08. Chapter 3. Personal grace in communion with the Lord Christ –

Chapter 3. Personal grace in communion with the Lord Christ –

(2.) The next thing to consider is the way we hold communion with the Lord Christ, in regard to that personal grace we spoke of. This is what the Scripture reveals to be a conjugal relationship. He is married to us, and we are married to him. This spiritual relationship is attended by suitable conjugal affections. And this is what gives us fellowship with him in his personal excellence. The spouse expresses this in Song of Solomon 2:16, “My Beloved is mine, and I am his.”

She is saying, “He is mine. I possess him. I have interest in him as my head and my husband; and I am his, possessed by him, owned by him, and given up to him. We are in a conjugal relationship.” In Isaiah 54:5, “Your Maker is your husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; he will be called the God of the whole earth.” This is the reason why the church will not be ashamed or confounded in the midst of her troubles and trials. She is married to her Maker, and her Redeemer is her husband. In Isaiah 61:10, the prophet sets out the mutual glory of Christ and his church in their walk together. He says it is “as a bridegroom dresses himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.” Such is their condition, because such is their relationship. He further expresses this in chap. 62:5, “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” As it is with a couple on the day of their espousals, in the gladness of their hearts, so it is with Christ and his saints in this relationship. He is a husband to them, providing for them according to the estate into which he has taken them. To this end we have his faithful engagement promise in Hosea 2:19-20. “I will betroth you to me forever; yea, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness.” This is the main design of the ministry of the gospel. It is to prevail with men to give themselves up to the Lord Christ as he reveals his kindness in this engagement. Hence, Paul tells the Corinthians that he “espoused them to one husband, that he might present them as a chaste virgin to Christ,”

2 Corinthians 11:2. He prevailed with them for this purpose by preaching the gospel, so that they would give up themselves as a virgin to the one who betrothed them to himself as a husband. This is a relationship in which the Lord Jesus exceedingly delights. He invites others to behold him in his glory. Cant. 3:14, “Go forth, O you daughters of Jerusalem, and behold King Solomon with the crown that his mother crowned him with on the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.”

He calls the daughters of Jerusalem (i.e. all sorts of professors of Christ) to consider him as he betroths his church. When they do, he tells them that they will discover two things about him:

1. Honor. It is the day of his coronation, and his spouse is the crown with which he is crowned. As Christ is a diadem of beauty, and a crown of glory to Zion, Isaiah 28:5, so Zion is also a diadem and a crown to him, Isaiah 62:3. Christ makes this relationship with his saints his glory and his honor.

2. Delight. The day of his espousals, of taking poor sinful souls into his heart, is a day of gladness in his heart. John was only the friend of the Bridegroom. He stood and heard Christ’s voice when he was taking his bride to himself; and yet he rejoiced greatly, John 3:29. How much more, then, is the joy and gladness of the Bridegroom himself! Zephaniah 3:17, “He rejoices with joy, he joys with singing.” The gladness of Christ’s heart, the joy of his soul, is to take poor sinners into this relationship with him. He rejoiced in thoughts of it from eternity, Proverbs 8:31, and he always expresses the greatest willingness to undergo the hard task required to do that, Psalms 40:7-8; Hebrews 10:7. He was pained like a woman in childbirth until he accomplished it, Luke 12:50. Because he loved his church, he gave himself for it, Ephesians 5:25. He despised the shame, and endured the cross, Hebrews 12:2. He did this so that he might enjoy his bride, that he might be for her, and she for him, and not for another, Hosea 3:3. This is joy: when his mother crowns him.

Believers are the mother and brother of this Solomon, Matthew 12:49-50. They crown him on the day of his espousals, giving themselves to him, and becoming his glory, 2 Corinthians 8:23.

He sets out his whole communion with his church under this frequent allusion to marriage. He takes the church to himself on the day of his marriage; the church is his bride, his wife, Revelation 19:7-8. The entertainment he provides for his saints is a wedding supper, Matthew 22:3. The graces of his church are the adornments of his queen, Psalms 45:9-14. And the fellowship he has with his saints is the same as that between mutually beloved spouses in a conjugal relationship, Song of Solomon 1. Hence Paul, in describing these two communal relationships, makes sudden and subtle transitions from the earthly to the spiritual in Ephesians 5, from verse 22 to verse 32.

He concludes by applying this relationship to Christ and the church. The next inquiry is how we hold communion in these conjugal relationships and affections, and what they consist of. In this, there are some things common to Christ and the saints, and some things unique to each, as the nature of this relationship requires. These fall into two parts: committing themselves to one another, and their consequential, conjugal affections for one another.

[1.] There is a mutual commitment to one another. This is the first act of communion under the personal grace of Christ. Christ makes the soul his, with all the love, care, and tenderness of a husband; and the soul gives itself wholly to the Lord Christ, to be his with all the loving, tender obedience required. In this we see the main part of the espousals between Christ and the saints. This is presented in a parable of himself and a harlot in Hosea 3:3.

“You shall abide for me;” he says to her. “You shall not be for another, and I will be for you.” “Poor harlot.” The Lord Christ says in effect, “I have bought you for myself with the price of my own blood; and now, this is what we will consent to: I will be for you, and you shall be for me, and not for another.

[2] There is consequential affection for one another.

