Secondly, Take heed that you rest not satisfied with that know- ledge of Christ you have attained, but grow on towards perfection. It is the pride and ignorance of many professors, when they have got a few raw and indigested notions, to swell with self-conceit of their excellent attainments. And it is the sin, even of the best of saints, when they see ( Veritas in prqfundo) how deep the knowledge of Christ lies, and what pains they must take to dig for it, to throw by the shovel of duty, and cry, Dig we cannot. To your work, Christians, to your work ; let not your candle go out : se- quester j^ourselves to this study, look what intercourses, and cor- respondences are betwixt the two worlds ; what communion soever God and souls maintain, it is in this way; count all, therefore, but dross in comparison of that excellency which is in the know* ledge of Jesus Christ.
Sets forth Christ in his essential and primeval Glorv*
Then was I by him, as one brought up with him : and I was daili/ his delight, rejoicing always before him.
X HESE words are a part of that excellent commendation of wisdom, by which in this book Solomon intends two things; first, Grace or holiness, Prov. iv. 7. " Wisdom is the principal " thing." Secondly, Jesus Christ, the fountain of that grace : and look, as the former is renowned for its excellency, Job xxviii. 14, 15. so the latter, in this context, wherein the Spirit of God des-
SEBM. IX. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 43
cribes the most blessed state of Jesus Christ, the wisdom of the Father, from those eternal delights he had with his Father, be- fore his assumption of our nature : " Then was I by him," Sfc, that long Evum was wholly swallowed up, and spent in unspeak- able delights and pleasures. Which delights were twofold, (1.) The Father and Son delighted one in another (from which de- lights the Spirit is not here excluded) without communicating that their joy to any other, for no creature did then exist save in the mind of God, verse 30. (2.) They delighted in the salvation of men, in the prospect of that work, though not yet extant, verse 31. My present business lies in the former, viz. the mutual delights of the Father and Son, one with and in another ; the account whereof we have in the text ; wherein consider,
1. The glorious condition of the non-incarnated Son of God, described by the person with whom his fellowship was, " Then " was I by him," or with him ; so with him as never was any, in his very bosom, John i. 18. the only begotten Son was in the bo- som of the Father ; an expression of the greatest dearness and in- timacy in the world ; as if he should say, wrapt up in the very soul of his Father, embosomed in God.
2. This fellowship is illustrated by a metaphor, wherein the Lord will stoop to our capacities, (as " One brought up with "him") the Hebrew word* ^73 X [Amon] is sometimes rendered a cunning workman, or curious artist \ as in Cant. vii. 1. which is the same word. And indeed Christ shewed himself such an artist in the creation of the world ; " For all things were made by him, " and without him there was nothing made, that was made,1' John i. 3. But Montanus, and others, render it nutricius ; and so Christ is here compared to a delightful child, sporting before its Father: the Hebrew rootf prny [Shachak,] which our trans- lation renders " rejoicing before him," signifies to laugh, play, or rejoice; so that, look as parents delight to see their children sport- ing before them, so did the Father delight in beholding this dar* ling of his bosom.
3. This delight is farther amplified by the perpetuity and un- interruptedness thereof; " I was day by day his delights, rejoicing "always before him." { These delights of the Father and the
* [Amon] Signifies a Skilful Artist ; he is pleased to assume this character, in order to shew men, that their conversion is not owing to any strength of their own, but is the work of this skilful Artist. Brightman on Qtint. i. 26.
f [Shachak] Ridere, to laugh ; ludere, to sport ; latari, to rejoice : av6gu*oxa6aS9 after the manner of men; he compares himself to a pleasant child, standing before his father. Luvat. on this place.
\ [Jam, Jom Meshacheketh] continually rejoicing.
44" THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 6ERM. II.
Son one in another, knew not a moment's interruption, or dimi- nution : thus did these great and glorious persons mutually let forth their fullest pleasure and delight, each into the heart of the other ; they lay as it were embosomed one in another, entertaining themselves with delights and pleasures ineffable, and unconceivable. Hence we observe,
Doct. That the condition and state of Jesus Christ before his in- carnation, was a state of the highest and most unspeakable de- light and pleasure, in the enjoyment of his Father.
John tells us he was in the bosom of his Father : * to lie in the bosom is the posture of dearest love, John xiii. 23. " Now there " was leaning on Jesus1 bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus " loved :" but Christ did not lean upon the Father's bosom, as that disciple did in his, but lay in it: and therefore in Isa. xliii. 1. the Father calls him, " Mine elect in whom my soul delighteth ;* which is-f- variously rendered ; the Septuagint, quern suscepit, whom my sold takes, or wraps up : others, complacuit, one that highly pleases and delights my very soul : and 2 Cor. viii. 9. he is said, in this estate, wherein I am now describing him, to be rich : and, Phil. ii. 7. " To be equal with God, and to be in the form of " God," (i. e.) to have all the glory and ensigns of the majesty of God ; and the riches which he speaks of, was no less than all that God the Father hath, John xvi. 14. " All that the Father hath is " mine :" and what he now hath in his exalted state, is the same he had before his humiliation, John xvii. 5. Now to sketch out (as we are able) the unspeakable felicity of that state of Christ, whilst he lay in that blessed bosom, I shall consider it three ways, nega- tively, positively, and comparatively.
1. Let us consider that state negatively, by removing from it all those degrees of abasement and sorrow which his incarnation brought him under : as,
First, He was not then abased to the condition of a creature, which was a low step indeed, and that which upon the matter un- did him in point of reputation ; for by this (saith the apostle) " he £ made himself of no reputation," Phil. ii. 7. it emptied him of his glory. For God to be made man, is such an abasement as none
* John i. 18. Here is insinuating, metaphorically, the intimate communion of the Son of God with the Father, which consists in eternal generation, in the strictest one- ness or unity of nature, in the most ardent love, and in communication of the most se- cret affairs. Glass.