VeR. 6.] SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. 201
branch, this Is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our KiGHTEOUSNESS.' Then God will be known by his sjrace, justifying his people, and accepting them for Christ's sake. But in the New Testament all is open and clear ; he is called ' the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' Eph. i. 5. Then God the Father and the mediator were clearly made known. Alas ! the Jewish church knew little of the doctrine of the Trinity, the distinction of the persons, the quality of the mediator, the way of salvation. What they knew was obscured, and the doctrine of the Messiah horribly depraved.
Use. Let us bless God for the word, and take heed unto it, as to a light shining in a dark place. What would be our condition if we had not the scriptures among us ? We should be no better than savages in the wilderness, or as the body without the soul, the earth without the sun. God might immediately have revealed himself to man ; he that made the heart can enstamp it with the knowledge of his will ; but he would state his doctrine into a settled course, that we might not coin oracles to ourselves, or obtrude fancies on others : ' We have \6<yov ^e/Sacorepov, a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as to a light that shineth in a dark place,' 2 Peter i. 19. He knoweth to what liberty we incline in preaching divine things. No more TroXu/iepw? Kal 7roXvTp67rco<i of ' those divers ways and manners, wherewith God spake in times past to our fathers by the prophets/ Heb. i. 1. After the closing of a perfect canon there needed nothing but ordinary revelation. This is sufficient to salvation, if there were no book else ; if the world were full of books, and this only were want- ing, there were no certain way nor rule to heaven. Here is God's heart discovered to us, and our hearts to ourselves ; it is a ray of the face of God in Christ : John i. 18, ' No man hath seen God at any time ; the only-begotten Son of God, that lay in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' Satan hath been ever maligning this light, that he might more securely domineer in the world. Christ undertook he would declare God's name to his brethren, and here he hath done it. Oh ! let it come with divine authority upon your hearts, in all the precepts, promises, threatenings of it, that you may come to a nearer sight of God and yourselves.
4. Observe the necessity of a divine light before we can understand the things of God : ' I have manifested thy name,' &c.
[1.] There must not only be an outward sure rule of doctrine, but an inward light. We can have no savoury apprehensions of the things of God till Christ himself become our teacher ; the Son of God must always be the interpreter of his Father's will ; he is the Word that speaketh to the heart. All men by nature are ignorant of the name of God, without any saving knowledge : Eph. v. 8, ' Ye were sometimes darkness ; ' not only in the dark, but darkness itself ; ' but now ye are light in the Lord ; ' that is, enlightened by his Spirit. This is proper to the elect, those who are given to him. The church is Christ's open school, the scriptures our book, the ministers are the ushers, and Christ is the inward teacher. Some are only taught by the ministers, others are taken aside and taught by Christ himself in private. His public lectures are read to all hearers, but the elect are taught of God : John vi. 68, ' Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal
202 SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. [SeR. VII.
life.' Others may hear the word, but they perish in their own hh'nd- ness and unbelief. Some play the truants in Christ's school ; they will not hear, they pass judgment on themselves : Acts xiii. 48, ' As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.' The whole city was met to hear, but none believed but the elect ; and the apostle doth not say, ' As many as believed were ordained to eternal life,' but ' as many as were ordained believed.' It is not given to all : Mat. xiii. 11, 'It is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.' All the difference is in the will of God ; so that the scholars in this kind are ' the called according to his purpose.' Christ's teaching is of no larger extent than his Father's election. Some schoolmasters, besides their common care, do teach such children apart as they love most, they take them and point with the finger ; so doth Christ manifest himself to those that are given him out of the world by the inward work of his grace. Moral suasion is common to all, but he taketh some aside and worketh on their hearts.
[2.] For the manner of this teaching ; it is accompanied with force and power. There is always an operation that goeth along witli this teaching : John vi. 44, 45, ' No man can come to me except the Father that hath sent me draw him. It is written in the prophets. They shall be all taught of God.' There is teaching and drawing ; the inspira- tion and the impression go together. He is an incomparable teacher ; he giveth the lesson, and a heart to learn it ; with information he reformeth, and with the knowledge of our duty he giveth a will and power to do it. He teacheth the promise so as to make us believe it ; the commandment so as to make us obey it. The soul is God's echo : Ps. xxvii. 8, ' When thou sayest, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek.' He reformeth by his light, and ex- citeth by the power of his grace. In short, it is a powerful teaching, joined with an inward working. His scholars are sure of proficiency, for he hath their hearts in his hands, and can move them according to his own pleasure. There is not only an illumination of the mind, but a bowing of the will. Corrupt nature in man is strong enough to resist anything of man, as he is man.