(1st). Christ gives himself to the soul, with all his excellence, righteousness, preciousness, graces, and eminence. He does so to be its Savior, head, and husband, and to dwell with it forever in this holy relationship. He looks upon the souls of his saints, likes them well, and considers them fair and beautiful, because he has made them so. Song of Solomon 1:15, “Behold, you are fair, my companion; behold, you are fair; you have doves’ eyes.” Let others think what they please, Christ repeats that the souls of his saints are very beautiful, even perfect, through his own attractiveness that he puts upon them. Ezekiel 16:14, “Behold, you are fair, you are fair.” He remarks in particular that their spiritual light is excellent and glorious, like the eyes of a dove. It is tender, discerning, clear, and shining.

Therefore, he adds a touching wish to enjoy his spouse. Song of Solomon 2:14, “O my dove,” he pleads, “that is in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see your countenance, and let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet, and your countenance is attractive;” He is telling her, “Do not hide yourself like one that flies to the clefts of the rocks. Do not be dejected, like one that hides behind the stairs, and is afraid to enter the company of someone who asks for her. Do not let your spirit be cast down at the weakness of your supplications. Let me hear your sighs and groans, your breathing and pantings to me. They are very sweet, very delightful. Your spiritual countenance, your appearance in heavenly things, is attractive and delightful to me.” Nor does he leave her this way. In chap. 4:8 he presses her hard to come closer to him in this conjugal bond: “Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse… Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Herman, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards.” He is telling her, “Like the Israelites of old, you are wandering among lions and leopards, sins and troubles; come away from there to me, and I will give you refreshment,” Matthew 11:28. At this invitation, the spouse boldly concludes in Song of Solomon 7:10, that Christ desires her, that he does indeed love her, and that he aims to take her into this fellowship with him. So, in pursuing this union, Christ freely bestows himself upon the soul. Precious and excellent as he is, he becomes ours. He makes himself ours, along with all his graces. Hence, the spouse says, “‘My Beloved is mine; in all that he is, he is mine.” Because he is righteousness, he is “The LORD our Righteousness,” Jeremiah 23:6. Because he is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, he is “made wisdom to us...,” 1 Corinthians 1:30. Thus, “the branch of the LORD is beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth is excellent and attractive for those of Israel who escape,” Isaiah 4:2. This is the first thing done on the part of Christ. He freely donates himself to be our Christ, our Beloved, for all the purposes of love, mercy, grace, and glory. To this end, his mediation is designed for a marriage covenant that is never to be broken. In summation, the Lord Jesus Christ is fitted and prepared to be a husband to his saints, his church. This is accomplished by his being equipped as mediator, and by his large purchase of grace and glory. He tenders himself to the saints in the promises of the gospel, and in all of his desirability. He convinces them of his good will towards them, and his all-sufficiency to supply their wants. Upon consenting to accept him, which is all he requires or expects from them, he engages himself to be theirs forever in a marriage covenant.

(2ndly) What is required on the part of the saints is their free, willing consent to receive, embrace, and submit to the Lord Jesus as their husband, Lord, and Savior. They are to abide with him, subject their souls to him, and be ruled by him forever. This commitment is either initial, solemn consent when they are first united to Christ, or it is consequential consent, reflected in renewed acts of consent all of their days. I speak of it especially in this ongoing sense that applies to communion, rather than a single event which primarily applies to union.

There are two things that complete this commitment of the soul: (1.) Commitment means liking Christ for his excellence, grace, and suitability far above all other beloveds. It means preferring him in our judgment above all of them. In Song of Solomon 5:9, the spouse is earnestly pressed by other professors of Christ, to give her thoughts concerning the excellence of her Beloved compared to other loves. She expressly answers that he is “the chief of ten thousand,” 5:10,

“altogether lovely,” 5:16. He is infinitely beyond comparison with the choicest created good or affection imaginable. The soul views all that is in this world “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” and sees that it is all vanity. “The world passes away, and the lust of it,” 1 John 2:16-17. These other loves are not to be compared to Christ in any way. The soul also views legal righteousness, blamelessness before men, living uprightly, and duties of conviction; it draws the same conclusion that Paul did in Php 3:8, “Doubtless, I count all these things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” The church does the same in Hosea 14:3. It rejects all appearing assistance, whether as good as Asshur or as promising as idols, so that God alone may be preferred. This is our introduction to conjugal communion with Jesus Christ in personal grace. It means constantly preferring him above all pretenders to our affections. It is counting everything loss and dung in comparison to him.

Beloved peace, beloved natural relationships, beloved wisdom and learning, beloved righteousness, and beloved duties are all considered loss when compared with Christ.

(2.) Commitment means accepting Christ, by an act of the will, as our only husband, Lord, and Savior. This is called “receiving” Christ, John 1:12. It is not only the solemn act by which we first close with him, but the constant frame of mind to abide with him, and own him as our husband, Lord and Savior. We consent to take Christ on his own terms, and to be saved by him in his own way.

We say, “Lord, I would have taken you and salvation in my own way, so that I might have attained it in part by my own endeavors and works of the law. I am now willing to receive you and be saved by you in your way, which is merely by grace. Though I would have walked according to my own mind, I now give myself up to be entirely ruled by your Spirit. In you have I righteousness and strength. In you I am justified. And in you I glory.” Then we are carrying on communion with Christ in the grace of his person. This is receiving the Lord Jesus in his attractiveness and eminence. Believers should exercise their hearts in this commitment abundantly. This is having choice communion with the Son

Jesus Christ. Let us receive him in all his excellence as he bestows himself on us. We should be frequent in our thoughts of faith, comparing him with our other beloveds, with sin, the world, and legal righteousness. We should prefer him above all of those things, counting them loss and dung by comparison. We should be persuaded of his sincerity, of his willingness to give himself up for us, and of all that he is as our mediator. Let us give our hearts to him. Let us tell him that we will be for him, and not for another. Let him know it from us. He delights to hear it. In fact, he says, “Sweet is our voice, and our countenance is attractive” (Song of Solomon 2:14). We will not fail to receive sweet refreshment from him.

