Therefore if we will make men leave sin on good gi'ounds, teach the gospel ; else we shall bring them into a civil* compass which is good, and I would there were more of it ; but we should not rest there. Holy duties, and abstaining from gross sins, is a great deal more groundedly enforced from the gospel than the law. For the reasons from thence are very demonstrative, as Paul, Titus ii. 12, * The grace of God hath appeared, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts ; and to live soberly to ourselves, righteous to others, holily to God.'
And therefore the apostle's method is fii'st to lay the ground and founda- tion of Christian doctrine, and then to build upon it Christian duties in all his epistles ; as in the Romans, after he had shewed free justification, by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, and then sanctification of our nature, then he comes to the comforts of a Christian life in predestination, and * That is, = moral.— G.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. IV, VER. G. 341
God's free everlasting love. ' Then I beseech you, by the mercies of God in Christ, give up your bodies as reasonable sacrifices to God,' Rom. xii. 1. The ground of his exhortation is to devote and consecrate ourselves to God, and it is from the mercies of God. And so in all the rest of his epistles, he layeth foundation of a Christian life upon Christian doctrine, as Lactan- tius saith well, ' All morality without piety is a goodly statue without an head (/). [It isj the head that giveth hfe and influence into all duties of a Christian and the knowledge of Christ.* In a word, whatsoever we preach is either to drive to Christ, or is Christ himself, by his benefits unfolded, or an holy life, with this respect, that we may live answerable, and worthy of Christ ; so that whatsoever we preach, it hath respect to Christ.
And therefore the apostle speaking of the main duty saith, ' God hath shined in our hearts, to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' Certainly all will follow where this is, ' She loved much, because much was forgiven,' Luke vii. 47. She had relished the sweet love of God in pardoning her, and therefore loved much. For what is love but all duty in the root ? It is one in the root, and all in the branches. All sin is one in original corruption, the root which brancheth itself many ways into particulars. So love being one in the root, when the heart is filled with that, you shall not need to dictate to it, to do this or that. Love is an afi"ection full of invention, to please, delight, and gratify the person loved, and sets the soul on fire to all duties whatsoever.
1. Again, the knowledge of God differenceth God's j^co pie from, atheists, that know no God at all. So to know God in Christ, that differenceth them from those without the church, that know God, but not ' in the face of Christ.' To know God in the face of Christ as he should be known, differs true Christians from popish and rotten professors, and from an hypocrite within the church. The papists know God not in the face of Jesus Christ ; only they go to him by other mediators, and they will have crucifixes, and many gods, never desiring to discover the face of Christ.
But the best discovery of God is to see him ' in the face of Christ.' The best sight of Christ is, not in a crucifix or the work of an idle painter, but to see him in the word and sacrament. You have seen Christ ' crucified before your eyes,' saith Paul to the Galatians, Gal. iii. 1. God worketh grace by his own means, and not by the bastardly means of man's invention. The knowledge of God is conveyed by Christ, and no other mediator. That knowledge which comes nearest the knowledge of God in Christ is not only disciplinary, but a sound saving knowledge, that sees things in their formal, proper, spiritual light, and not only in their shell.
2. This disiijifiuisheth likctcise them under the law. And they see the face of God under the law, poor distressed sinners. Ay, but they see an angry face there. But if they will see God as they should do, and as true Chris- tians, they see not his angry countenance in Moses under the law, threaten- ing men with hell and damnation ; but they see him * in the face of Jesus Christ,' reconciling the world to himself.
In the next verse, ver. 7, the apostle preventeth an objection, as he is very curious in prevention ; for he was full of love, and desired to make way for himself in the hearts of them whom he taught. When he saw anything between him and their hearts, he labours to remove it, by all the wit; and policy that he could ; and therefore he now preventeth an objection from the meanness of his person and condition. You speak much of preaching the gospel, what doth the world esteem of you ? you * Qu. ' The head ... is the knowledge ' ?— Ed.