It is light that makes things that are beautiful to be beautiful to us. A blind man cannot judge of colours, nor a deaf man of sounds and harmony. A man that hath lost his taste cannot judge of sweetness, so that there must be senses, and the Spirit of God must reveal these things unto us.
And likewise let us labom* more and more to see our own deformity, and then we shall see Christ's beauty, the more ice desire to know our own vileness. Indeed the Spirit of God carries these parallel one with another. He dis- covers by the same light our own deformity and necessity, and the beauty and excellency of God in Jesus Christ. The one will set an edge on the other, and he that will come to see the height and breadth, and depth of God's love in Christ, must see the height, and breadth, and depth of his own corruption, and our misery by it out of Christ. And they are good thoughts for us,
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every day to think of these two objects, the miseiy of the condition of man out of Christ, and the excellency now that we have in Jesus Christ ; the amiableness of Christ towards us, and our amiable condition in him. He dehghts in us, as we delight in him. The consideration of this, and of the loathsome, terrible, fearful condition out of him, will keep us closer to Christ, and make us value the ordinances more, that we may grow up in faith and knowledge of Christ more and more, till we come to a fulness in Christ.
And present to the eye of our souls, God in Christ in the relations he hath taken upon him, to be a Father in Christ. Let us make that benefit of this beauty that is presented to us in the gospel, especially when it is un- folded in the ministry, because Satan hath a special policy to present God and Christ otherwise to us. Especially iu the time of temptation, he presents God as a judge, sitting upon his throne, and God as a 'consuming fire,' Heb. xii. 29. It is true he is so out of Christ, but in him he hath taken the relation of a fiither, and looketh on us sweetly in the relation of sons. Christ must be considered in the sweet relation of a Saviour, and the Holy Ghost in the sweet relation of a comforter ; and the word is all written for our comfort, if we believe, and the sacraments feed us to eternal life. Let us represent these things beautifully to the soul, and this will strengthen faith, and cherish afi'ectiou, that Satan shall not rob us of our comfort, nor say to us, what do you, ye unclean persons, loathsome creatures, what do you come to the sacrament, and come to the holy things of God ? It is true, if we mean to be so still, but as soon as ever the desire of om* souls is to come to God, and that there is a divorce between us and our sins, and we desu'e to leave them, let us have all the sweet conceits of God that may be. We see in Revelations, Laodicea was lukewaiTQ, and that is a hateful tem- per. ' Behold,' saith he, ' I stand and knock, if any man open to me, I wiU come, and sup with them,' Rev. iii. 20. A strange love, to come to them that were in such a lukewarm estate. He was ready to cast them out. His stomach was loaden with them. ' I stand at the door and knock,' yet if any of you lukewarm professors will open, I will come and 6up with him, and refresh him with the refreshings of God. So in Cant, v., when the chm-ch slighted Christ and ofl'ended him, yet he woos his church. * My locks are v/et with the dew of the night,' Cant. v. 2. Oh ! marvellous patience, that notwithstanding her lukewarmness and neglect, yet Christ gives not over ! Let us not entertain hard conceits of God in Christ, but laboui- to present them sweetly to om* meditations.
This is the wisdom of a Christian, to have sights of faith, that is, to pre- sent several things that faith may work on to strengthen itself, as for faith to have a sight of God in Christ, a gi'acious Father ; and to have a spiritual sight of Chi'ist sending ambassadors wooing and beseeching us to be re- conciled ; and a sight of the joys of heaven, that we shall have full posses- sion of after. Let us think of them, and present them to our souls ; and present to our souls by meditation, the excellency, and royalty, and prero- gative of God's children, that they are the most excellent people in the world. These sights that faith helps itself by, are an excellent means to make us in love with the beauty of God's house. But to answer two or three objections briefly before I proceed to more particulars.
Obj. Some will object, what need we now in these glorious times of the church stand upon the ordinances so much ? Indeed in darker times there was more need, &c.
Am. I will not be large, but to answer in a word. The more God din-