(2.) Efficacy or power is the second property of divine truth. And the end of this efficacy is to make us like unto God: Eph. iv. 20-24. The mortification of sin, the renovation of our natures, the sanctifi- cation of our minds, hearts, and affections, the consolation of our souls, with their edification in all the parts of the life of God, and the like, are the things that God hath designed to effect by his truth; (John xvii. 17;) whence it is able to "build us up, and give us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified : " Acts xx. 32. But it is from their relation unto the person of Christ that they have any thing of this power and efficacy. For they have it no otherwise but as they are conveyances of his grace unto the souls of men. So 1 John i. 1, 2.
Wherefore, as professors of the truth, if separated from Christ as unto real union, are withering branches — so truths professed, if doc- trinally separated from him, or their respect unto him, have no living power or efficacy in the souls of men. When Christ is formed in the heart by them, when he dwelleth plentifully in the soul through their operation, then, and not else, do they put forth their proper power and efficacy. Otherwise, they are as waters separated from
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82j THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
the fountain — they quickly dry up or become a noisome puddle ; or as a beam interrupted from its continuity unto the sun — it is imme- diately deprived of light.
2. All divine spiritual truths are declarative, either of the grace and love of God unto us, or [of] our duty, obedience, and gratitude unto him. But, as unto these things, Christ is all and in all; we can have no due apprehensions of the love and grace of God, no understanding of the divine truths of the Word — wherein they are revealed, and whereby they are exhibited unto them that believe — but in the exercise of faith on Christ himself. For in, by, and from him alone, it is that they are proposed unto us, that we are made partakers of them. It is from his fulness that all grace is received. No truth concerning them can, by any imagination, be separated from him. He is the life and soul of all such truths — without which, they, as they are written in the Word, are but a dead letter, and that of such a character as is illegible unto us, as unto any real discovery of the grace and love of God. And as unto those of the other sort, which are instructive unto us in our duty, obedience, and gratitude — we cannot come unto a practical compliance with any one of them, but by the aids of grace received from him. For without him we can do nothing ; (John xv. 5 ;) and he alone understands divine truth who doeth it : John vii. 1 7. There is not, therefore, any one text of Scripture which presseth our duty unto God, that we can so understand as to perform that duty in an acceptable manner, without an actual regard unto Christ, from whom alone we receive ability for the performance of it, and in or through whom alone it is accepted with God.
3. All the evidence of divine spiritual tmth, and all the founda- tion of our real interest in the thmgs whereof it is a declaration — as to benefit, advantage, and comfoit — depend on their relation unto Christ. We may take an instance iu one article of divine truth, which seems to be most disengaged from any such relation, namely, the resurrection of the dead. But there is no man who rightly believes or comprehends this truth, who doth it not upon the evidence given unto it, and example of it, in the person of Christ rising from the dead. Nor can any man have a comfortable expectation or faith of an especial interest in a blessed resun-ection, (which is our whole concern in that truth, Phil. iii. 11,) but by virtue of a mystical union unto him, as the head of the church that shall be raised unto glory. Both these the apostle insists upon at large, 1 Cor. xv. So is it with all other truths whatever.
Wherefore, all divuae supernatural truths revealed in the Scripture, being nothing but the declaration of these counsels of God, whose foundation was laid in the person of Christ; and whereas they are all
THE CONSEQUENCES OF EEJECTING IT. 83
of them expressive of the love, wisdom, goodness, and grace of God unto us, or instructive in our obedience and duty to him — all the actings of God towards us, and all ours towards him, being in and through him alone ; and whereas all the life and power of these truths, all their beauty, symmetry, and harmony in theu' union and conjunc- tion, which is expressive of divine wisdom, is all from him, who, as a living spirit diffused through the whole system, both acts and animates it — all the treasures of truth, wisdom, and knowledge, may be well said to be hid in him. And we may consider some things that ensue hereon,
1. Hence it is, that those who reject the divine person of Christ — • who believe it not, who discern not the wisdom, grace, love, and power of God therein — do constantly reject or corrupt all other spiritual truths of divine revelation. Nor can it otherv^dse be. For they have a consistency only in their relation unto the mystery of godliness — " God manifest in the flesh " — and from thence derive their sense and meaning. This being removed — the truth, in all other articles of religion, immediately falls to the ground. An instance hereof we have in the Socinians. For, although they retain the common notions of the unity and existence of the divine nature, which are indehbly fixed on the minds of men, yet is there no one truth that belongs peculiarly unto the Christian religion, but they either deny it or horribly deprave it. Many things con- cerning God and his essential properties — as his immutability, immensity, prescience — they have greatly perverted. So is that fulfilled in them which was spoken by Jude the apostle, verse 10. They " speak evil of those things which they know not : and what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves." So they do in the things mentioned, whereof there are natural notions in the minds of men ; but of evangelical truths — which they know not — they speak evil, and deride them. The holy Trinity they blaspheme — the incarnation of the Son of God they scorn — the work of his mediation in his oblation and intercession, with the satisfaction and merit of his obedience and suffering, they reject. So do they [reject] whatever we are taught of the deprava- tion of our natures by the fall, of the renovation of them by the Holy Ghost ; and unto all other articles of our faith do they offer violence, to corrupt them. The beginning of their transgression or apostasy, is in a disbelief of the divine person of- Christ. That being rejected, all other sacred truths are removed from their basis and centre, [from] that which gives them their unity and harmony. Hereon they fluctuate up and down in the minds of men, and, appearing unto them under various deceiving colours, are easily misappre- hended or disbelieved. Yea, there can no direct, proper representa-