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           Title: The Works of James Arminius, Vol. 1
      Creator(s): Arminius, James (1560-1609)
          Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Theology;
      LC Call no: BX6195 .A65 1956
   LC Subjects:

   Christian Denominations

   Protestantism

   Post-Reformation

   Other Protestant denominations

   Arminians. Remonstrants
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                          The Works Of James Arminius
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  Vol. 1

                              Orations Of Arminius
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ORATION I

  THE OBJECT OF THEOLOGY

   To Almighty God alone belong the inherent and absolute right, will, and
   power of determining concerning us. Since, therefore, it has pleased
   him to call me, his unworthy servant, from the ecclesiastical functions
   which I have for some years discharged in the Church of his Son in the
   populous city of Amsterdam, and to give me the appointment of the
   Theological Professorship in this most celebrated University, I
   accounted it my duty, not to manifest too much reluctance to this
   vocation, although I was well acquainted with my incapacity for such an
   office, which with the greatest willingness and sincerity I then
   confessed and must still acknowledge. Indeed, the consciousness of my
   own insufficiency operated as a persuasive to me not to listen to this
   vocation; of which fact I can cite as a witness that God who is both
   the Inspector and the Judge of my conscience. Of this consciousness of
   my own insufficiency, several persons of great probity and learning are
   also witnesses; for they were the cause of my engaging in this office,
   provided it were offered to me in a legitimate order and manner. But as
   they suggested, and as experience itself had frequently taught me, that
   it is a dangerous thing to adhere to one's own judgment with
   pertinacity and to pay too much regard to the opinion which we
   entertain of ourselves, because almost all of us have little
   discernment in those matters which concern ourselves, I suffered myself
   to be induced by the authority of their judgment to enter upon this
   difficult and burdensome province, which may God enable me to commence
   with tokens of his Divine approbation and under his propitious
   auspices.

   Although I am beyond measure cast down and almost shudder with fear,
   solely at the anticipation of this office and its duties, yet I can
   scarcely indulge in a doubt of Divine approval and support when my mind
   attentively considers, what are the causes on account of which this
   vocation was appointed, the manner in which it is committed to
   execution, and the means and plans by which it is brought to a
   conclusion. From all these considerations, I feel a persuasion that it
   has been Divinely instituted and brought to perfection.

   For this cause I entertain an assured hope of the perpetual presence of
   Divine assistance; and, with due humility of mind, I venture in God's
   holy name to take this charge upon me and to enter upon its duties. I
   most earnestly beseech all and each of you, and if the benevolence
   which to the present time you have expressed towards me by many and
   most signal tokens will allow such a liberty, I implore, nay, (so
   pressing is my present necessity,) I solemnly conjure you, to unite
   with me in ardent wishes and fervent intercessions before God, the
   Father of lights, that, ready as I am out of pure affection to
   contribute to your profit, he may be pleased graciously to supply his
   servant with the gifts which are necessary to the proper discharge of
   these functions, and to bestow upon me his benevolent favour, guidance
   and protection, through the whole course of this vocation.

   But it appears to me, that I shall be acting to some good purpose, if,
   at the commencement of my office, I offer some general remarks on
   Sacred Theology, by way of preface, and enter into an explanation of
   its extent, dignity and excellence. This discourse will serve yet more
   and more to incite the mind, of students, who profess themselves
   dedicated to the service of this Divine wisdom, fearlessly to proceed
   in the career upon which they have entered, diligently to urge on their
   progress and to keep up an unceasing contest till they arrive at its
   termination. Thus may they hereafter become the instruments of God unto
   salvation in the Church of his Saints, qualified and fitted for the
   sanctification of his divine name, and formed "for the edifying of the
   body of Christ," in the Spirit. When I have effected this design, I
   shall think, with Socrates, that in such an entrance on my duties I
   have discharged no inconsiderable part of them to some good effect. For
   that wisest of the Gentiles was accustomed to say, that he had properly
   accomplished his duty of teaching, when he had once communicated an
   impulse to the minds of his hearers and had inspired them with an
   ardent desire of learning. Nor did he make this remark without reason.
   For, to a willing man, nothing is difficult, especially when God has
   promised the clearest revelation of his secrets to those "who shall
   meditate on his law day and night." (Psalm i. 2.) In such a manner does
   this promise of God act, that, on those matters which far surpass the
   capacity of the human mind, we may adopt the expression of Isocrates,
   If thou be desirous of receiving instruction, thou shalt learn many
   things."

   This explanation will be of no small service to myself. For in the very
   earnest recommendation of this study which I give to others, I
   prescribe to myself a law and rule by which I ought to walk in its
   profession; and an additional necessity is thus imposed on me of
   conducting myself in my new office with holiness and modesty, and in
   all good conscience; that, in case I should afterwards turn aside from
   the right path, (which may our gracious God prevent,) such a solemn
   recommendation of this study may be cast in my face to my shame.

   In the discussion of this subject, I do not think it necessary to utter
   any protestation before professors most learned in Jurisprudence, most
   skillful in Medicine, most subtle in Philosophy, and most erudite in
   the languages. Before such learned persons I have no need to enter into
   any protestation, for the purpose of removing from myself a suspicion
   of wishing to bring into neglect or contempt that particular study
   which each of them cultivates. For to every kind of study in the most
   noble theater of the sciences, I assign, as it becomes me, its due
   place, and that an honourable one; and each being content with its
   subordinate station, all of them with the greatest willingness concede
   the president's throne to that science of which I am now treating.

   I shall adopt that plain and simple species of oratory which, according
   to Euripides, belongs peculiarly to truth. I am not ignorant that some
   resemblance and relation ought to exist between an oration and the
   subjects that are discussed in it; and therefore, that a certain divine
   method of speech is required when we attempt to speak on divine things
   according to their dignity. But I choose plainness and simplicity,
   because Theology needs no ornament, but is content to be taught, and
   because it is out of my power to make an effort towards acquiring a
   style that may be in any degree worthy of such a subject.

   In discussing the dignity and excellence of sacred Theology, I shall
   briefly confine it within four titles. In imitation of the method which
   obtains in human sciences, that are estimated according to the
   excellence of their OBJECT, their AUTHOR, and their END, and of the
   IMPORTANCE of the reasons by which each of them is supported--I shall
   follow the same plan, speaking, first, of The OBJECT of Theology, then
   of its AUTHOR, afterwards of its END, and lastly, of its CERTAINTY.

   I pray God, that the grace of his Holy Spirit may be present with me
   while I am speaking; and that he would be pleased to direct my mind,
   mouth and tongue, in such a manner as to enable me to advance those
   truths which are holy, worthy of our God, and salutary to you his
   creatures, to the glory of his name and for the edification of his
   Church.

   I intreat you also, my most illustrious and polite hearers, kindly to
   grant me your attention for a short time while I endeavour to explain
   matters of the greatest importance; and while your observation is
   directed to the subject in which I shall exercise myself, you will have
   the goodness to regard IT, rather than any presumed SKILL in my manner
   of treating it. The nature of his great subject requires us, at this
   hour especially, to direct our attention, in the first instance, to the
   Object of Theology. For the objects of sciences are so intimately
   related, and so essential to them, as to give them their appellations.

   But God is himself the Object of Theology. The very term indicates as
   much: for Theology signifies a discourse or reasoning concerning God.
   This is likewise indicated by the definition which the Apostle gives of
   this science, when he describes it as "the truth which is after
   godliness." (Tit. i. 1.) The Greek word here used for godliness, is
   eusebeia signifying a worship due to God alone, which the Apostle shews
   in a manner of greater clearness, when he calls this piety by the more
   exact term qeosebeia All other sciences have their objects, noble
   indeed, and worthy to engage the notice of the human mind, and in the
   contemplation of which much time, leisure and diligence may be
   profitably occupied.

  In General Metaphysics, the object of study is, "BEING in

   But let us consider the conditions that are generally employed to
   commend the object of any science. That OBJECT is most excellent (1.)
   which is in itself the best, and the greatest, and immutable; (2.)
   which, in relation to the mind, is most lucid and clear, and most
   easily proposed and unfolded to the view of the mental powers; and (3.)
   which is likewise able, by its action on the mind, completely to fill
   it, and to satisfy its infinite desires. These three conditions are in
   the highest degree discovered in God, and in him alone, who is the
   subject of theological study.

   1. He is the best being; he is the first and chief good, and goodness
   itself; he alone is good, as good as goodness itself; as ready to
   communicate, as it is possible for him to be communicated: his
   liberality is only equaled by the boundless treasures which he
   possesses, both of which are infinite and restricted only by the
   capacity of the recipient, which he appoints as a limit and measure to
   the goodness of his nature and to the communication of himself. He is
   the greatest Being, and the only great One; for he is able to subdue to
   his sway even nothing itself, that it may become capable of divine good
   by the communication of himself. "He calleth those things which are
   not, as though they were," (Rom. iv. 17) and in that manner, by his
   word, he places them in the number of beings, although it is out of
   darkness that they have received his commands to emerge and to come
   into existence. "All nations before him are as nothing, the inhabitants
   thereof are as grasshoppers, and the princes nothing." (Isa. xl. 17,
   22, 23.) The whole of this system of heaven and earth appears scarcely
   equal to a point "before him, whose center is every where, but whose
   circumference is no where." He is immutable, always the same, and
   endureth forever; "his years have no end." (Psalm 102)

   Nothing can be added to him, and nothing can be taken from him; with
   him "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James i. 17.)
   Whatsoever obtains stability for a single moment, borrows it from him,
   and receives it of mere grace. Pleasant, therefore, and most delightful
   is it to contemplate him, on account of his goodness; it is glorious in
   consideration of his greatness; and it is sure, in reference to his
   immutability.

   2. He is most resplendent and bright; he is light itself, and becomes
   an object of most obvious perception to the mind, according to this
   expression of the apostle, That they should seek the Lord, if haply
   they might feel after him, and find Him, though he be not far from
   every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being; for
   we are also his offspring:" (Acts xvii. 27, 28.) And according to
   another passage, "God left not himself without witness, in that he did
   good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our
   hearts with food and gladness." (Acts xiv. 17.) Being supported by
   these true sayings, I venture to assert, that nothing can be seen or
   truly known in any object, except in it we have previously seen and
   known God himself.

   In the first place he is called "Being itself," because he offers
   himself to the understanding as an object of knowledge. But all beings,
   both visible and invisible, corporeal and incorporeal, proclaim aloud
   that they have derived the beginning of their essence and condition
   from some other than themselves, and that they have not their own
   proper existence till they have it from another. All of them utter
   speech, according to the saying of the Royal Prophet:

   "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his
   handy-work." (Psalm xix. 1.) That is, the firmament sounds aloud as
   with a trumpet, and proclaims, that it is "the work of the right hand
   of the Most High." Among created objects, you may discover many tokens
   indicating "that they derive from some other source whatever they
   themselves possess," mere strongly than "that they have an existence in
   the number and scale of beings." Nor is this matter of wonder, since
   they are always nearer to nothing than to their Creator, from whom they
   are removed to a distance that is infinite, and separated by infinite
   space: while, by properties that are only finite, they are
   distinguished from nothing, the primeval womb from whence they sprung,
   and into which they may fall back again; but they can never be raised
   to a divine equality with God their maker. Therefore, it was rightly
   spoken by the ancient heathens,

   "Of Jove all things are full."

   3. He alone can completely fill the mind, and satisfy its (otherwise)
   insatiable desires. For he is infinite in his essence, his wisdom,
   power, and goodness. He is the first and chief verity, and truth itself
   in the abstract. But the human mind is finite in nature, the substance
   of which it is formed; and only in this view is it a partaker of
   infinity--because it apprehends Infinite Being and the Chief Truth,
   although it is incapable of comprehending them. David, therefore, in an
   exclamation of joyful self-gratulation, openly confesses, that he was
   content with the possession of God alone, who by means of knowledge and
   love is possessed by his creatures. These are his words: "Whom have I
   in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside
   thee." (Psalm lxxiii. 25.)

   If thou be acquainted with all other things, and yet remain in a state
   of ignorance with regard to him alone, thou art always wandering beyond
   the proper point, and thy restless love of knowledge increases in the
   proportion in which knowledge itself is increased. The man who knows
   only God, and who is ignorant of all things else, remains in peace and
   tranquillity, and, (like one that has found "a pearl of great price,"
   although in the purchase of it he may have expended the whole of his
   substance,) he congratulates himself and greatly triumphs. This luster
   or brightness of the object is the cause why an investigation into it,
   or an inquiry after it, is never instituted without obtaining it; and,
   (such is its fullness,) when it has once been found, the discovery of
   it is always attended with abundant profit.

