Now Christ must be made kno\vn, his face must be shewed, and therefore there must be a hght to make known the face of God in Jesus Christ, Religion is the way of God, the end especially in these sweet attributes, and these must have a ministry. God hath ability at call, to give the light of the knowledge of these excellencies in Christ.
Of the first we spake. There is one first cause of all things, and one last end, that is God ; all for his glory. All things come from God, and all thingB must terminate and end in him. Now this glory is victorious, excellent, and manifested, and so manifested as it is apprehended by others. Now God's glory is wisdom, mercy, holiness, goodness. They are excellent in
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God, and oxcellontly victorious over the contrary ; for ho is so good that his goodness is above our ill, and it is with a glorious discovery, and it is glorious that \vc do apprehend it. For if wo be Christians, our eyes be opened by the Spirit to apprehend the glory that shincth in the gospel. Therefore God sets down this excellency by way of glory. It is not ordi- nary grace, but glorious grace, glorious love, and glorious wisdom, to reconcile mercy and justice. It is glorious, and eminently victorious. And all Christians have eyes to see that it is no ordinary excellency, but glory in God. When God will have it excellently set out by the word, he calls it 'glory,' to satisfy a conscience awakened, which will not be satisfied but by glorious mercy and infinite mercy. When we be in health and strong to sin (as many, the Lord bo merciful to them, use their wits and strength and pohcy to ofiend, running in a course of sin, and never think of these) ; but Satan is a cunning rhetorician ; he will amplify bitter things against us at the hour of death and time of temptation. And unless we have something that is above all his rhetoric and high mercies, victorious mercies, glorious mercies above all our sins, and above Satan's malice, the conscience will not be satisfied.
And let no man object his sins at such times, for God is glorified when his mercy is received, and his goodness entertained. * Where sin aboundeth, grace aboundeth much more,' Rom. v. 20. AVhere sin aboundeth in the conscience that is guilty and groaneth under it, oh gi'ace aboundeth in such a man ; grace is glorious grace to such a man. The more thy sin is, the more is the glory of grace in pardoning it.
But how is this glorious mercy and goodness of God derived* to us, God being so pure and holy, and we so unholy ?
Therefore in the next place, it is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God will not sutfer the glory of one of his attributes to devour and consume another, but he will have his justice fully satisfied. And there- fore this glorious mercy is to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ, who was made a curse for us. Gal. iii. 13.
' In the face of Jesus Christ.' It is a borrowed speech, and all one with that which went before, * Christ who is the image of God,' in the 4th verse of this chapter. He meaneth the person of Christ, incarnate, and living, and dying, and being made a curse for us : Christ made man.
Face is the person described by that face ; for the face is the most known part of a man. It is the glass of the soul, wherein we may see a man's inside, his affections, love, hatred, and whatsoever is in the inward man. And so God discovers himself, and whatsoever is in him, ' in the face of Jesus Christ.' We may see his hatred of sin, his love of the elect, and whatso- ever is in God. Whatsoever we see in Christ, it is in God originally.
We will unfold the point in three particulars.
1. First, We will shew that in the gospel we see the face of Christ, that is, more familiarly than others. It is a speech appropriated in some manner to the gospel.
Secondly, We see the face of God in Christ.
Thirdly, That this seeing of the face of God in Christ is a most comfort- able and excellent sight and knowledge.
First of all, in the gospel, ice see the face of Christ. Moses, and all before Christ, saw Christ, but not the face of Christ. They saw him not so plainly, clearly, distinctly, and comfortably as we do in times of the gospel.
Now we see Christ incarnate, and Christ sacrificed for us ; Christ dead, * That is, => communicated. — G.
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2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. IV, VER. 6. 323
risen, ascended, and sitting on the right hand of God. They did not. And therefore Saint Ambrose saith well, ChrisLus umbra in lege, imago in evangelio, Veritas in coelo ; in the law he was a shadow, the image of God in the gospel, but in heaven he is the truth (gj. And there we shall see him most lively of all.
Now there be five or six ways of God's manifesting of himself.