LIGHT SHINING IN DARKNESS;

OR,

HEAVENLY RAYS FROM DARK SAYINGS:

BEING

A FEW PRIVATE THOUGHTS ON SOME OBSCURE

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART I.

WE HAVE ALSO A MORE SURE WORD OF PROPHECY; WHEREUNTO YE DO WELL THAT YE TAKE HEED, AS UNTO A LIGHT THAT SHINETH IN A DARK PLACE. 2 PETER i. 19.

TO UNDERSTAND A PROVERB, AND THE INTERPRETATION; THE WORDS OF THE WISE, AND THEIR DARK SAYINGS. PROV. i. 6.

PREFACE.

IF

DEAR READER,

thou art either a lover, a favourer, a follower, or a seeker, of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, let me counsel thee to attend to the three following things. The

First is, to cleanse thy way by taking heed thereto according to God's word; which cannot be done but by looking well to thy conscience, and by seeking and praying for a saving application of the atonement, according to God's new covenant promise; I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and will remember their sins no more; for nothing short of the blood of Christ can make the sinner clean touching his conscience. And if, after pardon obtained, thou shouldest, through weakness or violent temptation, fall into sin, then do as David did, immediately seek pardon and forgiveness, lest thou be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and so

go

from bad to worse, till the backslider in heart be filled with his own ways.

Errors and heresies defile the mind, confuse the

judgment, and corrupt the affections, so as to damp our love to the Saviour, and draw it from the truth, and from the simplicity of it as it is in Christ; therefore be earnest with God to teach thee by his Spirit, for nothing but that which is applied by God with power to thy soul will ever keep thee from the path of the destroyer, support thee in the fiery trial, or stay thy heart in a dying hour.

Secondly, make straight paths for thy feet. This work will require much prayer, diligence, and watchfulness; but, when it is well done, thou shalt have rejoicing in thyself alone, and not in another; yea, thou shalt walk safely, and when thou runnest thou shalt not stumble.

The Arminian grasps at the conditional promises, which are peculiar to the law; and at those texts which his unenlightened mind construes to be in favour of, and to exalt, the free-will of man; and stumbles and takes offence at the sovereign and good-will of God in Christ Jesus, and the freeness of his grace in him; and also at the covenant of promise, which is yea and amen; and at every glorious doctrine that is calculated to debase the sinner and exclude boasting. Thus he makes flesh his arm, and in his heart departeth from God, who will leave him like the dreary desert and barren heath, and he shall not know when good cometh.

The Arian catches at every text which speaks of the human nature of Christ, and of his state of

humiliation, and of the inferiority of his manhood to that of his infinite divinity; and so concludes. him to be no more than a creature; and, having made this lie his refuge, he takes offence, and stumbles at a thousand passages of holy writ that are expressive of his eternal power and godhead," which is stumbling at Zion's foundation; by which they fall, and in that way are broken, snared, and taken in their own craftiness, until the stone at which they stumble falls upon them, and grinds them to powder.

Some hold God the Father to be the only per son in the godhead, and deny the divinity and personality of Christ, and the personality of the holy Ghost. Others hold that Christ is the only person, and deny both the Father and the Spirit. These take shelter under every text that speaks of the unity of God, and stumble and take offence at, and wrest, every passage of scripture that is expressive of a trinity of persons in the unity of God. They agree with John that there is One, but not that there are Three in One, and that those Three are One. A trinity in unity, or three distinct persons in one nature, or one in nature, they cannot make out nor allow. And yet some of them have been so driven into corners by words of the plural form, such as "Holy ones," Dan. iv. 17, 24; "Let us make man," Gen. i. 26; "Let us go down," Gen. xi. 7; that they have been obliged to divide Christ, making him two persons, human and divine; which human nature never had personal existence, or it