   But we must consider this object more strictly; for we treat of it in
   reference to its being the object of our theology, according to which
   we have a knowledge of God in this life. We must therefore clothe it in
   a certain mode, and invest it in a formal manner, as the logical phrase
   is; and thus place it as a foundation to our knowledge.

   Three Considerations of this matter offer themselves to our notice: The
   First is, that we cannot receive this object in the infinity of its
   nature; our necessity, therefore, requires it to be proposed in a
   manner that is accommodated to our capacity. The Second is, that it is
   not proper, in the first moment of revelation, for such a large measure
   to be disclosed and manifested by the light of grace, as may be
   received into the human mind when it is illuminated by the light of
   glory, and, (by that process,) enlarged to a greater capacity: for by a
   right use of the knowledge of grace, we must proceed upwards, (by the
   rule of divine righteousness,) to the more sublime knowledge of glory,
   according to that saying, "To him that hath shall be given." The Third
   is, that this object is not laid before our theology merely to be
   known, but, when known, to be worshipped. For the Theology which
   belongs to this world, is Practical and through Faith:

   Theoretical Theology belongs to the other world, and consists of pure
   and unclouded vision, according to the expression of the apostle, "We
   walk by faith, and not by sight;" (2 Cor. v. 7,) and that of another
   apostle, "Then shall we be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1
   John iii. 2.) For this reason, we must clothe the object of our
   theology in such a manner as may enable it to incline us to worship
   God, and fully to persuade and win us over to that practice.

   This last design is the line and rule of this formal relation according
   to which God becomes the subject of our Theology.

   But that man may be induced, by a willing obedience and humble
   submission of the mind, to worship God, it is necessary for him to
   believe, from a certain persuasion of the heart: (1.) That it is the
   will of God to be worshipped, and that worship is due to him. (2.) That
   the worship of him will not be in vain, but will be recompensed with an
   exceedingly great reward. (3.) That a mode of worship must be
   instituted according to his command. To these three particulars ought
   to be added, a knowledge of the mode prescribed.

   Our Theology, then, delivers three things concerning this object, as
   necessary and sufficient to be known in relation to the preceding
   subjects of belief. The First is concerning the nature of God. The
   Second concerning his actions. And the Third concerning his will.

   (1.) Concerning his nature; that it is worthy to receive adoration, on
   account of its justice; that it is qualified to form a right judgment
   of that worship, on account of its wisdom; and that it is prompt and
   able to bestow rewards, on account of its goodness and the perfection
   of its own blessedness.

   (2.) Two actions have been ascribed to God for the same purpose; they
   are Creation and Providence. (i.) The Creation of all things, and
   especially of man after God's own image; upon which is founded his
   sovereign authority over man, and from which is deduced the right of
   requiring worship from man and enjoining obedience upon him, according
   to that very just complaint of God by Malachi, "If then I be a father,
   where is mine honour? and if I be a master, were is my fear," (i, 6.)
   (ii.) That Providence is to be ascribed to God by which he governs all
   things, and according to which he exercises a holy, just, and wise care
   and oversight over man himself and those things which relate to him,
   but chiefly over the worship and obedience which he is bound to render
   to his God.

   (3.) Lastly, it treats of the will of God expressed in a certain
   covenant into which he has entered with man, and which consists of two
   parts: (i.) The one, by which he declares it to be his pleasure to
   receive adoration from man, and at the same time prescribes the mode of
   performing that worship; for it is his will to be worshipped from
   obedience, and not at the option or discretion of man. (ii.) The other,
   by which God promises that he will abundantly compensate man for the
   worship which he performs; requiring not only adoration for the
   benefits already conferred upon man, as a trial of his gratitude; but
   likewise that He may communicate to man infinitely greater things to
   the consummation of his felicity. For as he occupied the first place in
   conferring blessings and doing good, because that high station was his
   due, since man was about to be called into existence among the number
   of creatures; so likewise it is his desire that the last place in doing
   good be reserved for him, according to the infinite perfection of his
   goodness and blessedness, who is the fountain of good and the extreme
   boundary of happiness, the Creator and at the same time the Glorifier
   of his worshippers. It is according to this last action of his, that he
   is called by some persons "the Object of Theology," and that not
   improperly, because in this last are included all the preceding.

   In the way which has been thus compendiously pointed out, the infinite
   disputes of the schoolmen, concerning the formal relation by which God
   is the Object of Theology, may, in my opinion, be adjusted and decided.
   But as I think it a culpable deed to abuse your patience, I shall
   decline to say any more on this part of the subject.

   Our sacred Theology, therefore, is chiefly occupied in ascribing to the
   One True God, to whom alone they really belong, those attributes of
   which we have already spoken, his nature, actions, and will. For it is
   not sufficient to know, that there is some kind of a NATURE, simple,
   infinite, wise, good, just, omnipotent, happy in itself, the Maker and
   Governor of all things, that is worthy to receive adoration, whose will
   it is to be worshipped, and that is able to make its worshippers happy.
   To this general kind of knowledge there ought to be added, a sure and
   settled conception, fixed on that Deity, and strictly bound to the
   single object of religious worship to which alone those qualities
   appertain. The necessity of entertaining fixed and determinate ideas on
   this subject, is very frequently inculcated in the sacred page: "I am
   the Lord thy God." (Exod. xx. 2.) "I am the Lord and there is none
   else." (Isa. xlv. 5.) Elijah also says, "If the Lord be God, follow
   him; but if Baal, then follow him." (1 Kings xviii. 21.) This duty is
   the more sedulously inculcated in scripture, as man is more inclined to
   depart from the true idea of Deity. For whatever clear and proper
   conception of the Divine Being the minds the Heathens had formed, the
   first stumbling-block over which they fell appears to have been this,
   they did not attribute that just conception to him to whom it ought to
   have been given; but they ascribed it either, (1.) to some vague and
   uncertain individual, as in the expression of the Roman poet, "O
   Jupiter, whether thou be heaven, or air, or earth!" Or, (2) some
   imaginary and fabulous Deity, whether it be among created things, or a
   mere idol of the brain, neither partaking of the Divine nature nor any
   other, which the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans and to the
   Corinthians, produces as a matter of reproach to the Gentiles. (Rom. 1,
   and 1 Corinthians 8.) Or (3,) lastly, they ascribed it to the unknown
   God; the title of Unknown being given to their Deity by the very
   persons who were his worshippers. The Apostle relates this crime as one
   of which the Athenians were guilty: But it is equally true when applied
   to all those who err and wander from the true object of adoration, and
   yet worship a Deity of some description. To such persons that sentence
   justly belongs which Christ uttered in conversation with the woman of
   Samaria: "Ye worship YE KNOW NOT WHAT." (John iv. 22.)

   Although those persons are guilty of a grievous error who transgress in
   this point, so as to be deservedly termed Atheists, in Scripture aqeoi
   "men without God;" yet they are by far more intolerably insane, who,
   having passed the extreme line of impiety, are not restrained by the
   consciousness of any Deity. The ancient heathens considered such men as
   peculiarly worthy of being called Atheists. On the other hand, those
   who have a consciousness of their own ignorance occupy the step that is
   nearest to sanity. For it is necessary to be careful only about one
   thing; and that is, when we communicate information to them, we must
   teach them to discard the falsehood which they had imbibed, and must
   instruct them in the truth alone. When this truth is pointed out to
   them, they will seize it with the greater avidity, in proportion to the
   deeper sorrow which they feel at the thought that they have been
   surrounded for a long series of years by a most pernicious error.

   But Theology, as it appears to me, principally effects four things in
   fixing our conceptions, which we have just mentioned, on that Deity who
   is true, and in drawing them away from the invention and formation of
   false Deities. First. It explains, in an elegant and copious manner,
   the relation in which the Deity stands, lest we should ascribe to his
   nature any thing that is foreign to it, or should take away from it any
   one of its properties. In reference to this, it is said, "Ye. heard the
   voice, but saw no similitude; take ye therefore good heed unto
   yourselves, lest you make you a graven image." (Deut. iv. 15, 16.)
   -Secondly. It describes both the universal and the particular actions
   of the only true God, that by them it may distinguish the true Deity
   from those which are fabulous. On this account it is said, "The gods
   that have not made the heavens and the earth, shall perish from the
   earth, and under these heavens." (Jer. x. 11.) Jonah also said, "I fear
   the Lord, the God of heaven, who hath made the sea and the dry land."
   (i, 9.) And the Apostle declares, "Forasmuch then as we are the
   offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto
   gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and by man's device:" (Acts
   xvii. 29.) In another passage it is recorded, "I am the Lord thy God
   which brought thee out of the land of Egypt;" (Deut. v. 6.) "I am the
   God that appeared to thee in Bethel." (Gen. xxvi. 13.) And, "Behold the
   days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord
   liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of
   Egypt, but, The Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seed of
   the house of Israel out of the North Country," &c. (Jer. xxiii. 7, 8.)
   Thirdly. It makes frequent mention of the covenant into which the true
   Deity has entered with his worshippers, that by the recollection of it
   the mind of man may be stayed upon that God with whom the covenant was
   concluded. In reference to this it is said, "Thus shalt thou say unto
   the Children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of
   Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you:
   this is my name for ever, and this is. my memorial unto all
   generations", (Exod. iii. 15.) Thus Jacob, when about to conclude a
   compact with Laban his father-in-law, swears "by the fear of his father
   Isaac." (Gen. xxxi. 53.) And when Abraham's servant was seeking a wife
   for his master's son, he thus invoked God, "O Lord God of my master
   Abraham!" (Gen. xxiv. 12.) Fourthly. It distinguishes and points out
   the true Deity, even by a most appropriate, particular, and individual
   mark, when it introduces the mention of the persons who are partakers
   of the same Divinity; thus it gives a right direction to the mind of
   the worshipper, and fixes it upon that God who is THE FATHER OF OUR
   LORD JESUS CHRIST. This was manifested with some degree of obscurity in
   the Old Testament, but with the utmost clearness in the New. Hence the
   Apostle says, "I bow my knee unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
   (Ephes. iii. 14.) All these remarks are comprehended and summed up by
   Divines, in this brief sentence, "That God must be invoked who has
   manifested himself in his own word." But the preceding observations
   concerning the Object of Theology, properly respect Legal Theology,
   which was accommodated to man's primeval state. For when man in his
   original integrity acted under the protecting favour and benevolence of
   a good and just God, he was able to render to God that worship which
   had been prescribed according to the law of legal righteousness, that
   says, "This do, and thou shalt live" he was able to "love with all his
   heart and soul" that Good and Just Being; he was able, from a
   consciousness of his integrity, to repose confidence in that Good and
   Just One; and he was able to evince towards him, as such, a filial
   fear, and to pay him the honour which was pleasing and due to him, as
   from a servant to his Lord. God also, on his part, without the least
   injury to his justice, was able to act towards man, while in that
   state, according to the proscript of legal righteousness, to reward his
   worship according to justice, and, through the terms of the legal
   covenant, and consequently "of debt," to confer life upon him. This God
   could do, consistency with his goodness, which required the fulfillment
   of the promise. There was no call for any other property of his nature,
   which might contribute by its agency to accomplish this purpose: No
   further progress of Divine goodness was necessary than that which might
   repay good for good, the good of perfect felicity, for the good of
   entire obedience: No other action was required, except that of
   creation, (which had then been performed,) and that of a preserving and
   governing providence, in conformity with the condition with which man
   was placed: No other volition of God was needed, than that by which he
   might both require the perfect obedience of the law and might repay
   that obedience with life eternal. In that state of human affairs,
   therefore, the knowledge of the nature described in those properties,
   the knowledge of those actions, and of that will, to which may be added
   the knowledge of the Deity to whom they really pertained, was necessary
   for the performance of worship to God, and was of itself amply
   sufficient.

   But when man had fallen from his primeval integrity through
   disobedience to the law, and had rendered himself "a child of wrath"
   and had become devoted to condemnations, this goodness mingled with
   legal justice could not be sufficient for the salvation of man. Neither
   could this act of creation and providence, nor this will suffice; and
   therefore this legal Theology was itself insufficient. For sin was to
   be condemned if men were absolved; and, as the Apostle says, (in the
   eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans,) "it could not be
   condemned by the law." Man was to be justified: but he could not be
   justified by the law, which, while it is the strength of sin, makes
   discovery of it to us, and is the procurer of wrath.

