conciled, cannot behold him but as an enemy; any belief that it can have of him while it is in that pofture, is not such as can fetch love and hope, and so rejoicing; but fuch as the faith of devils produceth, only begetting terror and trembling: But the light of his countenance fhining in the face of his Son the Mediator, glads the heart; and it is the looking upon him fo, that causeth the foul to believe, and love, and bope, and rejoice. Therefore the Apoftle, Eph. ii. 12. in his description of the eftate of the Gentiles before Chrift was preached to them, joins these together, without Chrift, that was the cause of all the reft; therefore, without comfort in the promises, without hope, and without God in the world; fo he is here by our Apostle expreffed as the object. In all these therefore he is the matter of our joy, because our faith, and love, and bope of falvation, do centre in him.

The Apostle writing to the difperfed Jews, many of whom had not known nor feen Chrift in the flesh, commends their love and faith, for this reason, that it did not depend upon bodily fight, but was pure, and fpiritual, and made them of the number of those that our Saviour himself pronounces blessed, who have not feen, and yet believe. You faw him not when he dwelt amongst men, and walking to and fro, preaching and working miracles. Many of those that did then hear and see him, believed not; yea they scoffed, and hated, and perfecuted him, and in the end crucified him: You that have feen none of all thofe things, yet having heard the Gospel that declares him, you have believed.

Thus obferve, the working, or not working of faith, doth not depend upon the difference of the external miniftry and gifts of men: For what greater difference can there be that way, than betwixt the Mafter and the fervants, betwixt the great Prophet himself, and his weak finful meffengers? and yet many of those that faw and heard him in perfon were not converted, believed not in him; and thousands that never faw VOL. I.

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him,

him, were converted by his Apoftles, and, as it seems, even fome of those that were fome way acceffory to his death, yet were brought to repentance by this fame Apoftle's fermron, Acts ii.

Learn then to look above the outward miniftry and any difference that in God's difpenfation can be there, and know, that if Jefus Chrift himself were on earth, and now preaching amongst us, yet might his incomparable words be unprofitable to us, not being mixed with faith in the hearers. But where that is, the meanest and the most defpifable conveyance of his meffage, received with humility and affection, will work bleffed effects.

Whom not feeing yet believing.] Faith elevates the foul not only above fenfe, and fenfible things, but above reafon itself. As reafon corrects the errors that fenfe might occafion; fo fupernatural faith corrects the errors of natural reafon, judging according to fenfe.

The fun feems less than the wheel of a chariot : but reafon teaches the philofopher, that it is much bigger than the whole earth, and the cause why it feems fo little is its great diftance.

The naturally wife man, is as far deceived by this carnal reafon in his eftimate of Jefus Chrift the fun of righteoufnefs, and the cause is the fame, his great distance from him, as the Pfalmift fpeaks of the wicked, Pfal. x. 5. Thy judgments are far above out of bis fight. He accounts Chrift and his glory a smaller matter than his own gain, honour, or pleasure; for these are near him, and he fees their quantity to the full, and counts them bigger, yea far more worth than they are indeed. But the Apostle Paul, and all that are enlightened by the fame Spirit, they know by faith, which is divine reafon, that the excellency of Jefus Chrift far furpaffes the worth of the whole earth, and all things earthly, Phil. iii, 7, 8.

To give a right affent to the Gospel of Chrift is impoffible without divine and faving faith infufed in the

foul,

foul, to believe that the eternal Son of God cloathed himself with human flesh, and dwelt amongst men in a tabernacle like theirs, and fuffered death in the flesh, that he who was Lord of life, hath freed us from the sentence of eternal death, that he broke the bars and chains of death, and rofe again, that he went up into heaven, and there at the Father's right-hand fits in our flesh, and that glorified above the Angels. This is the great mystery of godliness. And a part of this mystery is, that he is believed on in the world, 1 Tim. iii. 16. This natural men may difcourse of, and that very knowingly, and give a kind of natural credit to it, as to a history that may be true; but firmly to believe, that there is divine truth in all these things, and to have a perfuafion of it stronger than of the very things we fee with our eyes; fuch an affent as this, is the peculiar work of the Spirit of God, and is certainly faving faith.

