3. This is the only way whereby we may attain the saving, sancti- fying knowledge of God. Without this, every beam of divine light that shines on us, or gleams from without (as the light shineth into darkness when the darkness comprehendeth it not, John i. 5), every spark that ariseth from the remainders of the light of nature within, doth rather amaze the minds of men than lead them into the saving knowledge of God. So a glance of light in a dark night, giving a transient vieAV of various objects, and passing away, doth rather amaze than direct a traveller, and leave him more exposed unto wandering than before. Such were all those notions of the Divine Being and his excellencies, which those who boasted themselves to be wise among the heathen embraced and improved. They did but fluctuate in their minds ; they did not transform them into the image and likeness .of God, as the saving knowledge of him doth, Col. iii. 10.
So the apostle expresseth this truth, "Where is the -wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews re- quire a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God," 1 Cor. i. 20-24.
After it was evident unto all, that the world, the wise, the studious, the contemplative part of it, in the wisdom of God, disposing them into that condition wherein they were left unto themselves, in their own wisdom, their natural light and reason, did not, could not, come to the saving knowledge of God, but were puffed up into a contempt of the only way of the revelation of himself as weakness and folly ; — it pleased God then to manifest all their wisdom to be folly, and to establish the only means of the knowledge of himself in Christ Jesus.
CHAPTER III.
The Glorj' of Christ in the mysterious Constitution of his Person.
The second thing wherein we may behold the glory of Christ, given him of his Father, is in the mysterious constitution of his Person, as
310 THE GLOKY OF CHRIST
he is God and man in one and the same person. There are in him, in his one single individual person, two distinct natures; the one, eternal, infinite, immense, almighty, — the form and essence of God ; the other, having a beginning in time, finite, limited, confined unto a certain place, — which is our nature, which he took on him when he was " made flesh, and dwelt among us." The declaration of the nature of this glory is a part of my discourse of the Person of Christ, where- unto I refer the reader: — my present design is of another nature.
This is that glory whose beams are so illustrious, as that the blind world cannot bear the light and beauty of them. Multitudes begin openly to deny this incarnation of the Son of God, — this personal union of God and man in their distinct natures. They deny that there is either glory or truth in it ; and it will ere long appear (it be- gins already to evidence itself) what greater multitudes there are, who yet do not, who yet dare not, openly reject the doctrine of it, who in tnith believe it not, nor see any glory in it. Howbeit, this glory is the glory of our religion, — the glory of the church, — the sole Kock whereon it is built, — the only spring of present grace and future glory.^
This is that glory which the angels themselves desire to behold, the mystery whereof they "bow down to look into," 1 Peter i. 12. So was their desire represented by the cherubim in the most holy place of the tabernacle ; for they were a shadow of the ministry of angels in the church. The ark and the mercy-seat were a type of Christ in the discharge of his office; and these cherubim were made standing over them, as being in heaven above; but earnestly looking down upon them in a posture of reverence and adoration. So they did of old ; and in their present contemplation of it consists no small part of their eternal blessedness.
Hereon depends the ruin of Satan and his kingdom. His sin, so far as we can conceive, consisted of two parts. 1. His pride against the person of the Son of God, by whom he was created. " For by him were all things created that are" (or were when first created) " in heaven, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers," Col. i. 1 6. Against him he lifted up himself; — which was the beginning of his transgression. 2. Envy against mankind, made in the image of God, of the Son of God the first-bom. This completed his sin ; nothing was now left whereon to act his pride and malice. Unto his eternal confusion and ruin, God, in infinite wisdom, unites both the natures he had sinned against in the one person of the Son ; who was the first object of his pride and malice. Hereby his destruc- tion is attended with everlasting shame in the discovery of his folly, wherein he would have contended with infinite wisdom, as well as misery, by the powers of the two natures united in one person.