   This Theology, therefore, could serve for no salutary purpose, at that
   time: such was its dreadful efficacy in convincing man of sin and
   consigning him to certain death. This unhappy change, this unfavourable
   vicissitude of affairs was introduced by the fault and the infection of
   sin; which was likewise the cause why "the law which was ordained to
   life and honour," (Rom. vii. 10,) became fatal and destructive to our
   race, and the procurer of eternal ignominy. (1.) Other properties,
   therefore, of the Divine Nature were to be called into action; every
   one of God's benefits was to be unfolded and explained; mercy, long
   suffering, gentleness, patience, and clemency were to be brought forth
   out of the repository of his primitive goodness, and their services
   were to be engaged, if it was proper for offending man to be reconciled
   to God and reinstated in his favour. (2.) Other actions were to be
   exhibited: "Anew creation" was to be effected; "a new providence,"
   accommodated in every respect to this new creation, was to be
   instituted and put in force; "the work of redemption" was to be
   performed; "remission of sins" was to be obtained; "the loss of
   righteousness" was to be repaired; "the Spirit of grace" was to be
   asked and obtained; and a "lost salvation" restored. (3.) Another
   decree was likewise to be framed concerning the salvation of man; and
   another covenant, a new one," was to be made with him, "not according
   to that former one, because those" who were parties on one side "had
   not continued in that covenant:" (Heb. viii. 11,) but, by another and a
   gracious will, they "were to be sanctified" who might be "consecrated
   to enter into the Holiest by a new and living way." (Heb. x. 20.) All
   these things were to be prepared and laid down as foundations to the
   new manifestation.

   Another revelation, therefore, and a different species of Theology,
   were necessary to make known those properties of the Divine Nature,
   which we have described, and which were most wisely employed in
   repairing our salvation; to proclaim the actions which were exhibited;
   and to occupy themselves in explaining that decree and new covenant
   which we have mentioned.

   But since God, the punisher and most righteous avenger of sinners, was
   either unwilling, or, (through the opposition made by the justice and
   truth which had been originally manifested in the law,) was unable to
   unfold those properties of his nature, to produce those actions, or to
   make that decree, except by the intervention of a Mediator, in whom,
   without the least injury to his justice and truth, he might unfold
   those properties, perform those actions, might through them produce
   those necessary benefits, and might conclude that most gracious decree;
   on this account a Mediator was to be ordained, who, by his blood, might
   atone for sinners, by his death might expiate the sin of mankind, might
   reconcile the wicked to God, and might save them from his impending
   anger; who might set forth and display the mercy, long suffering and
   patience of God, might provide eternal redemption, obtain remission of
   sin, bring in an everlasting righteousness, procure the Spirit of
   grace, confirm the decree of gracious mercy, ratify the new covenant by
   his blood, recover eternal salvation, and who might bring to God those
   that were to be ultimately saved.

   A just and merciful God, therefore, did appoint as Mediator, his
   beloved Son, Jesus Christ. He obediently undertook that office which
   was imposed on him by the Father, and courageously executed it; nay, he
   is even now engaged in executing it. He was, therefore, ordained by God
   as the Redeemer, the saviour, the King, and, (under God,) the Head of
   the heirs of salvation. It would have been neither just nor reasonable,
   that he who had undergone such vast labours, and endured such great
   sorrows, who had performed so many miracles, and who had obtained
   through his merits so many benefits for us, should ingloriously remain
   among us in meanness and obscurity, and should be dismissed by us
   without honour. It was most equitable, that he should in return be
   acknowledged, worshipped, and invoked, and that he should receive those
   grateful thanks which are due to him for his benefits.

   But how shall we be able to adore, worship and invoke him, unless "we
   believe on him? How can we believe in him, unless we hear of him? And
   how can we hear concerning him," except he be revealed to us by the
   word? (Rom. x. 14.) From this cause, then, arose the necessity of
   making a revelation concerning Jesus Christ; and on this account two
   objects, (that is, God and his Christ,) are to be placed as a
   foundation to that Theology which will sufficiently contribute towards
   the salvation of sinners, according to the saying of our saviour
   Christ: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only
   true God, and Jesus Christ, whom than hast sent." (John xvii. 3.)
   Indeed, these two objects are not of such a nature as that the one may
   be separated from the other, or that the one may be collaterally joined
   to the other; but the-latter of them is, in a proper and suitable
   manner, subordinate to the former. Here then we have a Theology, which,
   from Christ, its object, is most rightfully and deservedly termed
   Christian, which is manifested not by the Law, but in the earliest ages
   by promise, and in these latter days by the Gospel, which is called
   that "of Jesus Christ," although the words (Christian and Legal) are
   sometimes confounded. But let us consider the union and the
   subordination of both these objects.

   I. Since we have God and his Christ for the object of our Christian
   Theology, the manner in which Legal Theology explains God unto us, is
   undoubtedly much amplified by this addition, and our Theology is thus
   infinitely ennobled above that which is legal.

   For God has unfolded in Christ all his own goodness. "For it pleased
   the Father, that in him should all fullness dwell;" (Col. i. 19,) and
   that the "fullness of the Godhead should dwell in him," not by
   adumbration or according to the shadow, but "bodily:" For this reason
   he is called "the image of the invisible God;" (Col. i. 15,) "the
   brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person,"
   (Heb. i. 3,) in whom the Father condescends to afford to us his
   infinite majesty, his immeasurable goodness, mercy and philanthropy, to
   be contemplated, beheld, and to be touched and felt; even as Christ
   himself says to Philip, "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father."
   (John xiv. 9.) For those things which lay hidden and indiscernible
   within the Father, like the fine and deep traces in an engraved seal,
   stand out, become prominent, and may be most clearly and distinctly
   seen in Christ, as in an exact and protuberant impression, formed by
   the application of a deeply engraved seal on the substance to be
   impressed.

   1. In this Theology God truly appears, in the highest degree, the best
   and the greatest of Beings: (1.) The Best, cause he is not only
   willing, as in the former Theology, to communicate himself (for the
   happiness of men,) to those who correctly discharge their duty, but to
   receive into his favour and to reconcile to himself those who are
   sinners, wicked, unfruitful, and declared enemies, and to bestow
   eternal life on them when they repent. (2.) The Greatest, because he
   has not only produced all things from nothing, through the annihilation
   of the latter, and the creation of the former, but because he has also
   effected a triumph over sin, (which is far more noxious than nothing,
   and conquered with greater difficulty,) by graciously pardoning it, and
   powerfully putting it away;" and because he has "brought in everlasting
   righteousness," by means of a second creation, and a regeneration which
   far exceeded the capacity of "the law that acted as schoolmaster."
   (Gal. iii. 24.) For this cause Christ is called "the wisdom and the
   power of God," (1 Cor. i. 24,) far more illustrious than the wisdom and
   the power which were originally displayed in the creation of the
   universe. (3.) In this Theology, God is described to us as in every
   respect immutable, not only in regard to his nature but also to his
   will, which, as it has been manifested in the gospel, is peremptory and
   conclusive, and, being the last of all, is not to be corrected by
   another will. For "Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and
   forever"; (Heb. xiii. 8,) by whom God hath in these last days spoken
   unto us." (Heb. i. 2.) Under the law, the state of this matter was very
   different, and that greatly to our ultimate advantage. For if the will
   of God unfolded in the law had been fatal to us, as well as the last
   expression of it, we, of all men most miserable, should have been
   banished forever from God himself on account of that declaration of his
   will; and our doom would have been in a state of exile from our
   salvation. I would not seem in this argument to ascribe any mutability
   to the will of God. I only place such a termination and boundary to his
   will, or rather to something willed by him, as was by himself before
   affixed to it and predetermined by an eternal and peremptory decree,
   that thus a vacancy might be made for a "better covenant established on
   better promises" (Heb. vii. 22; viii, 6.)

   2. This Theology offers God in Christ as an object of our sight and
   knowledge, with such clearness, splendour and plainness, that we with
   open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
   into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the
   Lord." (1 Cor. iii. 18.) In comparison with this brightness and glory,
   which was so pre-eminent and surpassing, the law itself is said not to
   have been either bright or glorious: For it "had no glory in this
   respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth." (2 Cor. iii. 8.) This
   was indeed "the wisdom of God which was kept secret since the world
   began :" (1 Cor. ii. 7; Rom. xvi. 25.) Great and inscrutable is this
   mystery; yet it is exhibited in Christ Jesus, and "made manifest" with
   such luminous clearness, that God is said to have been "manifest in the
   flesh" (1 Tim. iii. 16,) in no other sense than as though it would
   never have been possible for him to be manifested without the flesh;
   for the express purpose "that the eternal life which was with the
   Father, and the Word of life which was from the beginning with God,
   might be heard with our ears, seen with our eyes, and handled with our
   hands." (1 John i. 1, 2.)

   3. The Object of our Theology being clothed in this manner, so
   abundantly fills the mind and satisfies the desire, that the apostle
   openly declares, he was determined "to know nothing among the
   Corinthians save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." (1 Cor. ii. 2.) To
   the Phillipians he says, that he "counted all things but lost for the
   excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus; for whom he had suffered
   the loss of all things, and he counted them but dung that he might know
   Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his
   sufferings." (Phil. iii. 8, 10.) Nay, in the knowledge of the object of
   our theology, modified in this manner, all true glorying and just
   boasting consist, as the passage which we before quoted from Jeremiah,
   and the purpose to which St. Paul has accommodated it, most plainly
   evince. This is the manner in which it is expressed: "Let him. that
   glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am
   the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness in
   the earth." (Jer. ix. 24.) When you hear any mention of mercy, your
   thoughts ought necessarily to revert to Christ, out of whom "God is a
   consuming fire" to destroy the sinners of the earth. (Deut. iv. 24;
   Heb. xii. 29) The way in which St. Paul has accommodated it, is this:

   "Christ Jesus is made unto us by God, wisdom, righteousness, and
   sanctification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, He
   that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord!"(1 Cor. i. 30, 31.) Nor is it
   wonderful, that the mind should desire to "know nothing save Jesus
   Christ," or that its otherwise insatiable desire of knowledge should
   repose itself in him, since in him and in his gospel "are hidden all
   the treasures of wisdom, and knowledge." (Col. ii. 3, 9.)

   II. Having finished that part of our subject which related to this
   Union, let us now proceed to the Subordination which subsists between
   these two objects. We will first inspect the nature of this
   subordination, and then its necessity:

   First. Its nature consists in this, that every saving communication
   which God has with us, or which we have with God, is performed by means
   of the intervention of Christ.

   1. The communication which God holds with us is (i.) either in his
   benevolent affection towards us, or, (ii.) in his gracious decree
   concerning us, or, (iii.) in his saving efficacy in us. In all these
   particulars, Christ comes in as a middle man between the parties. For
   (i.) when God is willing to communicate to us the affection of his
   goodness and mercy, he looks upon his Anointed One, in whom, as "his
   beloved, he makes us accepted, to the praise of the glory of his
   grace." (Ephes. i. 6.) (ii.) When he is pleased to make some gracious
   decree of his goodness and mercy, he interposes Christ between the
   purpose and the accomplishment, to announce his pleasure; for "by Jesus
   Christ he predestinates us to the adoption of children." (Ephes. i. 5.)
   (iii.) When he is willing out of this abundant affection to impart to
   us some blessing, according to his gracious decree, it is through the
   intervention of the same Divine person. For in Christ as our Head, the
   Father has laid up all these treasures and blessings; and they do not
   descend to us, except through him, or rather by him, as the Father's
   substitute, who administers them with authority, and distributes them
   according to his own pleasure.

   2. But the communication which we have with God, is also made by the
   intervention of Christ. It consists of three degrees -access to God,
   cleaving to him, and the enjoyment of him.

   These three particulars become the objects of our present
   consideration, as it is possible for them to be brought into action in
   this state of human existence, and as they may execute their functions
   by means of faith, hope, and that charity which is the offspring of
   faith.