The foul that fo believes, cannot chufe but love; it is commonly true, the eye is the ordinary door by which love enters into the foul, and it is true in this love; though it is denied of the eye of fenfe, yet you fee it is afcribed to the eye of faith, though you have not feen him you love him, because you believe; which is to fee him fpiritually. Faith indeed is distinguished from that vifion that is in glory; but it is the vision of the kingdom of grace, it is the eye of the new creature, that quick-fighted eye, that pierces all the visible heavens, and fees above them, that looks to things that are not feen, 2 Cor. iy. 18. and is the evidence of things not feen, Heb. xi. 1. that fees him that is invifible, ver. 27. It is poffible that one may be much loved upon the report of his worth and virtues, and upon a picture of him lively drawn, before fight of the party fo commended and reprefented; but certainly when he is feen, and found anfwerable to the former, it raifes the affection that it first begun to a far greater height. We have the report of the perfections of Jefus Chrift in the Gofpel; yea, fo clear

a

a description of him, that it gives a picture of him, and that, together with the facraments, are the only lawful and the only lively pictures of our Saviour, Gal. iii. 1. Now faith believes this report, and beholds this picture, and fo lets in the love of Chrift to the foul; but further, it gives a particular experimental knowledge of Chrift, and acquaintance with him. It caufes the foul to find all that is fpoken of him in the Word, and his beauty there reprefented, to be abundantly true, makes it really taste of his sweetness, and by that poffeffes the heart more ftrongly with his love, perfuading it of the truth of those things, not by reafons and arguments, but by an inexpreffible kind of evidence, that they only know that have it. Faith perfuades a Chriftian of these two things, that the philofopher gives as the caufes of all love, beauty, and propriety, the loveliness of Chrift in him. felf, and our intereft in him.

The former it effectuates, not only by the firft apprehending and believing of those his excellencies and beauty, but by frequent beholding of him, and eying him in whom all perfection dwells, and looks fo oft on him, till it fets the very impreffion of his image, as it were, upon the foul, that it can never be blotted out and forgot. The latter it doth by that particular uniting act, which makes him our God and our Saviour. We proceed therefore to confider,

2dly, The appropriation of the object, ye love.] The diftinctions that fome make of love, need not be taken as of different kinds, but different actings of the same love, by which we may try our fo much pretended love of Chrift, which in truth is fo rarely found. There will then be in this love, if it be right, these three qualities, good-will, delight, and defire.

ift, Good-will, earnest wishing, and, as we can, promoting God's glory, and ftirring up others fo to do. They that seek more their own things than the things of Jefus Chrift, more their own praise and esteem than his, are ftrangers to this divine love: For it feeks not

ber

ber own things. This bitter root of felf-love is moft hard to pluck up: This strongest and sweetest love of Christ alone doth it actually, though gradually. This love makes the foul, as the lower heaven, flow in its own motion, moft swift in the motion of that first that wheels it about; fo the higher degree of love, the more swift. It loves the hardest tasks and greateft difficulties, where it may perform God service, either in doing or in fuffering for him. It is ftrong as death, and many waters cannot quench it, Cant. viii. 6, 7. The greater the task is, the more real is the teftimony and expreffion of love, and therefore the more acceptable to God.

2dly, There is in true love a complacency and delight in God: A conformity to his will; loving what he loves: It is ftudious of his will, ever seeking to know more clearly what it is that is moft pleafing to him, contracting a likeness to God in all his actions, by converfing with him, frequent contemplating of God, and looking on his beauty. As the eye lets in this affection, fo it ferves it conftantly, and readily looks that way that love directs it. Thus the foul that is poffeffed with this love of Jefus Chrift, the foul which hath its eye much upon him, often thinking on his former fufferings and prefent glory, the more it looks upon Chrift, the more it loves; and still the more it loves, the more it delights to look upon him.

3dly, There is in true love a defire; for it is but fmall beginnings and taftes of his goodness that the foul hath here, therefore it is ftill looking out and longing for the day of marriage; the time is fad and wearifome, and feems much longer than it is while it is detained here. I defire to be diffolved, faith St Paul, and to be with Chrift, Philip. i. 23.

God is the fum of all things lovely. Thus excellently Greg. Nazian. expreffeth himself, Orat. 1. If 'I have any poffeffions, health, credit, learning, this is all the contentment I have of them, that I have 'fomewhat

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