I will now turn aside to a fuller description of some of the personal excellences of the Lord Christ, which endear the hearts of his saints to him. These strengthen our hearts in committing ourselves to the Lord Christ as our husband, and they make way for stirring up those consequential conjugal affections that were mentioned earlier.

1. He is exceedingly excellent and desirable in his Deity and glory. He is “Jehovah our Righteousness,” Jeremiah 23:6. It is the reason for Zion’s rejoicing at his coming to her, “Behold your God!” Isaiah 40:9. “We have seen his glory,” says the apostle. What glory is that? “The glory of the only-begotten Son of God,” John 1:14. The best of the saints have been afraid and amazed at the beauty of an angel. The stoutest sinners have trembled at the glory of one of these creatures that present only the back parts of their glory. Yet angels themselves cover their faces at the presence of our Beloved. They are conscious of their utter disability to bear the rays of his glory, Isaiah 6:2; John 12:39-41. He is “the fellow of the Lord of hosts,” Zechariah 13:7. Though he once appeared in the form of a servant, yet “he thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” Php 2:6. In the glory of this majesty, he dwells in inaccessible light. We “cannot find out the extent of the Almighty by searching: it is as high as heaven; what can we do? It is deeper than hell; what can we know? The measure of it is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea,” Job 11:79. We may all say to one another, “Surely we are more brutish than any man, and do not have the understanding of a man. We neither learned wisdom, nor did we have the knowledge of the holy. Who has ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?

What is his name, and what is his Son’s name, if you can tell,” Proverbs 30:2-4.

If anyone should ask, as did those in the Canticles, what is in the Lord Jesus, our beloved, more than in other beloveds, that makes him so desirable, and amiable, and worthy of acceptance? What is he more than others? Then I will ask in return, “What is a king more than a beggar?” He is much more in every way; and yet there is nothing more. The king and beggar were born alike, and must die alike; after that is the judgment. “What is an angel more than a worm?” A worm is a creature, and an angel is a creature; God has made the one to creep in the earth, and the other to dwell in heaven. There is still a difference in extent between them. They may agree in some things, but compared to the infinite they are nothing. And what are all the nothings of the world to the God who is infinitely blessed forevermore? Will the dust in the balance, or the drop in the bucket, be placed in the scale against Christ? This is the one whom the sinners in Zion are afraid of, and who cry, “Who among us will dwell with the devouring fire, who among us will dwell with everlasting burnings?” I might give you a glimpse of his excellence in many of those properties and attributes by which he reveals himself to the faith of poor sinners. But it would be like someone who goes into a garden where there are innumerable flowers in great variety. He cannot take in all he sees, except one crop here and another there. I will try to open a door and give an inlet to the infinite excellence of the graces of the Lord Jesus as he is, “God blessed forevermore.” I will present the reader with one or two examples, leaving him to gather whatever else he pleases for his own use. So then, observe the endless, bottomless, boundless grace and compassion that is in the one who is our husband, as he is the God of Zion. All the grace that can possibly dwell at once in a created nature cannot serve our need. We are too indigent to be suited with such a supply. There was a fullness of grace in the human nature of Christ. He did not receive “the Spirit by measure,” John 3:34. It was a fullness like that of the light in the sun, or of the water in the sea as far as its sufficiency. It was a fullness incomparably above the measure of angels. Yet it was not properly an infinite fullness. It was a created, and therefore a limited fullness. If this grace could be separated from the Deity, then surely so many thirsty, guilty souls who drink deep and large draughts of grace and mercy from him every day, would drain him to the very bottom. It would be no supply at all, except in a moral way. But when the conduit of his humanity is inseparably united to the infinite, inexhaustible fountain of the Deity, who can look into its depths? If there is grace enough for sinners in an all-sufficient God, then it is in Christ. Indeed, there cannot be enough in anyone else. The Lord gives this reason for the peace and confidence of sinners in Isaiah 54:4-5, “You shall not be ashamed, neither be you confounded; for you shall not be put to shame.” But how will this be? So much sin, and not ashamed! So much guilt, and not confounded! “Your Maker,” he says, “is your husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; he will be called the God of the whole earth.” This is the basis of all peace, confidence, and consolation. This is the grace and mercy of our Maker, the God of the whole earth. Kindness and power are so tempered in him that he makes us, and he mars us he is our God and our Goel [OT:1350], our Redeemer. “Look to me,” he says, “and you will be saved; for I am God, and none else,” Isaiah 45:22, “Surely, one will say, ‘In the LORD I have righteousness’” verse 24.