   (1.) Three things are necessary to this access; (i.) that God be in a
   place to which we may approach; (ii.) that the path by which we may
   come to him be a high-way and a safe one; and (iii.) that liberty be
   granted to us and boldness of access. All these facilities have been
   procured for us by the mediation of Christ. (i.) For the Father
   dwelleth in light inaccessible, and sits at a distance beyond Christ on
   a throne of rigid justice, which is an object much too formidable in
   appearance for the gaze of sinners; yet he hath appointed Christ to be
   "apropitiation. through faith in his blood ;" (Rom. iii. 25,) by whom
   the covering of the ark, and the accusing, convincing, and condemning
   power of the law which was contained in that ark, are taken away and
   removed as a kind of veil from before the eyes of the Divine Majesty;
   and a throne of grace has been established, on which God is seated,
   "with whom in Christ we have to do." Thus has the Father in the Son
   been made euwrositov "easy of access to us." (ii.) It is the same Lord
   Jesus Christ who "hath not only through his flesh consecrated for us a
   new and living way," by which we may go to the Father, (Heb. x. 20,)
   but who is likewise "himself the way" which leads in a direct and
   unerring manner to the Father. (John xiv. 6.) (iii.) "By the blood of
   Jesus" we have liberty of access, nay we are permitted "to enter into
   the holiest," and even "within the veil whither Christ, as a High
   Priest presiding over the house of God and our fore runner, is entered
   for us,." (Heb. v. 20,) that "we may draw near with a true heart, in
   the sacred and full assurance of faith, (x, 22,) and may with great
   confidence of mind "come boldly unto the throne of grace." (iv, 16.)
   Have we therefore prayers to offer to God? Christ is the High Priest
   who displays them before the Father. He is also the altar from which,
   after being placed on it, they will ascend as incense of a grateful
   odour to God our Father. Are sacrifices of thanksgiving to be offered
   to God? They must be offered through Christ, otherwise "God will not
   accept them at our hands." (Mal. i. 10.) Are good works to be
   performed? We must do them through the Spirit of Christ, that they may
   obtain the recommendation of him as their author; and they must be
   sprinkled with his blood, that they may not be rejected by the Father
   on account of their deficiency.

   (2.) But it is not sufficient for us only to approach to God; it is
   likewise good for us to cleave to him. To confirm this act of cleaving
   and to give it perpetuity, it ought to depend upon a communion of
   nature. But with God we have no such communion. Christ, however,
   possesses it, and we are made possessors of it with Christ, "who
   partook of our flesh and blood." (Heb. ii. 14.) Being constituted our
   head, he imparts unto us of his Spirit, that we, (being constituted his
   members, and cleaving to him as "flesh of his flesh and bone of his
   bone,") may be one with him, and through him with the Father, and with
   both may become "one Spirit."

   (3.) The enjoyment remains to be considered. It is a true, solid and
   durable taste of the Divine goodness and sweetness in this life, not
   only perceived by the mind and understanding, but likewise by the
   heart, which is the seat of all the affections. Neither does this
   become ours, except in Christ, by whose Spirit dwelling in us that most
   divine testimony is pronounced in our hearts, that "we are the children
   of God, and heirs of eternal life." (Rom. viii. 16.) On hearing this
   internal testimony, we conceive joy ineffable, "possess our souls in
   hope and patience," and in all our straits and difficulties we call
   upon God and cry, Abba Father, with an earnest expectation of our final
   access to God, of the consummation of our abiding in him and our
   cleaving to him, (by which we shall have "all in all,") and of the most
   blessed fruition, which will consist of the clear and unclouded vision
   of God himself. But the third division of our present subject, will be
   the proper place to treat more fully on these topics.

   Secondly. Having seen the subordination of both the objects of
   Christian Theology, let us in a few words advert to its Necessity. This
   derives its origin from the comparison of our contagion and vicious
   depravity, with the sanctity of God that is incapable of defilement,
   and with the inflexible rigor of his justice, which completely
   separates us from him by a gulf so great as to render it impossible for
   us to be united together while at such a vast distance, or for a
   passage to be made from us to him--unless Christ had trodden the wine
   press of the wrath of God, and by the streams of his most precious
   blood, plentifully flowing from the pressed, broken, and disparted
   veins of his body, had filled up that otherwise impassable gulf, "and
   had purged our consciences, sprinkled with his own blood, from all dead
   works ;" (Heb. ix. 14, 22,) that, being thus sanctified, we might
   approach to "the living God and might serve him without fear, in
   holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life." (Luke
   i. 75.)

   But such is the great Necessity of this subordination, that, unless our
   faith be in Christ, it cannot be in God: The Apostle Peter says, "By
   him we believe in God, that raised him from the dead, and gave him
   glory; that your faith and hope might be in God." (1 Pet., i, 21.) On
   this account the faith also which we have in God, was prescribed, not
   by the law, but by the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
   which is properly "the word of faith" and "the word of promise."

   The consideration of this necessity is of infinite utility, (i.) both
   in producing confidence in the consciences of believers, trembling at
   the sight of their sins, as appears most evidently from our preceding
   observations; (ii.) and in establishing the necessity of the Christian
   Religion. I account it necessary to make a few remarks on this latter
   topic, because they are required by the nature of our present purpose
   and of the Christian Religion itself.

   I observe, therefore, that not only is the intervention of Christ
   necessary to obtain salvation from God, and to impart it unto men, but
   the faith of Christ is also necessary to qualify men for receiving this
   salvation at his hands; not that faith in Christ by which he may be
   apprehended under the general notion of the wisdom, power, goodness and
   mercy of God, but that faith which was announced by the Apostles and
   recorded in their writings, and in such a saviour as was preached by
   those primitive heralds of salvation.

   I am not in the least influenced by the argument by which some persons
   profess themselves induced to adopt the opinion, "that a faith in
   Christ thus particular and restricted, which is required from all that
   become the subjects of salvation, agrees neither with the amplitude of
   God's mercy, nor with the conditions of his justice, since many
   thousands of men depart out of this life, before even the sound of the
   Gospel of Christ has reached their ears." For the reasons and terms of
   Divine Justice and Mercy are not to be determined by the limited and
   shallow measure of our capacities or feelings; but we must leave with
   God the free administration and just defense of these his own
   attributes. The result, however, will invariably prove to be the same,
   in what manner soever he may be pleased to administer those divine
   properties--for, "he will always overcome when he is judged." (Rom.
   iii. 4.) Out of his word we must acquire our wisdom and information. In
   primary, and certain secondary matters this word describes--the
   Necessity of faith in Christ, according to the appointment of the just
   mercy and the merciful justice of God. "He that believeth on the Son,
   hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see
   life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John iii. 36.) This is not
   an account of the first kindling of the wrath of God against this
   willful unbeliever; for he had then deserved the most severe
   expressions of that wrath by the sins which he had previously committed
   against the law; and this wrath "abides upon him," on account of his
   continued unbelief, because he had been favoured with the opportunity
   as well as the power of being delivered from it, through faith in the
   Son of God. Again: If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your
   sins." (John viii. 24.) And, in another passage, Christ declares, "This
   is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus
   Christ whom thou hast sent." (John xvii, 3.) The Apostle says, "It
   pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."
   That preaching thus described is the doctrine of the cross, "to 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. 21, 23, 24.) This wisdom and
   this power are not those attributes which God employed when he formed
   the world, for Christ is here plainly distinguished from them; but they
   are the wisdom and the power revealed in that gospel which is eminently
   "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." (Rom. i.
   16.) Not only, therefore, is the cross of Christ necessary to solicit
   and procure redemption, but the faith of the cross is also necessary in
   order to obtain possession of it.

   The necessity of faith in the cross does not arise from the
   circumstance of the doctrine of the cross being preached and propounded
   to men; but, since faith in Christ is necessary according to the decree
   of God, the doctrine of the cross is preached, that those who believe
   in it may be saved. Not only on account of the decree of God is faith
   in Christ necessary, but it is also necessary on account of the promise
   made unto Christ by the Father, and according to the Covenant which was
   ratified between both of them. This is the word of that promise: "Ask
   of me, and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance." (Psalm
   ii. 8.) But the inheritance of Christ is the multitude of the faithful;
   "the people, who, in the days of his power shall willingly come to him,
   in the beauties of holiness." (Psalm cx. 3.) "in thee shall all nations
   be blessed; so then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful
   Abraham." (Gal. iii. 8, 9 In Isaiah it is likewise declared, "When thou
   shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He
   shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
   his hands. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be
   satisfied: by the knowledge of himself [which is faith in him] shall my
   righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities."
   (Isa. liii. 10, 11.) Christ adduces the covenant which has been
   concluded with the Father, and founds a plea upon it when he says,
   "Father glorify thy Son; that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou
   hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life
   to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal," &c., &c.
   (John xvii. 1, 2, 3, 4.) Christ therefore by the decree, the promise
   and the covenant of the Father, has been constituted the saviour of all
   that believe on him, according to the declaration of the Apostle: "And
   being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation, to all
   them that obey him." (Heb. v. 9.) This is the reason why the Gentiles
   without Christ are said to be "alien from the commonwealth of Israel,
   and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and
   without God in the world." Yet through faith "those who some time were
   thus afar off and in darkness" are said to be made nigh, and "are now
   light in the Lord." (Ephes. ii. 12, 13, and v, 8.) It is requisite,
   therefore, earnestly to contend for the Necessity of the Christian
   religion, as for the altar and the anchor of our salvation, lest, after
   we have suffered the Son to be taken away from us and from our Faith,
   we should also be deprived of the Father:

   "For whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." (1 John
   ii. 23.) But if we in the slightest degree connive at the diminution or
   limitation of this Necessity, Christ himself will be brought into
   contempt among Christians, his own professing people; and will at
   length be totally denied and universally renounced. For it is not an
   affair of difficulty to take away the merit of salvation, and the power
   to save from Him to whom we are not compelled by any necessity to offer
   our oaths of allegiance. Who believes, that it is not necessary to
   return thanks to him who has conferred a benefit? Nay, who will not
   openly and confidently profess, that he is not the Author of salvation
   whom it is not necessary to acknowledge in that capacity. The union,
   therefore, of both the objects, God and Christ, must be strongly urged
   and enforced in our Christian Theology; nor is it to be endured that
   under any pretext they be totally detached and removed from each other,
   unless we wish Christ himself to be separated and withdrawn from us,
   and for us to be deprived at once of him and of our own salvation.

   The present subject would require us briefly to present to your sight
   all and each of those parts of which the consideration of this object
   ought to consist, and the order in which they should be placed before
   our eyes; but I am unwilling to detain this most famous and crowded
   auditory by a more prolix oration.

   Since, therefore, thus wonderfully great are the dignity, majesty,
   splendour and plenitude of Theology, and especially of our Christian
   Theology, by reason of its double object which is God and Christ, it is
   just and proper that all those who glory in the title of "men formed in
   the image of God," or in the far more august title of "Christians" and
   "men regenerated after the image of God and Christ, should most
   seriously and with ardent desire apply themselves to the knowledge of
   this Theology; and that they should think no object more worthy,
   pleasant, or useful than this, to engage their labourious attention or
   to awaken their energies. For what is more worthy of man, who is the
   image of God, than to be perpetually reflecting itself on its great
   archetype? What can be more pleasant, than to be continually irradiated
   and enlightened by the salutary beams of his Divine Pattern? What is
   more useful than, by such illumination, to be assimilated yet more and
   more to the heavenly Original? Indeed there is not any thing the
   knowledge of which can be more useful than this is, in the very search
   for it; or, when discovered, can be more profitable to the possessor.
   What employment is more becoming and honourable in a creature, a
   servant, and a son than to spend whole days and nights in obtaining a
   knowledge of God his Creator, his Lord, and his Father? What can be
   more decorous and comely in those who are redeemed by the blood of
   Christ, and who are sanctified by his Spirit, than diligently and
   constantly to meditate upon Christ, and always to carry him about in
   their minds, and hearts, and also on their tongues?

   I am fully aware that this animal life requires the discharge of
   various functions; that the superintendence of them must be entrusted
   to those persons who will execute each of them to the common advantage
   of the republic; and that the knowledge necessary for the right
   management of all such duties, can only be acquired by continued study
   and much labour. But if the very persons to whom the management of
   these concerns has been officially committed, will acknowledge the
   important principle--that in preference to all others, those things
   should be sought which appertain to the kingdom of God and his
   righteousness, (Matt. vi. 33,) they will confess that their ease and
   leisure, their meditations and cares, should yield the precedence to
   this momentous study. Though David himself was the king of a numerous
   people, and entangled in various wars, yet he never ceased to cultivate
   and pursue this study in preference to all others. To the benefit which
   he had derived from such a judicious practice, he attributes the
   portion of wisdom which he had obtained, and which was "greater than
   that of his enemies." (Psalm cxix. 98,) and by it also "he had more
   understanding than all his teachers." (99.) The three most noble
   treatises which Solomon composed, are to the present day read by the
   Church with admiration and thanksgiving; and they testify the great
   advantage which the royal author obtained from a knowledge of Divine
   things, while he was the chief magistrate of the same people on the
   throne of his Father. But since, according to the opinion of a Roman
   Emperor, "nothing is more difficult than to govern well" what just
   cause will any one be able to offer for the neglect of a study, to
   which even kings could devote their time and attention. Nor is it
   wonderful that they acted thus; for they addicted themselves to this
   profitable and pleasant study by the command of God; and the same
   Divine command has been imposed upon all and each of us, and is equally
   binding. It is one of Plato's observations, that "commonwealths would
   at length enjoy happiness and prosperity, either when their princes and
   ministers of state become philosophers, or when philosophers were
   chosen as ministers of state and conducted the affairs of government."
   We may transfer this sentiment with far greater justice to Theology,
   which is the true and only wisdom in relation to things Divine.

