All unbehevers do in their heart call Christ " Ichabod," — " Where is the glory?" They see neither " form nor comeliness in him," that he should be desired. They look on him as Michal, Saul's daughter, did on David " dancing before the ark," when she despised him in her heart. They do not, indeed (many of them), " call Jesus ana- thema," but cry, " Hail, Master!" and then crucify him.
Hence have we so many cursed opinions advanced in derogation unto his glory, — some of them really destructive of all that is truly so ; yea, denying the " only Lord that bought us," and substituting a false Christ in his room. And others there are who express their slight thoughts of him and his glory by bold, irreverent inquiries, of
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what use his Person is in our religion ; as though there were anything in our rehgiou that hath either reahty, substance, or truth, but by virtue of its relation thereunto. And, by their answers, they bring their own inquiries yet nearer unto the borders of blasphemy.
Never was there an age since the name of Christians was kno-\vn upon the earth, wherein there was such a direct opposition made unto the Person and glory of Christ, as there is in that wherein we live. There were, indeed, in the first times of the church, swarms of proud, doting, brain-sick persons, who vented many foolish imaginations about him, which issued at length in Ajrianism, in whose ruins they were buried. The gates of hell in them prevailed not against the rock on which the church is built. But as it was said of Caesar, " Solus ac- cessit sobrius, ad perdendam rempublicam," — " He alone went soberly about the destruction of the commonwealth;" so w^e now have great numbers who oppose the Person and glory of Christ, under a pretence of sobriety of reason, as they vainly plead. Yea, the disbelief of the mysteries of tlie Trinity, and the incarnation of the Son of God, — the sole foundation of Christian religion, — is so diffused in the world, as that it hath almost devoured the power and vitals of it. And not a few, who dare not yet express their minds, do give broad intimations of their intentions and good-will towards him, in making them the object of their scorn and reproach who desire to know nothing but him, and him crucified.
God, in his appointed time, will effectually vindicate his honour and glory from the vain attempts of men of corrupt minds against them.
In the meantime, it is the duty of all those who " love the Lord Jesus in sincerity," to give testimony in a peculiar manner unto his divine Person and gloiy, according unto their several capacities, because of the opposition that is made against them.
I have thought myself on many accounts obliged to cast my mite into this treasury. And I have chosen so to do, not in a way of coti- troversy (which formerly I have engaged in), but so as, together "with the vindication of the tnith, to promote the streng-theniug of the faith of true believers, their edification in the knowledge of it; and to ex- press the experience which they have, or may have, of the power and reality of these things.
That which at present I design to demonstrate is, that the behold- ing of the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges and ad- vancements that believers are capable of in tliis world, or that which is to come. It is that whereby they are first gradually conformed unto it, and then fixed in the eternal enjoyment of it. For here in this life, beholding his glory, they are changed or transfonned into the likeness of it, 2 Cor. iii. 18; and hereafter they shall be " for ever like unto him," because they " shall see him as he is," 1 John iii. 1, 2.
288 THE GLOEY OF CHRIST.
Hereon do our present comforts and future blessedness depend. This is the life and reward of our souls. " He that hath seen him hath seen the Father also," John xiv. 9. For we discern the " light of the knowledge of the glory of God only in the face of Jesus Christ," 2 Cor. iv. 6.
There are, therefore, two ways or degrees of beholding the glory of Christ, which are constantly distinguished in the Scripture. The one is hj faith, in this world, — Avhich is "the evidence of things not seen;" the other is by sight, or immediate vision in eternity, 2 Cor. V. 7, " We walk by faith, and not by sight." We do so whilst Ave are in this world, " whilst we are present in the body, and absent fi-om the Lord," verse 8. But we shall live and walk by sight hereafter. And it is the Lord Christ and his glory which are the immediate ob- ject both of this faith and sight. For we here " behold him darkly in a glass" (that is, by faith) ; " but we shall see him face to face" (by immediate \dsion). " Now we know him in part ; but then we shall know him as we are known," 1 Cor. xiii. 12. What is the difference between these two ways of beholding the glory of Christ shall be afterward declared.