It is on this ground that all the world should prepare to drink free grace, mercy, and pardon, drawing water continually from the wells of salvation. They should be prepared to draw from one single promise, which is an angel standing by crying, “Drink, O my friends. Drink abundantly. Take enough grace and pardon to suffice for the world of sin which is in every one of you.” They would not be able to deplete the grace of the promise one hair’s breadth. There is enough for millions of worlds, if they existed, because it flows from an infinite, bottomless fountain. “Fear not, O worm Jacob: I am God, and not man.” This is the basis of sinners’ consolation. This is that “head of gold” mentioned in Song of Solomon 5:11, that most precious fountain of grace and mercy. This infinite grace, as to its spring and fountain, will answer all objections that might hinder us from drawing close to communion with him, and from freely embracing him. Will it not suit us in all our distress? What is our finite guilt before it? Show me the sinner that can spread his iniquities to the same dimensions of this grace. Here is mercy enough for the greatest, the oldest, and the stubbornest transgressor. “Why will you die, O house of Israel?” Beware those who would rob you of the Deity of Christ. If grace for me was limited to what can be stored in a mere man, then I would rejoice to be under rocks and mountains (Revelation 6:16).

Hence, consider his eternal, free, unchangeable love. If the love of Christ for us were the love of a mere man, however excellent, innocent, and glorious, then it must have a beginning and an ending, and perhaps it would be fruitless. The love of Christ in his human nature towards his own is exceeding, intense, tender, precious, compassionate, abundantly heightened by a sense of our miseries, the feeling of our wants, and the experience of our temptations. It all flows from that rich stock of grace, pity, and compassion, which was bestowed on him on purpose, for our good and our supply. Yet this love, as such, cannot be infinite or eternal, nor from itself can it be absolutely unchangeable. If it were it no more than this, though it is not to be paralleled or fathomed, our Savior could not say, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you,” John 15:9. His love could not be compared with the divine love of the Father in those properties of eternity, fruitfulness, and unchangeableness, which are the chief anchors of the soul. Instead, his love is:

(1.) Eternal: “Come near to me and hear this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from that time, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, has sent me,” Isaiah 48:16. He is himself “yesterday, today, and forever,” Hebrews 13:8; and so is his love. It is the love of the one who is “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending, which is, was, and is to come,” Revelation 1:11.

(2.) Unchangeable. Our love is a reflection of ourselves as we are, and so are all our affections. The love of Christ is also a reflection of himself. We love someone one day, and hate him the next. He changes, and we also change.

Today he is our right hand, our right eye; the next day we say, “Cut him off, pluck him out.” But Jesus Christ is still the same, and so is his love. “In the beginning he laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of his hands; they will perish, but he remains, they all will wax old like a garment; and he will fold them up like a garment. They will be changed, but he is the same, and his years do not fail,” Hebrews 1:10-12. He is the LORD, and he changes not. Therefore we are not consumed. Whom he loves, he loves to the end. His love never had a beginning, and it will never have an ending.

(3.) Fruitful. It is fruitful in all its gracious issues and effects. A man may love another like he loves his own soul, yet perhaps that love cannot help the other.

He may pity him in prison, but not relieve him; he may bemoan him in misery, but not help him; he may suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him.

We cannot love grace into a child, nor can we love mercy into a friend. We cannot love them into heaven, even though it may be the great desire of our soul. It was love that made Abraham cry, “O that Ishmael might live before you!” but it may not be. But the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things that he wills for his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us into covenant, and he loves us into heaven. Love in him is willing good to someone. And whatever good Christ wills for someone by his love, his willingness effects that good.

These three qualifications make the love of Christ exceedingly eminent, and they make him exceedingly desirable. How many millions of sins has this love overcome in every one of the elect, each one enough to condemn them all! What mountains of unbelief has it removed! Look at the life of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities that contaminate it, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this is not to be admired. And is his love not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, flow from it every day! This is our Beloved, O you daughters of Jerusalem.

2. He is desirable and worthy of our acceptance as considered in his humanity. I will only note two things in this: (1.) His freedom from sin; (2.) His fullness of grace; in both of these, the Scripture portrays Christ as exceedingly lovely and amiable.

(1.) Christ was free from sin. He is the Lamb of God, without spot, and without blemish, the male of the flock to be offered to God. God’s curse falls on all other offerings, and on those who offer them, Malachi 1:14. The purity of the snow is not to be compared with the whiteness of this lily, of this rose of Sharon, even from the womb: “For such a high priest was fit for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners,” Hebrews 7:26. Sanctified people, whose stains are washed away in any measure, are exceedingly fair in the eye of Christ himself. “You are all fair my love,” he says, “you have no spot in you” Song of Solomon 4:7. How fair, then, is the one who never had the least spot or stain!

It is true that Adam had this spotless purity at his creation; so had the angels. But they came immediately from the hand of God, without any intervening cause of sin. Jesus Christ is a plant and root out of dry ground, a blossom from the stem of Jesse, a bud from the loins of sinful man. He was born of a sinner after there had been no innocent flesh in the world for four thousand years. Everyone on the roll of his genealogy was infected with it. To have a flower of wonderful rarity grow in paradise, in a garden of God’s own planting, and not be sullied in the least, is not so strange. But, as the psalmist says, to hear of such a flower growing in a wood, to find it in a forest, to have a spotless bud bloom in the wilderness of corrupted nature, is a thing which even angels desire to look into (1 Peter 1:12). This whole nature was not only defiled, but accursed; it was not only unclean, but guilty, guilty of Adam’s transgression in whom we have all sinned. That the human nature of Christ should be derived from this heritage and yet be free from guilt, free from pollution, is to be adored.

Objection. But you will say, “How can this be? Who can bring a clean thing from an unclean thing? How could Christ take our nature, and yet not its defilements and guilt? If Levi paid tithes in the loins of Abraham, how is it that Christ did not sin in the loins of Adam?”