   But these our admonitions more particularly concern you, most excellent
   and learned youths, who, by the wish of your parents or patrons, and at
   your own express desire, have been devoted, set apart, and consecrated
   to this study; not to cultivate it merely with diligence, for the sake
   of promoting your own salvation, but that you may at some future period
   be qualified to engage in the eligible occupation, (which is most
   pleasing to God,) of teaching, instructing, and edifying the Church of
   the saints--"which is the body of Christ, and the fullness of him that
   filleth all in all." (Ephes. i. 23.) Let the extent and the majesty of
   the object, which by a deserved right engages all our powers, be
   constantly placed before your eyes; and suffer nothing to be accounted
   more glorious than to spend whole days and nights in acquiring a
   knowledge of God and his Christ, since true and allowable glories
   consists in this Divine knowledge. Reflect what great concerns those
   must be into which angels desire to look. Consider, likewise, that you
   are now forming an entrance for yourselves into a communion, at least
   of name, with these heavenly beings, and that God will in a little time
   call you to the employment for which you are preparing, which is one
   great object of my hopes and wishes concerning you.

   Propose to yourselves for imitation that chosen instrument of Christ,
   the Apostle Paul, whom you with the greater willingness acknowledge as
   your teacher, and who professes himself to be inflamed with such an
   intense desire of knowing Christ, that he not only held every worldly
   thing in small estimation when put in competition with this knowledge,
   but also "suffered the loss of all things, that he might win the
   knowledge of Christ." (Phil. iii. 8.) Look at Timothy, his disciple,
   whom he felicitates on this account--"that from a child he had known
   the holy scriptures." (2 Tim. iii. 15.) You have already attained to a
   share of the same blessedness; and you will make further advances in
   it, if you determine to receive the admonitions, and to execute the
   charge, which that great teacher of the Gentiles addresses to his
   Timothy.

   But this study requires not only diligence, but holiness, and a sincere
   desire to please God. For the object which you handle, into which you
   are looking, and which you wish to know, is sacred--nay, it is the holy
   of holies. To pollute sacred things, is highly indecent; it is
   desirable that the persons by whom such things are administered, should
   communicate to them no taint of defilement. The ancient Gentiles when
   about to offer sacrifice were accustomed to exclaim,

   "Far, far from hence, let the profane depart!"

   This caution should be re-iterated by you, for a more solid and lawful
   reason when you proceed to offer sacrifices to God Most High, and to
   his Christ, before whom also the holy choir of angels repeat aloud that
   thrice-hallowed song, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!" While you
   are engaged in this study, do not suffer your minds to be enticed away
   by other pursuits and to different objects. Exercise yourselves,
   continue to exercise yourselves in this, with a mind intent upon what
   has been proposed to you according to the design of this discourse. If
   you do this, in the course of a short time you will not repent of your
   labour; but you will make such progress in the way of the knowledge of
   the Lord, as will render you useful to others. For "the secret of the
   Lord, is with them that fear him." (Psalm xxv. 14) Nay, from the very
   circumstance of this unremitting attention, you will be enabled to
   declare, that you "have chosen the good part which alone shall not be
   taken away from you," (Luke x. 42) but which will daily receive fresh
   increase. Your minds will be so expanded by the knowledge of God and of
   his Christ, that they will hereafter become a most ample habitation for
   God and Christ through the Spirit. I have finished.
     __________________________________________________________________

ORATION II

  THE AUTHOR AND THE END OF THEOLOGY

   They who are conversant with the demonstrative species of oratory, and
   choose for themselves any subject of praise or blame, must generally be
   engaged in removing from themselves, what very readily assails the
   minds of their auditors, a suspicion that they are impelled to speak by
   some immoderate feeling of love or hatred; and in showing that they are
   influenced rather by an approved judgment of the mind; and that they
   have not followed the ardent flame of their will, but the clear light
   of their understanding, which accords with the nature of the subject
   which they are discussing. But to me such a course is not necessary.
   For that which I have chosen for the subject of my commendation, easily
   removes from me all ground for such a suspicion.

   I do not deny, that here indeed I yield to the feeling of love; but it
   is on a matter which if any one does not love, he hates himself, and
   perfidiously prostitutes the life of his soul. Sacred Theology is the
   subject whose excellence and dignity I now celebrate in this brief and
   unadorned Oration; and which, I am convinced, is to all of you an
   object of the greatest regard. Nevertheless, I wish to raise it, if
   possible, still higher in your esteem. This, indeed, its own merit
   demands; this the nature of my office requires. Nor is it any part of
   my study to amplify its dignity by ornaments borrowed from other
   objects; for to the perfection of its beauty can be added nothing
   extraneous that would not tend to its degradation and loss of its
   comeliness. I only display such ornaments as are, of themselves, its
   best recommendation. These are, its Object, its Author, its End and its
   Certainty. Concerning the Object, we have already declared whatever the
   Lord had imparted; and we will now speak of its Author and its End. God
   grant that I may ,follow the guidance of this Theology in all respects,
   and may advance nothing except what agrees with its nature, is worthy
   of God and useful to you, to the glory of his name, and to the uniting
   of all of us together in the Lord. I pray and beseech you also, my most
   excellent and courteous hearers, that you will listen to me, now when I
   am beginning to speak on the Author, and the End of Theology, with the
   same degree of kindness and attention as that which you evinced when
   you heard my preceding discourse on its Object.

   Being about to treat of the Author, I will not collect together the
   lengthened reports of his well merited praises, for with you this is
   unnecessary. I will only declare (1.) Who the Author is; (2.) In what
   respect he is to be considered; (3.) Which of his properties were
   employed by him in the revelation of Theology; and (4.) In what manner
   he has made it know.

   I. We have considered the Object of Theology in regard to two
   particulars. And that each part of our subject may properly and exactly
   answer to the other, we may also consider its Author in a two-fold
   respect--that of Legal and of Evangelical Theology. In both cases, the
   same person is the Author and the Object, and the person who reveals
   the doctrine is likewise its matter and argument. This is a peculiarity
   that belongs to no other of the numerous sciences. For although all of
   them may boast of God, as their Author, because he a God of knowledge;
   yet, as we have seen, they have some other object than God, which
   something is indeed derived from him and of his production. But they do
   not partake of God as their efficient cause, in an equal manner with
   this doctrine, which, for a particular reason, and one entirely
   distinct from that of the other sciences, lays claim to God , its
   Author. God, therefore, is the author of Legal Theology; God and his
   Christ, or God in and through Christ, is the Author of that which is
   evangelical. For to this the scripture bears witness, and thus the very
   nature of the object requires, both of which we will separately
   demonstrate.

   1. Scripture describes to us the Author of legal theology before the
   fall in these words: "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of
   every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the
   knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:" (Gen. ii. 16,
   17.) A threat was added in express words, in case the man should
   transgress, and a promise, in the type of the tree of life, if he
   complied with the command. But there are two things, which, as they
   preceded this act of legislation, should have been previously known by
   man: (1.) The nature of God, which is wise, good, just, and powerful;
   (2.) The authority by which he issues his commands, the right of which
   rests on the act of creation. Of both these, man had a previous
   knowledge, from the manifestation of God, who familiarly conversed with
   him, and held communication with his own image through that Spirit by
   whose inspiration he said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of
   my flesh." (Gen. ii. 23.) The apostle has attributed the knowledge of
   both these things to faith, and, therefore, to the manifestation of
   God. He speaks of the former in these words: "For he that cometh to God
   must have believed [so I read it,] that he is, and that he is a
   rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Heb. xi. 6.) If a
   rewarder, therefore, he is a wise, good, just, powerful, and provident
   guardian of human affairs. Of the latter, he speaks thus: "Through
   faith we understand that the world was framed by the word of God, so
   that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
   (Heb. xi. 3.) And although that is not expressly and particularly
   stated of the moral law, in the primeval state of man; yet when it is
   affirmed of the typical and ceremonial law, it must be also understood
   in reference to the moral law. For the typical and ceremonial law was
   an experiment of obedience to the moral law, that was to be tried on
   man, and the acknowledgement of his obligation to obey the moral law.
   This appears still more evidently in the repetition of the moral law by
   Moses after the fall, which was specially made known to the people of
   Israel in these words: "And God spake all these words :" (Exod. xx. 1,)
   and "What nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so
   righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day," (Deut. iv.
   8.) But Moses set it before them according to the manifestation of God
   to him, and in obedience to his command, as he says: "The secret things
   belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed
   belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the
   words of this law." (Deut. xxix. 29.) And according to Paul, "That
   which may be known of God, is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it
   unto them." (Rom. i. 19.)

   2. The same thing is evinced by the nature of the object. For since God
   is the Author of the universe, (and that, not by a natural and internal
   operation, but by one that is voluntary and external, and that imparts
   to the work as much as he chooses of his own, and as much as the
   nothing, from which it is produced, will permit,) his excellence and
   dignity must necessarily far exceed the capacity of the universe, and,
   for the same reason, that of man. On this account, he is said in
   scripture, "to dwell in the light unto which no man can approach," (1
   Tim. vi. 16,) which strains even the most acute sight of any creature,
   by a brightness so great and dazzling, that the eye is blunted and
   overpowered, and would soon be blinded unless God, by some admirable
   process of attempering that blaze of light, should offer himself to the
   view of his creatures: This is the very manifestation before which
   darkness is said to have fixed its habitation.

   Nor is he himself alone inaccessible, but, as the heavens are higher
   than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts
   than our thoughts." (Isa. lv. 9.) The actions of God are called "the
   ways of God," and the creation especially is called "the beginning of
   the way of God," (Prov. 8,) by which God began, as it were, to arise
   and to go forth from the throne of his majesty. Those actions,
   therefore, could not have been made known and understood, in the manner
   in which it is allowable to know and understand them, except by the
   revelation of God. This was also indicated before, in the term "faith"
   which the apostle employed. But the thoughts of God, and his will,
   (both that will which he wishes to be done by us, and that which he has
   resolved to do concerning us,) are of free disposition, which is
   determined by the divine power and liberty inherent in himself; and
   since he has, in all this, called in the aid of no counselor, those
   thoughts and that will are of necessity "unsearchable and past finding
   out." (Rom. xi. 33.) Of these, Legal Theology consists; and as they
   could not be known before the revelation of them proceeded from God, it
   is evidently proved that God is its Author.

   To this truth all nations and people assent. What compelled Radamanthus
   and Minos, those most equitable kings of Crete, to enter the dark cave
   of Jupiter, and pretend that the laws which they had promulgated among
   their subjects, were brought from that cave, at the inspiration of
   Deity? It was because they knew those laws would not meet with general
   reception, unless they were believed to have been divinely
   communicated. Before Lycurgus began the work of legislation for his
   Lacedaemonians, imitating the example of those two kings, he went to
   Apollo at Delphos, that he might, on his return, confer on his laws the
   highest recommendation by means of the authority of the Delphic Oracle.
   To induce the ferocious minds of the Roman people to submit to
   religion, Numa Pompilius feigned that he had nocturnal conferences with
   the goddess Aegeria. These were positive and evident testimonies of a
   notion which had preoccupied the minds of men, "that no religion except
   one of divine origin, and deriving its principles from heaven, deserved
   to be received." Such a truth they considered this, "that no one could
   know God, or any thing concerning God, except through God himself."

   2. Let us now look at Evangelical Theology. We have made the Author of
   it to be Christ and God, at the command of the same scriptures as those
   which establish the divine claims of Legal Theology, and because the
   nature of the object requires it with the greater justice, in
   proportion as that object is the more deeply hidden in the abyss of the
   divine wisdom, and as the human mind is the more closely surrounded and
   enveloped with the shades of ignorance.

   (1.) Exceedingly numerous are the passages of scripture which serve to
   aid and strengthen us in this opinion. We will enumerate a few of them:
   First, those which ascribe the manifestation of this doctrine to God
   the Father; Then, those which ascribe it to Christ. "But we" says the
   apostle, "speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom,
   which God ordained before the world unto our glory. But God hath
   revealed it unto us by his Spirit." (1 Cor. ii. 7,10.) The same apostle
   says, "The gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the
   revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
   but now is made manifest by the scriptures of the prophets, according
   to the commandment of the everlasting God." (Rom. xvi. 25, 26.) When
   Peter made a correct and just confession of Christ, it was said to him
   by the saviour, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
   Father which is in heaven." (Matt. xvi. 17.) John the Baptist
   attributed the same to Christ, saying, "The only begotten Son, which is
   in the bosom of the Father, be hath declared God to us." (John i. 18.)
   Christ also ascribed this manifestation to himself in these words: "No
   man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father
   save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." (Matt. xi.
   17.) And, in another place, "I have manifested thy name unto the men
   whom thou gavest me out of the world, and they have believed that thou
   didst send me." (John xvii. 6, 8.)

