which is done only in Christ; so the beams of their glory shine unto us with unspeakable refreshment and joy, 2 Cor. iv. 6. For 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.' Hence the Apostle on the consideration of the actings of the holy properties of God in this blessed work, falls into that contemplation: 'O 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,' Rom. xi. 33-36.

2. 'In and through Christ we do believe in God,' 1 Pet. i. 21. This is the life of our souls. God himself in the infinite perfections of his divine nature, is the ultimate object of our faith, but he is not here the immediate object of it, but the divine. way and means of the manifestation of himself and them unto us, are so. Through Christ we believe in God.' By our belief in him, we come to place our faith ultimately in God himself; and this we can no otherwise do, but by beholding the glory of God in him, as hath been declared.

3. This is the only way whereby we may attain the saving, sanctifying knowledge of God; without this, every beam of divine light that shines on us, or gleams from without, (as the light shineth into darkness, when the darkness comprehendeth it not, John i. 5.); every spark that ariseth from the remainders of the light of nature within, do rather amaze the minds of men, than lead them into the saving knowledge of God. So a glance of light in a dark night, giving a transient view of various objects, and passing away, doth rather amaze than direct a traveller, and leave him more exposed unto wandering than before. Such were all those notions of the divine Being and its excellencies, which those who boasted themselves to be wise among the Heathen embraced and improved. They did but

fluctuate in their minds, they did not transform them into the image and likeness of God, as the saving knowledge of him doth, Col. iii. 10. And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him.'

So the Apostle expresseth this truth; Where is the wife? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God,' 1 Cor. i. 20 -24.

After it was evident unto all, that the world, the wise, the studious, the contemplative part of it, in the wisdom of God, disposing them into that condition, wherein they were left unto themselves, in their own wisdom, their natural light and reason, did not, could not come to the saving knowledge of God, but were puffed up into a contempt of the only way of the revelation of himself, as weakness and folly; it pleased God then to manifest all their wisdom to be folly; and to establish the only means of the knowledge of himself in Christ Jesus.

CHAP. III.

THE GLORY OF CHRIST, IN THE MYSTERIOUS CONSTITUTION OF HIS PERSON.

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THE second thing wherein we may behold the glory of Christ given him of his Father, is in the mysterious constitution of his person, as he is God and man in one and the same perThere are in him, in his one single individual person, two distinct natures; the one eternal, infinite, immense, almighty, the form and essence of God; the other having a beginning in time, finite, limited, confined unto a certain place, which is our nature, which he took on him when he was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The declaration of the nature of this glory, is a part of my DISCOURSE of the PERSON of CHRIST, whereunto I refer the reader. My present design is of another nature.

This is that glory whose beams are so illustrious, as that the blind world cannot bear the light and beauty of them. Multitudes begin openly to deny this incarnation of the Son of God, this personal union of God and man in their distinct natures; they deny that there is either glory or truth in it; and it will ere long appear, (it begins already to evidence itself,) what greater multitudes there are, who yet do not, who yet dare not, openly reject the doctrine of it, who in truth believe it not, nor see any glory in it. Howbeit, this glory is the glory of our religion, the glory of the church, the sole rock whereon it is built, the only spring of present grace and future glory.

This is that glory which the angels themselves desire to behold, the mystery whereof they bow to look into, 1 Pet. i. 12. So was their desire represented by the cherubims in the most holy place of the tabernacle; for they were a shadow of the ministry of angels in the church. The ark and mercy-seat were a type of Christ in the discharge of his office; and these cherubims were made standing over them, as being in heaven above; but earnestly looking down upon them in a posture of

reverence and adoration. So they did of old, and in their present contemplation of it, consists no small part of their eternal blessedness.

Hereon depends the ruin of Satan and his kingdom. His sin. so far as we can conceive, consisted of two parts. (1.) His pride against the person of the Son of God, by whom he was created. For by him were all things created that are (or were when first created) in heaven, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers,' Col. i. 16. Against him he lifted up himself, which was the beginning of his transgression. (2.) Envy against mankind made in the image of God, of the Son of God the first-born. This completed his sin; nothing was now left whereon to act his pride and malice. Unto his eternal confusion and ruin, God in infinite wisdom, unites both the natures he had sinned against, in the one person of the Son, who was the first object of his pride and malice. Hereby his destruction is attended with everlasting shame in the discovery of his folly, wherein he would have contended with infinite wisdom, as well as misery, by the powers of the two natures united in one person.

Here lies the foundation of the church. The foundation of the whole old creation was laid in an act of absolute sovereign power. Hereby God hanged the earth upon nothing. But the foundation of the church is on this mysterious immoveable rock, Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God;' on the most intimate conjunction of the two natures, the divine and human, in themselves infinitely distant, in the same person.

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We may name one place wherein it is gloriously represented unto us, 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, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.' Here must the whole church fall down and worship the author of this wonderful contrivance, and captivating their understandings unto the obedience of faith, humbly adore what they cannot comprehend. This was obscurely represented unto the church of old, Exod. iii. 2-6. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he look

ed, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him, out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am 1. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy fathers,' &c.

This fire was a type or declaration of the presence of God in the person of the Son. For with respect unto the Father he is called an Angel, the Angel of the covenant; but absolutely in himself, he was Jehovah, the God of Abraham, &c. And of his presence the fire was a proper representation; for in his nature he is as a consuming fire; and his present work was the delivery of the church out of a fiery trial. This fire placed itself in a bush, where it burned, but the bush was not consumed. And although the continuance of the fire in the bush was but for a short season, a present appearance; yet thence was God said to dwell in the bush; 'The good will of him that dwelt in the bush,' Deut. xxxiii. 16. And this is so spoken, because the being of the fire in the bush for a season, was a type of him in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, and that for ever, Col. ii. 9.; of him who was made flesh, and dwelt among us, John i. 14. The eternal fire of the divine nature dwells in the bush of our frail nature, yet is not consumed thereby. God thus dwells in this bush, with all his good-will towards sin

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Moses looked on this sight as a marvellous and wondrous thing. And if it were so in the type, what is it in the truth, substance, and reality of it? And by direction given unto him, to put off his shoes, we are taught to cast away all fleshly imaginations, and carnal affections, that by pure acts of faith, we may behold this glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father.

I design not here to insist on the explication, or confirmation of this glorious truth, concerning the constitution of the person of Christ in and by his incarnation. What I can comprehend,