Answer. There are two things in original sin:

[1.] There is the guilt of the first sin, which is imputed to us. We all sinned in him. “‘Eph hoi pantes hemarton,” Romans 5:12, whether we render it relatively “in whom,” or illatively, “being all have sinned.” It is all one. That one sin is the sin of us all. We were all in covenant with him. He was not only a natural head to us, but also a federal head. As Christ is to believers, Romans 5:17; 1 Corinthians 15:22, so Adam was to all of us; his transgression of that covenant is reckoned to us.

[2.] There is the derivation of a polluted and corrupted nature from him:

“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing?” “What is born of the flesh is flesh” and nothing else. Our wisdom and our mind are also corrupted, because a polluted fountain will have polluted streams. The first person had a corrupted nature, and that nature corrupts all succeeding generations.

Christ was free from both of these marks of original sin: 1st. He was never federally in Adam, and thus he was not liable to the imputation of Adam’s sin. It is true that sin was imputed to him when he was made sin. Thereby he took away the sin of the world, John 1:29. But it was imputed to him in the covenant of the Mediator, through his voluntary acceptance, not in the covenant of Adam by legal imputation. Had sin been reckoned to him as a descendant from Adam, he would not have been a fit high priest to offer sacrifices for us. He would not be “separate from sinners,” Hebrews 7:26. If Adam had stood in his innocence, Christ would not have been incarnate to be a mediator for sinners. Therefore, the need for his incarnation, morally, did not take place until after the fall. Though Christ was in Adam in a natural sense from his first creation, in respect to the purpose of God (Luke 3:23; Luke 3:38), he was not in Adam in a legal sense until after the fall. So, as to himself, Christ had no more to do with the first sin of Adam, than he did with the personal sin of anyone else whose punishment he voluntarily took upon himself. In the same way, we are not liable for the guilt of those who followed Adam, even though naturally we were no less in them than we were in him. Therefore, all the days of his flesh, Christ served the Father in a covenant of works. And in these works he was accepted by God, having done nothing to annul that covenant. This does not in the least take away from his perfection.

2nd. The pollution of our nature was prevented in Christ from the instant of conception. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you, therefore also that holy thing that will be born of you will be called the Son of God,” Luke 1:35. He was “made of a woman,” Galatians 4:4. But that portion of which was made was sanctified by the Holy Spirit, so that what was born would be a holy thing. The union of soul and body is how a man assumes his whole nature. In that union he is polluted by sin, being a son of Adam. Not only was this prevented by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit accompanied the very separation of his bodily substance in the womb to that sacred purpose for which it was set apart. Thus, on all accounts, he is “holy, harmless, undefiled.” Add to this that he “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,” 1 Peter 2:22; he “fulfilled all righteousness,” Matthew 3:15; because of his perfect obedience, his Father was always “well pleased” with him, verse 17; he charges his angels with folly, and being unclean in his sight.

Take all of this into account; and his excellence and desirability in this regard lies before us. Such he was, and such he is. And yet, for our sakes, he was content not only to be considered a transgressor by the vilest of men, but to undergo from God the punishment that was due to the vilest of sinners.

(2.) The fullness of grace in Christ’s human nature presents the amiableness and desirability of it. If I were to consider his perfection in this part of his excellence, it would all fit the purpose at hand. What he had from the womb, Luke 1:35, what grew and improved in their exercise in the days of his flesh, Luke 2:52, and the complement of them all in glory, affirm his desirability. I am only taking a view of these things in transit. Two things lie in open sight to all that consider them: all kinds of grace, and all degrees of grace, were in Christ. Both make up that fullness that was in him. It is created grace that I mean here, and therefore I speak of its kinds. It is grace that is inherent in a created nature, not an infinite nature; and therefore I speak of its degrees.

He did not receive the Holy Spirit, the fountain of grace, “by measure,” John 3:34. And as to the communications of the Spirit, “it pleased the Father that in him all fullness should dwell,” Colossians 1:19, “so that in all things he might have pre-eminence.” But these things are commonly known. This is the Beloved of our souls: “holy, harmless, undefiled,” and “full of grace and truth.” He is full to, • be sufficient for every purpose of grace;

• emulate, as an example of obedience to men and angels;

• provide certainty of uninterrupted communion with God;

• afford readiness in giving supply to others;

• suit him to all the occasions and necessities of the souls of men;

• obtain a glory not unbecoming a subsistence in the person of the Son of God;

• promise a perfect victory over all temptations in trials;

• render an exact correspondence to the whole law, every righteous and holy law of God;

• exhaust the utmost capacity of a limited, created, finite nature;

• reveal the greatest beauty and glory of a living temple of God;

• warrant the full pleasure and delight of his Father;

• establish an everlasting monument to the glory of God, who has given such inconceivable excellence to the Son of man. And this is the second thing to consider in endearing our souls to our Beloved.