   (2.) Let us consider the necessity of this manifestation from the
   nature of its Object.

   This is indicated by Christ when speaking of Evangelical Theology, in
   these words: "No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth
   any man the Father save the Son." (Matt. xi. 27.) Therefore no man can
   reveal the Father or the Son, and yet in the knowledge of them are
   comprised the glad tidings of the gospel. The Baptist is an assertor of
   the necessity of this manifestation when he declares, that "No man hath
   seen God at any time." (John i. 18.) It is the wisdom belonging to this
   Theology, which is said by the Apostle to be "hidden in a mystery,
   which none of the princes of this world knew, and which eye hath not
   seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man." (1
   Cor. ii. 7, 8, 9.) It does not come within the cognizance of the
   understanding, and is not mixed up, as it were, with the first notions
   or ideas impressed on the mind at the period of its creation; it is not
   acquired in conversation or reasoning; but it is made known "in the
   words which the Holy Ghost teacheth." To this Theology belongs "that
   manifold wisdom of God which must be made known by the Church unto the
   principalities and powers in heavenly places," (Ephes. iii. 10,)
   otherwise it would remain unknown even to the angels themselves. What!
   Are the deep things of God "which no man knoweth but the Spirit of God
   which is in himself," explained by this doctrine? Does it also unfold
   "the length and breadth, and depth and height" of the wisdom of God? As
   the Apostle speaks in another passage, in a tone of the most
   impassioned admiration, and almost at a loss what words to employ in
   expressing the fullness of this Theology, in which are proposed, as
   objects of discovery, "the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and
   the peace of God which passeth all understanding." (Ephes. iii. 18.)
   From these passages it most evidently appears, that the Object of
   Evangelical Theology must have been revealed by God and Christ, or it
   must otherwise have remained hidden and surrounded by perpetual
   darkness; or, (which is the same thing,) that Evangelical Theology
   would not have come within the range of our knowledge, and, on that
   account, as a necessary consequence, there could have been none at all.

   If it be an agreeable occupation to any person, (and such it must
   always prove,) to look more methodically and distinctly through each
   part, let him cast the eyes of his mind on those properties of the
   Divine Nature which this Theology displays, clothed in their own
   appropriate mode; let him consider those action of God which this
   doctrine brings to light, and that will of God which he has revealed in
   his gospel: When he has done this, (and of much more than this the
   subject is worthy,) he will more distinctly understand the necessity of
   the Divine manifestation.

   If any one would adopt a compendious method, let him only contemplate
   Christ; and when he has diligently observed that admirable union of the
   Word and Flesh, his investiture into office and the manner in which its
   duties were executed; when he has at the same time reflected, that the
   whole of these arrangements and proceedings are in consequence of the
   voluntary economy, regulation, and free dispensation of God; he cannot
   avoid professing openly, that the knowledge of all these things could
   not have been obtained except by means of the revelation of God and
   Christ.

   But lest any one should take occasion, from the remarks which we have
   now made, to entertain an unjust suspicion or error, as though God the
   Father alone, to the exclusion of the Son, were the Author of the legal
   doctrine, and the Father through the Son were the Author of the
   Evangelical doctrine--a few observations shall be added, that may serve
   to solve this difficulty, and further to illustrate the matter of our
   discourse. As God by his Word, (which is his own Son,) and by his
   Spirit, created all things, and man according to the image of himself,
   so it is likewise certain, that no intercourse can take place between
   him and man, without the agency of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. How
   is this possible, since the ad extra works of the Deity are
   indivisible, and when the order of operation ad extra is the same as
   the order of procession ad intra? We do not, therefore, by any means
   exclude the Son as the Word of the Father, and the Holy Ghost who is
   "the Spirit of Prophecy," from efficiency in this revelation.

   But there is another consideration in the manifestation of the gospel,
   not indeed with respect to the persons testifying, but in regard to the
   manner in which they come to be considered. For the Father, the Son,
   and the Holy Spirit, have not only a natural relation among themselves,
   but another likewise which derives its origin from the will; yet the
   latter entirely agrees with the natural relation that subsists among
   them. There is an internal procession in the persons; and there is an
   external one, which is called in the scriptures and in the writings of
   the Father, by the name of "Mission" or "sending." To the latter mode
   of procession, special regard must be had in this revelation. For the
   Father manifests the Gospel through his Son and Spirit. (i.) He
   manifests it through the Son, as to his being, sent for the purpose of
   performing the office of Mediator between God and sinful men; as to his
   being the Word made flesh, and God manifest in the flesh; and as to his
   having died, and to his being raised again to life, whether that was
   done in reality, or only in the decree and foreknowledge of God. (ii.)
   He also manifests it through his Spirit, as to his being the Spirit of
   Christ, whom he asked of his Father by his passion and his death, and
   whom he obtained when he was raised from the dead, and placed at the
   right hand of the Father.

   I think you will understand the distinction which I imagine to be here
   employed: I will afford you an opportunity to examine and prove it, by
   adducing the clearest passages of scripture to aid us in confirming it.
   (I.) "All things," said Christ, "are delivered to me of my Father; and
   no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the
   Father, save the Son." (Matt. xi. 27.) They were delivered by the
   Father, to him as the Mediator, "in whom it was his pleasure that all
   fullness should dwell." (Col. i. 19. See also ii, 9.) In the same sense
   must be understood what Christ says in John: "I have given unto them
   the words which thou gavest me;" for it is subjoined, "and they have
   known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that
   thou didst send me." (xvii, 8.) From hence it appears, that the Father
   had given those words to him as the Mediator: on which account he says,
   in another place, "He whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God."
   (John iii. 34.) With this the saying of the Baptist agrees, "The law
   was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John i.
   17.) But in reference to his being opposed to Moses, who accuses and
   condemns sinners, Christ is considered as the Mediator between God and
   sinners. The following passage tends to the same point: "No man hath
   seen God at any time: the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of
   the Father," [that is, "admitted," in his capacity of Mediator, to the
   intimate and confidential view and knowledge of his Father's secrets,]
   "he hath declared him:" (John i. 18.) "For the Father loveth the Son,
   and hath given all things into his hand;" (John iii. 35,) and among the
   things thus given, was the doctrine of the gospel, which he was to
   expound and declare to others, by the command of God the Father. And in
   every revelation which has been made to us through Christ, that
   expression which occurs in the beginning of the Apocalypse of St. John
   holds good and is of the greatest validity: "The revelation of Jesus
   Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants." God has
   therefore manifested Evangelical Theology through his Son, in reference
   to his being sent forth by the Father, to execute among men, and in his
   name, the office of Mediator.

   (ii.) Of the Holy Spirit the same scripture testifies, that, as the
   Spirit of Christ the Mediator, who is the head of his church, he has
   revealed the Gospel. "Christ, by the Spirit," says Peter, "went and
   preached to the spirits in prison." (1 Pet. iii. 19.) And what did he
   preach? Repentance. This therefore, was done through his Spirit, in his
   capacity of Mediator, For, in this respect alone, the Spirit of God
   exhorts to repentance. This appears more clearly from the Same Apostle:
   "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently,
   who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what,
   or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did
   signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the
   glory that should follow." And this was the Spirit of Christ in his
   character of Mediator and head of the Church, which the very object of
   the testimony foretold by him sufficiently evinces. A succeeding
   passage excludes all doubt; for the gospel is said in it, to be
   preached by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." (1 Pet. i. 12.) For
   he was sent down by Christ when he was elevated at the right hand of
   God, as it is mentioned in the second chapter of the Acts of the
   Apostles; which passage also makes for our purpose, and on that account
   deserves to have its just meaning here appreciated. This is its
   phraseology, "Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and
   having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath
   shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." (Acts ii. 33.) For it was
   by the Spirit that the Apostles prophesied and spoke in divers
   languages. These passages might suffice; but I cannot omit that most
   noble sentence spoken by Christ to console the minds of his disciples,
   who were grieving on account of his departure, "If I go not away the
   Comforter [or rather, `the Advocate, who shall, in my place, discharge
   the vicarious office,' as Tertullian expresses himself;] If I go not
   away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will
   send him unto you. And when he is come he will reprove the world, &c.
   (John xvi. 7, 8.) He shall glorify me: For he shall receive of mine,
   and shall shew it unto you." Christ, therefore, as Mediator, "will send
   him," and he "will receive of that which belongs to Christ the
   Mediator. He shall glorify Christ," as constituted by God the Mediator
   and the Head of the Church; and he shall glorify him with that glory,
   which, according to the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel ,
   Christ thought it necessary to ask of his Father. That passage brings
   another to my recollection, which may be called its parallel in merit:
   John says, "The Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was
   not yet glorified." (vii, 39.) This remark was not to be understood of
   the person of the Spirit, but of his gifts, and especially that of
   prophecy. But Christ was glorified in quality of Mediator: and in that
   glorified capacity he sends the Holy Ghost; therefore, the Holy Spirit
   was sent by Christ as the Mediator. On this account also, the Spirit of
   Christ the Mediator is the Author of Evangelical Prophecy. But the Holy
   Ghost was sent, even before the glorification of Christ, to reveal the
   Gospel. The existing state of the Church required it at that period,
   and the Holy Spirit was sent to meet that necessity. "Christ is
   likewise the same yesterday, today and forever." (Heb. xiii. 8.) He was
   also "slain from the foundation of the world;" (Rev. xiii. 8,) and was,
   therefore, at that same time raised again and glorified; but this was
   all in the decree and fore-knowledge of God. To make it evident,
   however, that God has never sent the Holy Spirit to the Church, except
   through the agency of Christ the Mediator, and in regard to him, God
   deferred that plentiful and exuberant effusion of his most copious
   gifts, until Christ, after his exaltation to heaven, should send them
   down in a communication of the greatest abundance. Thus he testified by
   a clear and evident proof, that he had formerly poured out the gifts of
   the Spirit upon the Church, by the same person, as he by whom, (when
   through his ascension the dense and overcharged cloud of water above
   the heavens had been disparted,) he poured down the most plentiful
   showers of his graces, inundating and over spreading the whole body of
   the Church.

   III. But the revelation of Evangelical Theology is attributed to Christ
   in regard to his Mediatorship, and to the Holy Ghost in regard to his
   being the appointed substitute and Advocate of Christ the Mediator.
   This is done most consistently and for a very just reason, both because
   Christ, as Mediator, is placed for the ground-work of this doctrine,
   and because in the duty of mediation those actions were to be
   performed, those sufferings endured, and those blessings asked and
   obtained, which complete a goodly portion of the matters that are
   disclosed in the gospel of Christ. No wonder, therefore, that Christ in
   this respect, (in which he is himself the object of the gospel,) should
   likewise be the revealer of it, and the person who asks and procures
   all evangelical graces, and who is at once the Lord of them and the
   communicator. And since the Spirit of Christ, our Mediator and our
   head, is the bond of our union with Christ, from which we also obtain
   communion with Christ, and a participation in all his blessings--it is
   just and reasonable, that, in the respect which we have just mentioned,
   Christ should reveal to our minds, and seal upon our hearts, the
   evangelical charter and evidence of that faith by which he dwelleth in
   our hearts. The consideration of this matter exhibits to us (1.) the
   cause why it is possible for God to restrain himself with such great
   forbearance, patience, and long suffering, until the gospel is obeyed
   by those to whom it is preached; and (2.) it affords great consolation
   to our ignorance and infirmities.

   I think, my hearers, you perceive that this single view adds no small
   degree of dignity to our Evangelical Theology, beside that which it
   possesses from the common consideration of its Author. If we may be
   allowed further to consider what wisdom, goodness and power God
   expended when he instituted and revealed this Theology, it will give
   great importance to our proposition. Indeed, all kinds of sciences have
   their origin in the wisdom of God, and are communicated to men by his
   goodness and power. But, if it be his right, (as it undoubtedly is,) to
   appoint gradations in the external exercise of his divine properties,
   we shall say, that all other sciences except this, have arisen from an
   inferior wisdom of God, and have been revealed by a less degree of
   goodness and power. It is proper to estimate this matter according to
   the excellence of its object. As the wisdom of God, by which he knows
   himself, is greater than that by which he knows other things; so the
   wisdom employed by him in the manifestation of himself is greater than
   that employed in the manifestation of other things. The goodness by
   which he permits himself to be known and acknowledged by man as his
   Chief Good, is greater than that by which he imparts the knowledge of
   other things. The power also, by which nature is raised to the
   knowledge of supernatural things, is greater than that by which it is
   brought to investigate things that are of the same species and origin
   with itself. Therefore, although all the sciences may boast of God as
   their author, yet in these particulars, Theology, soaring above the
   whole, leaves them at an immense distance.

