2 Pet i. 10. IVe have not followed cunningly -devised fall es when we made known unto you the power and coming of our JL/jrd Jesus Christ.
AMONGST the various proofs which we have of the truth and certainty of our holy religion, one of great importance is, that amongst all the authors and founders of it no diversity of sentiment obtained upon any essential point of doctrine: whether the teachers of it were learned, (like the Evangelist Luke and the Apostle Paul,) or unlearned, (like the rest of the Apostles,) they were all of one mind ; nor during the whole Apostolic age was there so much as one controversy among them, if we except the doubt that was raised about imposing the yoke of the Mosaic law upon the Gentiles : nor was this question moved by the teachers themselves, but only referred to them by some who were less instructed amongst their converts. This shews, that they were all taught by one and the same Spirit : for it is not to be conceived, that amongst so great a variety of persons, so differently situated, and so differently gifted, there should not have been a considerable diversity of sentiment, sufficient to distract the minds of their hearers, and to cause divisions in the Church. Moreover, we never find one of the inspired Apostles speaking with doubt upon any fimdamental point : they knew infallibly, and declared without hesitation, that we are all guilty and helpless in ourselves, all redeemed by the blood of Christ, all renewed by the influences of the holy Spirit, and all to be summoned to the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive according to what we have done in the body, whether it be good or evil. We cannot but be struck with the con- fidence with which the Apostle Peter speaks in the words before us, and with the simplicity with which that conlidencc is expressed.
That
Il7l.] TRUTH AND CERTAINTY OF THE GOSPEL. 173'
That I may place his words in a just point of view, I will endeavour to shew,
I. What he had declared respecting Christ —
The generality of commentators confine '^ the power and coming" of the Lord Jesus Christ to his future advent to judge the world. But I see no rea- son for so limiting them : I see nothing in the con- text that should lead us to such a contracted view of them. I conceive that they include what Christ has done, as well as what he will do ; and that the Apostle refers to,
1 . The power with which Christ has come —
[Both the Epistles of Peter are Catholic, addressed to the whole Church. In the former especially he speaks very fully, and forcibly, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the different ends and purposes of his advent. He declares him to have laeen ** fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but mani- fest in these last times for his people*." He specifies the end of his manifestation, which was, to " redeem his people by his blood," and to bear their sins in his own body on the tree ■*. He declares him to have been "raised up from the dead by the Father; that oiu' faith and hope might be in God*^:" and he states, that by his " resurrection from the dead he hath begot- ten us again to a lively hope of an incorruptible and imdefiled and never-fading inheritance'*." He represents him further as " the foundation-stone upon which all his Church and peo- ple are built," and which will infallibly support them all for ever and ever'. And, lastly, speaks of him as gone into hea- ven as our forerunner, and as " reigning there above all the principalities and powers" of heaven, earth, and hell*^.
In the epistle that is before us too, he had spoken fully to the same effect, declaring that " grace and peace were to be multiplied unto us through the knowledge of this Saviour s," who is the one source and fountain of all good, and has " by his Divine power given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness ''."