3. Consider that he is all this in one person. We have not been speaking of two persons, God and man, but one person who is both God and man. The Word that was with God in the beginning, and was God, John 1:1, is also made flesh, verse 14. This was not done by converting himself into flesh, or by appearing in the outward shape and likeness of flesh. It was done by taking that holy thing that was born of the virgin, Luke 1:35, into a personal union with himself. So the

“mighty God” is a “child given to us,” Isaiah 9:6. That holy thing born of the virgin is called “The Son of God,” Luke 1:35. What made Christ Jesus a man was the union of soul and body, the subsistence of both united in the person of the Son of God. As to the proof for this, I have spoken of it elsewhere at large. I propose it only in general now to show the amiableness of Christ on its account. From this union arise the grace, peace, life, and security of the church, and of all believers. This may be clearly evinced by a few considerations:

(1.) By this union he was fit to suffer, and able to bear what was due to us. And he did so in that very act in which the “Son of man gave his life as a ransom for many,” Matthew 20:28. “God redeemed his church with his own blood,” Acts 20:28. In this was the “love of God seen, that he gave his life for us,” 1 John 3:16. On this account, there was room enough in his breast to receive the points of all the swords that were sharpened by the law against us. And there was strength enough in his shoulders to bear the burden of the curse that was due to us. From this he was so willing to undertake the work of our redemption, Hebrews 10:7-8, “Lo, I come to do your will, O God,” because he knew his ability to go through with it. Had he not been man, he could not have suffered. Had he not been God, his suffering could not have benefited either himself or us, because he could not have satisfied the infinite need. The suffering of a mere man could not bear any portion of what was infinite. The great and righteous God gathered together all the sins that had been committed by his elect from the foundation of the world, and he searched the hearts of all that were to come to the end of the world. He took them all, from the sin of their nature to the least deviation from the rectitude of his most holy law, the highest provocation of their regenerate and unregenerate conditions.

What if he had laid all of these on a mere holy, innocent creature? Oh, how would they have overwhelmed him, and buried him, forever out of the presence of God’s love! Therefore, the apostle premises the purging of our sin with this glorious description of him: “He has spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom he also made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power,” has “purged our sins,” Heb.

1:2, 3. It was him that purged our sins, who is the Son and heir of all things, and by whom the world was made. He was the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person. He did it, and he alone was able to do it. For this work, “God was manifested in the flesh,” 1 Timothy 3:16. The sword awoke against the companion of the Lord of hosts, Zechariah 13:7. By the wounds of that great shepherd, the sheep are healed, 1 Peter 2:24-25.

(2.) Hence, Christ becomes an endless, bottomless fountain of grace to all those who believe. The fullness that it pleased the Father to commit to Christ, to be the great treasury and storehouse of the church, did not, and does not, lie in his human nature itself. It lies in the person of the mediator, God and man.

Consider what his communication of grace consists of, and this will be evident. The foundation is laid in his satisfaction, merit, and purchase; these are the morally procuring cause of all the grace that we receive from Christ.

Hence, all grace becomes his; all the things of the new covenant, the promises of God, all the mercy, love, grace, and glory that was promised, became his. It is not as though they were all actually invested in or resided in his human nature, and were communicated to us by some portion of what inhered in that nature. But they are morally his, by a compact, to be bestowed by him as he thinks good, and as he is mediator, both God and man. He is the only begotten Son made flesh, John 1:14, “from whose fullness we receive, grace for grace.” The real communication of grace happens when Christ sends the Holy Spirit to regenerate us. The Spirit creates daily supplies in our hearts of all the habitual grace that we partake of. Being both God and man, Christ in his role as mediator sends the Holy Spirit, as declared at large in John chapters 14-16.

This, then, is what I mean by the fullness of grace that is in Christ, and from which we have both our beginning and all our supplies. This makes Christ, as the Alpha and Omega of his church, the beginner and finisher of our faith. He is excellent and desirable to our souls. Upon paying the great price of his blood, and gaining our full acquittal based on his satisfaction, all grace becomes his, in a moral sense. It is at his disposal. He bestows it on, or works it in, the hearts of his people by the Holy Spirit. And he does so according to his infinite wisdom and our need. Considering this, how glorious he is! What we deem most excellent is what best suits our needs when we are lacking.

What is excellent is what gives bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, and mercy to the perishing. All our relief is thus found in our Beloved. In him is the life of our souls, the joy of our hearts, our relief against sin, and our deliverance from the wrath to come.

(3.) Thus Christ is fitted to be a mediator, a days-man, an umpire between God and us. He is one with God, one with us, and one in himself, in the unity of one person. His ability and universal fitness for his office of mediator are regularly demonstrated. In this office he is “Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” In this office shines the infinitely glorious wisdom of God, which we may better admire than express. What person who is acquainted at all with these things does not fall down with reverence and astonishment?

How glorious is the Beloved of our souls! What is there that does not encourage us to take up our rest and peace in his heart? Unless we are so obstructed by unbelief that no consideration can relieve or refresh the heart, it is impossible not to be endeared to Christ by this. We should dwell on thoughts of it. This is the hidden mystery. It is great without controversy, and admirable to eternity. What poor, low, perishing things we contemplate! If we gained no advantage by this astonishing dispensation, its excellence, glory, beauty, and depths would still deserve the flower of our inquiries, the vigor of our spirits, and the substance of our time. But when our life, peace, joy, inheritance, eternity -when our all -lies in this very thing, will not thoughts of it always dwell in our hearts? Will they not always refresh and delight our souls?

(4.) Christ is excellent and glorious in the fact that he is exalted, and invested with all authority. When Jacob heard of the exaltation of his son Joseph in Egypt, and saw the chariots that Joseph sent for him, his spirit fainted and recovered again. This was because of his abundant joy and other overwhelming affections. Is our Beloved lost, who came to earth for our sakes, who was poor and persecuted, reviled, and killed? No! He was dead, but he is now alive, and he lives forever. He has the keys of hell and death. Our Beloved has been made a lord and ruler, Acts 2:36. He is made a king.