   But as this consideration raises the dignity of Theology, on the whole
   far above all other sciences, so it likewise demonstrates that
   Evangelical far surpasses Legal Theology; on which point we may be
   allowed, with your good leave, to dwell a little. The wisdom, goodness
   and power, by which God made man, after his own image, to consist of a
   rational soul and a body, are great, and constitute the claims to
   precedence on the part of Legal Theology. But the wisdom, goodness and
   power, by which "the Word was made flesh," (John i. 14,) and God was
   manifest in the flesh," (1 Tim. iii. 16,) and by which he "who was in
   the form of God took upon himself the form of a servant," (Phil. ii.
   7,) are still greater, and they are the claims by which Evangelical
   Theology asserts its right to precedence. The wisdom and goodness, by
   the operation of which the power of God has been revealed to salvation,
   are great; but that by which is revealed "the power of God to salvation
   to every one that believeth," (Rom. ii. 16,) far exceeds it. Great
   indeed are the wisdom and goodness by which the righteousness of God by
   the law is made manifest," and by which the justification of the law
   was ascribed of debt to perfect obedience; but they are infinitely
   surpassed by the wisdom and goodness through which the righteousness of
   God by faith is manifested, and through which it is determined that the
   man is justified "that worketh not, but [being a sinner,] believeth on
   him who justifieth the ungodly," according to the most glorious riches
   of his grace. Conspicuous and excellent were the wisdom and goodness
   which appointed the manner of union with God in legal righteousness,
   performed out of conformity to the image of God, after which man was
   created. But a solemn and substantial triumph is achieved through faith
   in Christ's blood by the wisdom and goodness, which, having devised and
   executed the wonderful method of qualifying justice and mercy, appoint
   the manner of union in Christ., and in his righteousness, "who is the
   brightness of his Father's glory and the express image of his person."
   (Heb. i. 3.) Lastly, it is the wisdom, goodness and power, which, out
   of the thickest darkness of ignorance brought forth the marvelous light
   of the gospel; which, from an infinite multitude of sins, brought in
   everlasting righteousness; and which, from death and the depths of
   hell, "brought life and immortality to light." The wisdom, goodness and
   power which have produced these effects, exceed those in which the
   light that is added to light, the righteousness that is rewarded by a
   due recompense, and the animal life that is regulated according to
   godliness by the command of the law, are each of them swallowed up and
   consummated in that which is spiritual and eternal.

   A deeper consideration of this matter almost compels me to adopt a more
   confident daring, and to give to the wisdom, goodness and power of God,
   which are unfolded in Legal Theology, the title of Natural," and as in
   some sense the beginning of the going forth of God towards his image,
   which is man, and a commencement of Divine intercourse with him. The
   others, which are manifested in the gospel, I fearlessly call
   "Supernatural wisdom, power and goodness," and "the extreme point and
   the perfect completion of all revelation;" because in the manifestation
   of the latter, God appears to have excelled himself, and to have
   unfolded every one of his blessings. Admirable was the kindness of God,
   and most stupendous his condescension in admitting man to the most
   intimate communion with himself--a privilege full of grace and mercy,
   after his sins had rendered him unworthy of having the establishment of
   such an intercourse. But this was required by the unhappy and miserable
   condition of man, who through his greater unworthiness had become the
   more indigent, through his deeper blindness required illumination by a
   stronger light, through his more grievous wickedness demanded
   reformation by means of a more extensive goodness, and who, the weaker
   he had become, needed a stronger exertion of power for his restoration
   and establishment. It is also a happy circumstance, that no aberration
   of ours can be so great, as to prevent God from recalling us into the
   good way; no fall so deep, as to disable him from raising us up and
   causing us to stand erect; and no evil of ours can be of such
   magnitude, as to prove a difficult conquest to his goodness, provided
   it be his pleasure to put the whole of it in motion; and this he will
   actually do, provided we suffer our ignorance and infirmities to be
   corrected by his light and power, and our wickedness to be subdued by
   his goodness.

   IV. We have seen that, (1.) God is the Author of Legal Theology; and
   God and his Christ, that of Evangelical Theology. We have seen at the
   same time (2.) in what respect God and Christ are to be viewed in
   making known this revelation, and (3.) according to what properties of
   the Divine Nature of both of them it has been perfected.

   We will now just glance at the Manner. The manner of the Divine
   manifestation appears to be threefold, according , the three
   instruments or organs of our capacity. (1.) The External Senses, (2.)
   The Inward Fancy or Imagination, and (3.) The Mind or Understanding.
   God sometimes reveals himself and his will by an image or
   representation offered to the external sight, or through an audible
   speech or discourse addressed to the ear. Sometimes he introduces
   himself by the same method to the imagination; and sometimes he
   addresses the mind in a manner ineffable, which is called Inspiration.
   Of all these modes scripture most clearly supplies us with luminous
   examples. But time will not permit me to be detained in enumerating
   them, lest I should appear to be yet more tedious to this most
   accomplished assembly.
     __________________________________________________________________

  THE END OF THEOLOGY

   We have been engaged in viewing the Author,: let us now advert to the
   End. This is the more eminent and divine according to the greater
   excellence of that matter of which it is the end. In that light,
   therefore, this science is far more illustrious and transcendent than
   all others; because it alone has a relation to the life that is
   spiritual and supernatural, and has an End beyond the boundaries of the
   present life: while all other sciences have respect to this animal
   life, and each has an End proposed to itself, extending from the center
   of this earthly life and included within its circumference. Of this
   science, then, that may be truly said which the poet declared
   concerning his wise friend, "For those things alone he feels any
   relish, the rest like shadows fly." I repeat it, "they fly away,"
   unless they be referred to this science, and firmly fix their foot upon
   it and be at rest. But the same person who is the Author and Object, is
   also the End of Theology. The very proportion and analogy of these
   things make such a connection requisite. For since the Author is the
   First and the Chief Being, it is of necessity that he be the First and
   Chief Good. He is, therefore, the extreme End of all things. And since
   He, the Chief Being and the Chief Good, subjects, lowers and spreads
   himself out, as an object to some power or faculty of a rational
   creature, that by its action or motion it may be employed and occupied
   concerning him, nay, that it may in a sense be united with him; it
   cannot possibly be, that the creature, after having performed its part
   respecting that object, should fly beyond it and extend itself further
   for the sake of acquiring a greater good. It is, therefore, of
   necessity that it restrain itself within him, not only as within a
   boundary beyond which it is impossible for it to pass on account of the
   infinitude of the object and on account of its own importance, but also
   as within its End and its Good, beyond which, because they are both the
   Chief in degree, it neither wishes nor is capable of desiring anything;
   provided this object be united with it as far as the capacity of the
   creature will admit. God is, therefore, the End of our Theology,
   proposed by God himself, in the acts prescribed in it; intended by man
   in the performance of those actions, and to be bestowed by God, after
   man shall have piously and religiously performed his duty. But because
   the chief good was not placed in the promise of it, nor in the desire
   of obtaining it, but in actually receiving it, the end of Theology may
   with the utmost propriety be called THE UNION OF GOD WITH MAN.

   But it is not an Essential union, as if two essences, (for instance
   that of God and man,) were compacted together or joined into one, or as
   that by which man might himself be absorbed into God. The former of
   these modes of union is prohibited by the very nature of the things so
   united, and the latter is rejected by the nature of the union. Neither
   is it a formal union, as if God by that union might be made in the form
   of man, like a Spirit united to a body imparting to it life and motion,
   and acting upon it at pleasure, although, by dwelling in the body, it
   should confer on man the gift of life eternal. But it is an objective
   union by which God, through the agency of his pre-eminent and most
   faithful faculties and actions, (all of which he wholly occupies and
   completely fills,) gives such convincing proofs of himself to man, that
   God may then be said to be "all in all." (1 Cor. xv. 21.) This union is
   immediate, and without any bond that is different to the limits
   themselves. For God unites himself to the understanding and to the will
   of his creature, by means of himself alone, and without the
   intervention of image, species or appearance. This is what the nature
   of this last and supreme union requires, as being that in which
   consists the Chief Good of a rational creature, which cannot find rest
   except in the greatest union of itself with God. But by this union, the
   understanding beholds in the clearest vision, and as if "face to face,"
   God himself, and all his goodness and incomparable beauty. And because
   a good of such magnitude and known by the clearest vision cannot fail
   of being loved on its own account; from this very consideration the
   will embraces it with a more intense love, in proportion to the greater
   degree of knowledge of it which the mind has obtained.

   But here a double difficulty presents itself, which must first be
   removed, in order that our feet may afterwards without stumbling run
   along a path that will then appear smooth and to have been for some
   time well trodden. (1.) The one is, "How can it be that the eye of the
   human understanding does not become dim and beclouded when an object of
   such transcendent light is presented to it?" (2.)

   The other is, "How can the understanding, although its eye may not be
   dim and blinded, receive and contain that object in such great measure
   and proportion?" The cause of the first is, that the light exhibits
   itself to the understanding not in the infinity of its own nature, but
   in a form that is qualified and attempered. And to what is it thus
   accommodated? Is it not to the understanding? Undoubtedly, to the
   understanding; but not according to the capacity which it possessed
   before the union: otherwise it could not receive and contain as much as
   would suffice to fill it and make it happy. But it is attempered
   according to the measure of its extension and enlargement, to admit of
   which the understanding is exquisitely formed, if it be enlightened and
   irradiated by the gracious and glorious shining of the light
   accommodated to that expansion. If it be thus enlightened, the eye of
   the understanding will not be overpowered and become dim, and it will
   receive that object in such a vast proportion as will most abundantly
   suffice to make man completely happy. This is a solution for both these
   difficulties. But an extension of the understanding will be followed by
   an enlargement of the will, either from a proper and adequate object
   offered to it, and accommodated to the same rule; or, (which I prefer,)
   from the native agreement of the will and understanding, and the
   analogy implanted in both of them, according to which the understanding
   extends itself to acts of volition, in the very proportion of its
   understanding and knowledge. In this act of the mind and will in seeing
   a present God, in loving him, and therefore in the enjoyment of him,
   the salvation of man and his perfect happiness consist. To which is
   added , conformation of our body itself to this glorious state of soul,
   which, whether it be effected by the immediate action of God on the
   body, or by means of an agency resulting from the action of the soul on
   the body, it is neither necessary for us here to inquire, nor at this
   time to discover. From hence also arises and shines forth illustriously
   the chief and infinite glory of God, far surpassing all other glory,
   that he has displayed in every preceding function which he
   administered. For since that action is truly great and glorious which
   is good, and since goodness alone obtains the title of "greatness,"
   according to that elegant saying, to eu mega then indeed the best
   action of God is the greatest and the most glorious. But that is the
   best action by which he unites himself immediately to the creature and
   affords himself to be seen, loved and enjoyed in such an abundant
   measure as agrees with the creature dilated and expanded to that degree
   which we have mentioned. This is, therefore, the most glorious of God's
   actions. Wherefore the end of Theology is the union , God with man, to
   the salvation of the one and the glory of the other; and to the glory
   which he declares by his act, not that glory which man ascribes to God
   when he is united to him. Yet it cannot be otherwise, than that man
   should be incited to sing forever the high praises of God, when he
   beholds and enjoys such large and overpowering goodness.

   But the observations we have hitherto made on the End of Theology, were
   accommodated to the manner of that which is legal. We must now consider
   the End as it is proposed to Evangelical Theology. The End of this is
   (1.) God and Christ, (2.) the union of man with both of them, and (3.)
   the sight and fruition of both, to the glory of both Christ and God. On
   each of these particulars we have some remarks to make from the
   scriptures, and which most appropriately agree with, and are peculiar
   to, the Evangelical doctrine.

