Now our natures are in Christ lovely to God, because our flesh is in him pure, sanctified, and separate from all sin ; so that he loveth our natures. And the nature of God, before opposite, is now lovely to us, because God dwells in our nature, as the apostle saith, bodily, that is, fully. Col. ii. 9. Now God in our nature is lovely. God out of our nature is not, because he is purity and holiness itself; but in our nature he is all love and mercy, for his justice is fully satisfied. God by his Spirit will never leave any parti- cular Christian till he makes their nature in them like his own nature, that is divorced and separate wholly from sin, that it may be a pure glorious nature, fit for so glorious a head. Therefore go boldly to the throne of grace. There be good terms between God and us through Christ.
' We shall die, because we have seen God,' saith Manoah, Judges xili. 22. Now we shall live because we have seen God in Christ. Out of Christ we cannot see an angel, and live ; but seeing God in the face of Christ, a mediator not of our appointing, this is a sweet and comfortable sight.
I beseech you, let us make a comfortable use of these things. God thinks of us in Christ. It was a good prayer of a holy martyr, ' that God would shine on him in the face of Jesus Christ.' He was so guilty of his own sins and corruptions that he durst not look upon God, but desires God to look on his Son first, and then on him, in his Son. In Christ God can Bee us perfect, for Christ's righteousness is our righteousness, and we have the same spirit with Christ. For note that by the way.
As Christ, by taking our nature on him, testified by the Spirit he was the Son of God in our nature, so the same Spirit of Christ having knit us to Christ, and sanctifying our nature, we become the sons of God and Christ too. The same Spirit that sanctified the nature of Christ in the womb, will sanctify every Christian. And as the grace of union was the cause of Christ's unction, so the grace of union with Christ is the ground of all com- munion with Christ. And therefore labour in the first place to be one with Christ by faith, the foundation of all the comfort that I have unfolded.
To US-ward is the union with Christ by faith, that Christ and we arc one; for if God look on us in the face of his Son, then we must be one with his Son : bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, by his Spirit, as he is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, by our nature. He took our human nature that we might partake of his divine nature ; and therefore labour for union, that we may have gracious communion with him. If we be one with Christ we are his friends, and he will be with us. ' I and the Father will sup with him, Key. iii. 20, Rest specially in that. It was the effect of Christ's prayer, ' that we may be all one : I in them, and thou in me, and that thou mayest love them with the love thou lovest me,' John svii. 22, 23. So intimate
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was Christ's love that ho desh-es tho same lovo to us, ami in ns, one with another. This is a blessed union of tho Trinity in one, and of Christ with tho Father, and of every Christian witli Christ and the Father, one with anotlier. Tliis is the fruit of Christ's offering himself a sacrifice to God, ' that we may be one, as they are one : I in them, and thou in me.'
The reason of Christ's prayer for that union is, that all good is conveyed from the Father to us, ' in the face of Jesus Christ,' as we have our con- sistence and being in Christ, and arc one with Christ ; and that makes tho sacraments and all holy ordinances to be means to bring us into communion with Christ, and to seal it to us, and thereby our communion with the Father and the Holy Ghost. If the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be ours, what can we want '? ' Shew us the Father and it will suffice,' saith Philip, John xiv. 8. If we have God for our Father, we need no more. Therefore make much of the means whereby our union and communion and fellowship ^Yith God in Christ is stayed, and confirmed to us. To go on.
It is said here, there must be a ' knowledge of this glory of God in tho face of Jesus Christ.' And the ministry is the cause of that knowledge, for God hath shined in our hearts to give the light, &c.
Doct. So that v:e must know iltc face of God in Jesus Christ. Know- ledge is the first thing in this new creation, as light was the first in the old creation. God by his word made light, and God by his word puts tho Spirit of light in our hearts. All grace is conveyed by knowledge, grace being nothing but knowledge digested. And therefore. Col. iii. 10, the apostle makethitthe ' image of God,' which in the Eph., iv. 2-4, he calls ' holiness and righteousness.' But there he bringeth all under that one head, because all grace cometh by knowledge, and all comfort is conveyed by knowledge. For even as together with light from heaven comes influ- ence and heat, so together with the divine light comes the divine influence and heat of the soul. Therefore the apostle joineth together grace and knowledge : 2 Pet. iii. 18, ' Grow in grace, and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.' So you see the reason why the glory of God in Christ must be known. For it is an axiom in divinity, no spiritual blessing doth a man good but by way of knowledge, and therefore out of the church there is no salvation, because the church being like Goshen, there is no light of know- ledge out of the church. Therefore it is a gross and fundamental error of them that will have men saved in any religion, for all salvation cometh by knowledge, and that is only in the church.