God sets his king on his holy hill of Zion, Psalms 2:6. He is crowned with honor and dignity after he has been “made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death,” Hebrews 2:7-9. And what is he made king of? “All things are put in subjection under his feet,” verse 8. And what power does our Beloved have over them? “All power in heaven and earth,” Matthew 28:18. As for men, he has been given power “over all flesh,” John 17:2. And in what glory does he exercise this power? He gives eternal life to his elect; ruling them in the power of God, Micah 5:4, until he brings them to himself. For his enemies, his arrows are sharp in their hearts, Psalms 45:5. He dips his vesture in their blood. Oh, how glorious he is in his authority over his enemies! In this world he terrifies, frightens, awes, convinces, and bruises their hearts and consciences. He fills them with fear, terror, and disquiet, until they yield him feigned obedience. Sometimes, with outward judgments, he bruises, breaks, and turns the wheel upon them. He stains all his vesture with their blood, and fills the earth with their caresses. At the last, he will gather them all together – beast, false prophet, nations, etc. – and cast them into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. In his authority, he is gloriously exalted above angels, good and bad, Ephesians 1:20-22, “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in what is to come.” They are all under his feet; they are at his command and absolute disposal. He is at the right hand of God, the highest exaltation possible. Having received a “name above every name...” he is in full possession of a kingdom over the whole creation, Php 2:9. Thus he is glorious in his • his throne which is at “the right hand of the majesty on high;”

• his commission, which is being granted “all power in heaven and earth;”

• his name, which is a name above every name, “Lord of lords, and King of kings;”

• his scepter, “a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of his kingdom;”

• his attendants, “his chariots are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels,” among them he rides on the heavens, and sends out the voice of his strength, attended with ten thousand times ten thousand of his holy ones;

• his subjects, all creatures in heaven and in earth, nothing is left that is not put in subjection to him;

• his way of rule, and the administration of his kingdom, full of sweetness, efficacy, power, serenity, holiness, righteousness, and grace, in and towards his elect, full of terror, vengeance, and certain destruction towards the rebellious angels and men;

• the issue of his kingdom, when every knee will bow before him, and all will stand before his judgment-seat. And what a small portion of his glory we have pointed to! This is the beloved of the church. He is its head, and its husband. This is the one with whom we have communion. But I will treat the whole exaltation of Jesus Christ at large elsewhere.

Having specified these general motives for communion with Christ, taken from his excellence and perfection, I will reflect on the description of him that is given by the spouse in Song of Solomon 5:10-16,

“My Beloved is white and ruddy, the best among ten thousand. His head is like most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are like the eyes of doves by rivers of water, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are like a bed of spices, like sweet flowers. His lips are like lilies, dripping sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are like gold rings, set with beryl. His belly is like bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are like pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is like Lebanon, as excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet. He is altogether lovely. This is my Beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.” The general description given of him in verse 10 has been considered before. The ensuing particulars are examples to prove the assertion that he is “the best among ten thousand.” The spouse begins with his head and face, verses 11-13. She speaks in general to its substance. It is “fine gold.” Then she speaks in particular to its adornments, “his locks are bushy, and black as a raven.”

1. “His head is as the most one gold,” or, “His head gold, solid gold;” some translate it, “made of pure gold;” others say, “chrusion kefale” [NT:5553,2776 top gold]; the LXX retain part of both Hebrew words, “ketem paz,” rendering them “massa auri” [OT:3800,6337 heavy gold].

Two things are eminent in gold: splendor (glory), and duration. This is how the spouse speaks of the head of Christ. His head is his government, authority, and kingdom. Hence it is said, “A crown of pure gold was on his head,” Psalms 21:3. His head is said to be gold because of the crown of gold that adorns it. The monarchy in Daniel was most eminent for its glory and duration, and so it is termed a “head of gold,” Daniel 2:38. And these two things are eminent in the kingdom and authority of Christ:

(1.) It is a glorious kingdom. Christ is full of glory and majesty, and in his majesty he rides “prosperously,” Psalms 45:3-4. “His glory is great in the salvation of God: honor and majesty are laid upon him: he is made blessed forever and ever,” Psalms 21:5-6. I might insist that nothing renders a kingdom or government glorious except that it is of Christ in all its excellence. It is a heavenly, spiritual, universal, and shaken kingdom; all of which render it glorious.

(2.) It is durable, firm solid gold. “His throne is forever and ever,” Psalms 45:6;

“of the increase of his government there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever,” Isaiah 9:7. “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,” Daniel 7:27, “a kingdom that will never be destroyed,” chap. 2:44; for he must reign until all his enemies are subdued. This is the head of gold: the splendor and eternity of his government. And if you take the head in a natural sense, either it refers to the glory of his Deity, or the fullness and excellence of his wisdom (which the head is the seat of). The allegory is not to be limited as long as we keep to the analogy of faith.