   But before we enter upon these remarks, we must shew that the salvation
   of man, to the glory of Christ himself, consists also in the love, the
   sight, and the fruition of Christ. There is a passage in the fifteenth
   chapter of the first Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians,
   which imposes this necessity upon us, because it appears to exclude
   Christ from this consideration. For in that place the apostle says,
   "When Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the
   Father, then the Son also himself shall be subject unto him, that God
   may be all in all." (1 Cor. xv. 24.) From this passage three
   difficulties are raised, which must be removed by an appropriate
   explanation. They are these: (1.) "If Christ `shall deliver up the
   kingdom to God, even the Father,' he will no longer reign himself in
   person." (2.) "If he `shall be subject to the Father,' he will no more
   preside over his Church:" and (3.) "If `God shall be all in all,' then
   our salvation is not placed in the union, sight and fruition of him." I
   will proceed to give a separate answer to each of these objections. The
   kingdom of Christ embraces two objects: The Mediatorial function of the
   regal office, and the Regal glory: The royal function, will be laid
   aside, because there will then be no necessity or use for it, but the
   royal glory will remain because it was obtained by the acts of the
   Mediator, and was conferred on him by the Father according to covenant.
   The same thing is declared by the expression "shall be subject," which
   here signifies nothing more than the laying aside of the super-eminent
   power which Christ had received from the Father, and which he had, as
   the Father's Vicegerent, administered at the pleasure of his own will:
   And yet, when he has laid down this power, he will remain, as we shall
   see, the head and the husband of his Church. That sentence has a
   similar tendency in which it is said, "God shall be ALL IN ALL." For it
   takes away even the intermediate and deputed administration of the
   creatures which God is accustomed to use in the communication of his
   benefits; and it indicates that God will likewise immediately from
   himself communicate his own good, even himself to his creatures.
   Therefore, on the authority of this passage, nothing is taken away from
   Christ which we have been wishful to attribute to him in this discourse
   according to the scriptures.

   This we will now shew by some plain and apposite passages. Christ
   promises an union with himself in these words, "If a man love me, he
   will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto
   him, and make our abode with him." (John xiv. 23.) Here is a promise of
   good: therefore the good of the Church is likewise placed in union with
   Christ; and an abode is promised, not admitting of termination by the
   bounds of this life, but which will continue for ever, and shall at
   length, when this short life is ended, be consummated in heaven. In
   reference to this, the Apostle says, "I desire to depart and to be with
   Christ;" and Christ himself says, "I will that they also whom thou hast
   given me, be with me where I am." (John xvii. 24.) John says, that the
   end of his gospel is, "that our fellowship may be with the Father and
   the Son;" (1 John i. 3,) in which fellowship eternal life must
   necessarily consist, since in another place he explains the same end in
   these words, "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus
   is the Christ: and that, believing, ye might have life through his
   name." (John xx. 31.) But from the meaning of the same Apostle, it
   appears, that this fellowship has an union antecedent to itself. These
   are his words, "If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall
   remain in you ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father." (1
   John ii. 24.) What! Shall the union between Christ and his Church cease
   at a period when he shall place before his glorious sight his spouse
   sanctified to himself by his own blood? Far be the idea from us! For
   the union, which had commenced here on earth, will then at length be
   consummated and perfected.

   If any one entertain doubts concerning the vision of Christ, let him
   listen to Christ in this declaration: "He that loveth me shall be loved
   of my Father; and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."
   (John xiv. 21.) Will he thus disclose himself in this world only? Let
   us again hear Christ when he intercedes with the Father for the
   faithful: "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be
   with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast
   given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."
   (John xvii. 34) Christ, therefore, promises to his followers the sight
   of his glory, as something salutary to them; and his Father is
   intreated to grant this favour. The same truth is confirmed by John
   when he says, "Then we shall see him as he is." (1 John iii. 2.) This
   passage may without any impropriety be understood of Christ, and yet
   not to the exclusion of God the Father. But what do we more distinctly
   desire than that Christ may become, what it is said he will be, "the
   light" that shall enlighten the celestial city, and in whose light "the
   nations shall walk?" (Rev. xxi. 23, 24.)

   Although the fruition of Christ is sufficiently established by the same
   passages as those by which the sight of him is confirmed, yet we will
   ratify it by two or three others. Since eternal felicity is called by
   the name of "the supper of the lamb," and is emphatically described by
   this term, "the marriage of the Lamb," I think it is taught with
   adequate clearness in these expressions, that happiness consists in the
   fruition or enjoyment of the Lamb. But the apostle, in his apocalypse,
   has ascribed both these epithets to Christ, by saying, "Let us be glad
   and rejoice, and give honour to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is
   come, and his wife hath made herself ready :" (Rev. xix. 7,) and a
   little afterwards, he says, "Blessed are they which are called to the
   marriage-supper of the Lamb." (verse 9.) It remains for us to treat on
   the glory of Christ, which is inculcated in these numerous passages of
   Scripture in which it is stated that "he sits with the Father on his
   throne," and is adored and glorified both by angels and by men in
   heaven.

   Having finished the proof of those expressions, the truth of which we
   engaged to demonstrate, we will now proceed to fulfill our promise of
   explanation, and to show that all and each of these benefits descend to
   us in a peculiar and more excellent manner, from Evangelical Theology,
   than they could have done from that which is Legal, if by it we could
   really have been made alive.

   2. And, that we may, in the first place, dispatch the subject of Union,
   let the brief remarks respecting marriage which we have just made, be
   brought again to our remembrance. For that word more appropriately
   honours this union, and adorns it with a double and remarkable
   privilege; one part of which consists of a deeper combination, the
   other of a more glorious title. The Scripture speaks thus of the deeper
   combination; "And the two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery:
   but I speak concerning Christ and the church!" (Ephes. v. 31, 32.) It
   will therefore be a connubial tie that will unite Christ with the
   church. The espousals of the church on earth are contracted by the
   agency of the brides-men of Christ, who are the prophets, the apostles,
   and their successors, and particularly the Holy Ghost, who is in this
   affair a mediator and arbitrator. The consummation will then follow,
   when Christ will introduce his spouse into his bride-chamber. From such
   an union as this, there arises, not only a communion of blessings, but
   a previous communion of the persons themselves; from which the
   possession of blessings is likewise assigned, by a more glorious title,
   to her who is united in the bonds of marriage. The church comes into a
   participation not only of the blessings of Christ, but also of his
   title. For, being the wife of the King, she enjoys it as a right due to
   her to be called QUEEN; which dignified appellation the scripture does
   not withhold from her. "Upon thy right hand stands the Queen in gold of
   Ophir:" (Psalm xlv. 9.) "There are three-score queens, and four-score
   concubines, and virgins without number. "My dove, my undefiled, is but
   one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her
   that bare her. The daughter saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens
   and the concubines; and they praised her." (Song of Sol. vi. 8, 9.) The
   church could not have been eligible to the high honour of such an
   union, unless Christ has been made her beloved, her brother, sucking
   the breasts of the same mother." (Cant. 8.) But there would have been
   no necessity for this union, "if righteousness and salvation had come
   to us by the law." That was, therefore, a happy necessity, which, out
   of compassion to the emergency of our wretched condition, the divine
   condescension improved to our benefit, and filled with such a plenitude
   of dignity! But the manner of this our union with Christ is no small
   addition to that union which is about to take place between us and God
   the Father. This will be evident to any one who considers what and how
   great is the bond of mutual union between Christ and the Father.

   3. If we turn our attention to sight or vision, we shall meet with two
   remarkable characters which are peculiar to Evangelical Theology.

   (1.) In the first place, the glory of God, as if accumulated and
   concentrated together into one body, will be presented to our view in
   Christ Jesus; which glory would otherwise have been dispersed
   throughout the most spacious courts of a "heaven immense;" much in the
   same manner as the light, which had been created on the first day, and
   equally spread through the whole hemisphere, was on the fourth day
   collected, united and compacted together into one body, and offered to
   the eyes as a most conspicuous and shining object. In reference to
   this, it is said in the Apocalypse, that the heavenly Jerusalem "had no
   need of the sun, neither of the moon; for the glory of God did lighten
   it, and the Lamb will be the future light thereof," (Rev. xxi. 23,) as
   a vehicle by which this most delightful glory may diffuse itself into
   immensity.

   (2.) We shall then not only contemplate, in God himself, the most
   excellent properties of his nature, but shall also perceive that all of
   them have been employed in and devoted to the procuring of this good
   for us, which we now possess in hope, but which we shall in reality
   then possess by means of this union and open vision.

   The excellence, therefore, of this vision far exceeds that which could
   have been by the law; and from this source arises a fruition of greater
   abundance and more delicious sweetness. For, as the light in the sun is
   brighter than that in the stars, so is the sight of the sun, when the
   human eye is capable of bearing it, more grateful and acceptable, and
   the enjoyment of it is far more pleasant. From such a view of the
   Divine attributes, the most delicious sweetness of fruition will seem
   to be doubled. For the first delight will arise from the contemplation
   of properties so excellent; the other from the consideration of that
   immeasurable condescension by which it has pleased God to unfold all
   those his properties, and the whole of those blessings which he
   possesses in the exhaustless and immeasurable treasury of his riches,
   and to give this explanation, that he may procure salvation for man and
   may impart it to his most miserable creature. This will then be seen in
   as strong a light, as if the whole of that which is essentially God
   appeared to exist for the sake of man alone, and for his solo benefit.
   There is also the addition of this peculiarity concerning it: "Jesus
   Christ shall change our vile body, [the body of our humiliation,] that
   it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body: (Phil. iii. 21,) and
   as we have borne the image of the earthy [Adam], we shall also bear the
   image of the heavenly." (1 Cor. xv. 49.) Hence it is, that all things
   are said to be made new in Christ Jesus; (2 Cor. v. 17,) and we are
   described in the scriptures as "looking, according to his promise, for
   new heavens and a new earth, (2 Pet. iii. 13,) and a new name written
   on a white stone, (Rev. ii. 17,) the new name of my God, and the name
   of the city of my God, which is the new Jerusalem, (Rev. iii. 12.) and
   they shall sing a new song to God and his Christ forever." (Rev. v. 9.)

   Who does not now see, how greatly the felicity prepared for us by
   Christ, and offered to us through Evangelical Theology excels that
   which would have come to us by "the righteousness of the law," if
   indeed it had been possible for us to fulfill it? We should in that
   case have been similar to the elect angels; but now we shall be their
   superiors, if I be permitted to make such a declaration, to the praise
   of Christ and our God, in this celebrated Hall, and before an assembly
   among whom we have some of those most blessed spirits themselves as
   spectators. They now enjoy union with God and Christ, and will probably
   be more closely united to both of them at the time of the "restitution
   of all things." But there will be nothing between the two parties
   similar to that Conjugal Bond which unites us, and in which we may be
   permitted to glory.

   They will behold God himself "face to face," and will contemplate the
   most eminent properties of his nature; but they will see some among
   those properties devoted to the purpose of man's salvation, which God
   has not unfolded for their benefit, because that was not necessary; and
   which he would not have unfolded, even if it had been necessary. These
   things they will see, but they will not be moved by envy; it will
   rather be a subject of admiration and wonder to them, that God, the
   Creator of both orders, conferred on man, (who was inferior to them in
   nature,) that dignity which he had of old denied to the spirits that
   partook with themselves of the same nature. They will behold Christ,
   that most brilliant and shining light of the city of the living God, of
   which they also are inhabitants: and, from this very circumstance their
   happiness will be rendered more illustrious through Christ. Christ
   "took not on him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham;" (Heb.
   ii, 16,) to whom also, in that assumed nature, they will present
   adoration and honour, at the command of God, when he introduces his
   First begotten into the world to come. Of that future world, and of its
   blessings, they also will be partakers: but "it is not put in
   subjection to them," (Heb. ii. 5,) but to Christ and his Brethren, who
   are partakers of the same nature, and are sanctified by himself. A
   malignant spirit, yet of the same order as the angels, had hurled
   against God the crimes of falsehood and envy. But we see how signally
   God in Christ and in the salvation procured by him, has repelled both
   these accusations from himself. The falsehood intimated an
   unwillingness on the part of God that man should be reconciled to him,
   except by the intervention of the death of his Son. His envy was
   excited, because God had raised man, not only to the angelical
   happiness, (to which even that impure one would have attained had "he
   kept his first estate,) but to a state of blessedness far superior to
   that of angels.

   That I may not be yet more prolix, I leave it as a subject of
   reflection to the devoted piety of your private meditations, most
   accomplished auditors, to estimate the vast and amazing greatness of
   the glory of God which has here manifested itself, and to calculate the
   glory due from us to him for such transcendent goodness.

   In the mean time, let all of us, however great our number, consider
   with a devout and attentive mind, what duty is required of us by this
   doctrine, which having received its manifestation from God and Christ,
   plainly and fully announces to us such a great salvation, and to the
   participation of which we are most graciously invited. It requires to
   be received, understood, believed, and fulfilled, in deed and in
   reality. It is worthy of all acceptation, on account of its Author; and
   necessary to be received on account of its End.

   1. Being delivered by so great an Author, it is worthy to be received
   with a humble and submissive mind; to have much diligence and care
   bestowed on a knowledge and perception of it; and not to be laid aside
   from the hand, the mind, or the heart, until we shall have "obta