not follow cunningly-devised fables, when they made known the power and coming of the Lord Jesus, but were eye-wit- nesses of his majesty : for they were with him in the holy mount, when he received from God the Father honour and glory, and when there came to him a voice from the excellent glory, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased s." Whether therefore they speak of his sufferings or his glory, their testimony may be relied on : and we may be sure that in Him is salvation, and in Him alone.]
The extreme urgency of the Apostle in commend- ing to us his testimony, leads us to contemplate, II. The benefit of receiving it —
The Apostles themselves were brought into a most exalted state through faith in this Divine Saviour —
[" Hear what the Apostle speaks respecting it :" " Truly," says he, " our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." By the Lord Jesus Christ they were brought into a state of reconciliation with God; and were enabled to regard him in the endearing character of a Father. " Through Him too, and by the Holy Spirit, they had access to God'" at all times, pouring out their hearts before him, making known to him their every want, and committing to him their every care. Through the same divine channel, God descended into their bosoms, revealing to them his will, communicating to them his grace, and shedding abroad in their hearts a sense of his love. Nay more, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost had come down and taken up their residence within them, dwelling in them as in a temple, and manifesting to them, as far as they were capable of beholding it, all the glory of the Godhead11. From hence arose within them inconceivable peace and joy, which were to them an earnest and foretaste of their heavenly inheritance; for they "knew that Christ was in the Father, and in them also ; and that they too were in himx." Such had been their happy state from the first moment that they had believed in Christ ; more sparingly indeed in the first instance, but progressively advancing as their knowledge of Christ became more intimate, and their affiance in him more entire.]
And we also, by the same faith, are brought to a participation of all the same privileges —
[" These things," says the Apostle, " we declare unto you, that ye may have fellowship with us." And in what does
s 2 Pet. i. 16—18. « Eph. ii. 18.
" John xiv. 16—18,21, 23. x John xiv. 20.
360 1 JOHN, I. i- ;;. [2130.
that fellowship consist, but in a participation of all the same privileges and blessings which they enjoyed ? And this is indeed the portion of all who receive their testimony aright. All believers are brought into one family, of which Christ is the Head7. The moment we believe, " we come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abelz." Now here we see the whole family: here is God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ the mediator; here also are the angels who never sinned, and all the hosts of the redeemed in heaven, and all the saints that are still on earth : all ai-e brought together into one family, and all have fellowship with each other as the head and the members of the same body : so that every individual believer now has the same fellowship with the Apostles, as they had with each other and with the prophets who had gone before them ; and the same " fellowship too with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." Does this appear too strong? It is not so strong as what our blessed Saviour himself has spoken upon the subject. For he not only declares to us, that " both He and his Father will come to us, and make their abode with usa ;" but he declared to his Father also, " I have given them the glory which thou gavest me, that they may be one, even as we are one ; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in oneb." Here, I say, the union of the different mem- bers of his body is compared with the union which subsists between the different persons of the Godhead, than which nothing can be conceived so entire, so mysterious, so un- changeable.