2. For the adornments of his head, his locks are said to be “bushy,” or curled.

They are “black as a raven.” This is added to illustrate the blackness without any allusion to the nature of the raven. Take the head spoken of in a political sense: his locks of hair are said to be curled, as if entangled, but really falling in perfect order and beauty, like bushy locks. These are his thoughts, counsels, and ways in administering his kingdom. They are black or dark because of their depth and unsearchableness, just as God is said to dwell in thick darkness. They are curled or bushy because of their exact interweavings, speaking of his infinite wisdom. His thoughts are many as the hairs of the head, seemingly perplexed and entangled, but really set in an attractive order, just like curled bushy hair. It is deep and unsearchable, dreadful to his enemies, but full of beauty and attractiveness to his beloved. Such are the thoughts of his heart, and the counsels of his wisdom, in reference to the administrations of his kingdom. They are dark, perplexed, and involved to a carnal eye. They are deep, manifold, ordered, attractive, and desirable in themselves, and to his saints. In a natural sense, black and curled locks denote attractiveness, and vigor of youth. In the execution of his counsels, and in all his ways, the strength and power of Christ appears glorious and lovely. The next thing described is his eyes. Verse 12, “His eyes are as the eyes of doves by rivers of water, washed with milk, and fitly set.” The reason for this allusion is obvious: doves are tender birds, not birds of prey. Of all other birds, they have the brightest, shining, and piercing eye. Their delight in streams of water is known. Being washed in milk, or clear, white, crystal water, adds to their beauty. And their eyes here are said to be “fitly set.” That is, they are in due proportion of beauty and luster, as a precious stone in the fullness of a ring, as the word signifies.

Eyes are for sight, discerning, knowledge, and acquaintance with the things that are seen; the knowledge, understanding, and discerning Spirit of Christ Jesus are intended here. In the allusion, four things are ascribed to the eyes: 1. Tenderness; 2. Purity; 3. Discerning; and, 4. Glory.

1. Tenderness the tenderness and compassion of Christ towards his church is intended here. He looks on it with the eyes of galley doves; he looks with tenderness and careful compassion; he looks without anger, fury, or thoughts of revenge. This is how the eye interpreted in Deuteronomy 11:12, “The eyes of the LORD your God are upon that land.” Why? “It is a land that the LORD your God cares for.” And he cares for it in mercy. So are the eyes of Christ on us, the eyes of one who cares for us in tenderness, who lays out his wisdom, knowledge, and understanding with tender love, on our behalf. He is the foundation-stone of the church on which “are seven eyes,” Zechariah 3:9. In these eyes are perfection of wisdom, knowledge, care, and kindness to guide him.

2. Purity as pure as washed doves’ eyes. This may be taken either subjectively, for the excellence and immixed cleanness and purity of his sight and knowledge in himself, or it can be taken objectively, for delighting to behold purity in others. “He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,” Habakkuk 1:13. “He has no pleasure in wickedness; the foolish will not stand in his sight,” Psalms 5:4-5. The righteous soul of Lot was distressed by seeing the filthy deeds of wicked men (2 Peter 2:8). And he had eyes of flesh in which there was a mixture of impurity.

How much more do the pure eyes of our dear Lord Jesus abominate all the filthiness of sinners! But in this lies the excellence of his love for us. He carefully takes away our filth and stains so that he may delight in us. Seeing that we are so defiled, and that it could not be done another way, he removes it by his own blood. “Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish” Ephesians 5:25-27. The purpose of this undertaking is so that the church may be gloriously presented to himself, because he is of purer eyes than to behold it with joy and delight in any other condition. He does not leave his spouse until he can say of her, “You are all fair, my love; there is no spot in you,” Song of Solomon 4:7. Partly, he takes away our spots and stains by the “renewing of the Holy Spirit.” And wholly, he adorns us with his own righteousness.

3. Discerning. He sees as doves see: quickly, clearly, thoroughly, and to the bottom of what he looks upon. Hence, in another place it is said that his “eyes are like a flame of fire,” Revelation 1:14. Why? So that the churches might know that he is the one who “searches the reins and hearts,” Revelation 2:23. He has discerning eyes. Nothing is hidden from him. All things are open and naked before the one with whom we have to deal. It is said of him, while he was in this world, that

“Jesus knew all men, and did not need the testimony of men, for he knew what was in a man,” John 2:24-25. His piercing eyes look through all the thick coverings of hypocrites, and their show of pretence. He sees the inside of all; and what men are inside, they are that to him. He does not see as we see. Instead, he ponders the hidden man of the heart. No humble, broken, and contrite soul will lose one sigh or groan in pursuit of him, or in communion with him. No pant of love or desire is hidden from him. He sees what is kept in secret. No performance of the most glorious hypocrite will prevail with him. His eyes look through all, and the filth of their hearts lies naked before him.

4. Beauty as well as glory is intended here. Everything of Christ is beautiful, for he is “altogether lovely,” verse 16. But he is most glorious in his sight and wisdom. He is the wisdom of God’s eternal wisdom itself; his understanding is infinite. Our knowledge is spotted and stained! Even when it is perfect, it will still be finite and limited. His is without a spot of darkness, and without the foil of limitation.

Thus, he is beautiful and glorious. His “head is of gold, his eyes are doves’ eyes, washed in milk, and fitly set.” The next thing insisted on is his cheeks. Verse 13, “His cheeks are like a bed of spices; like sweet flowers,” or “towers of perfumes” [marginal reading], or well-grown flowers. There are three things evidently pointed at in these words: 1. A sweet savor, as from spices, flowers, or towers of perfume; 2. Beauty and order, like spices set in rows or beds, as the words imply; 3. Eminence in that characteristic, such as sweet, well grown, or great flowers.

These things are in the cheeks of Christ. The Chaldee paraphrase, which applies this whole song to God’s dealings with the people of the Jews, makes these cheeks with the lines that are drawn in them to be the two tablets of stone. But that allusion is strained, as are most conjectures of that scholiast. The cheeks of a man are the seat of his attractiveness and manlike courage. The attractiveness of Christ is from his fullness of grace in himself for us. His manly courage respects the administration of his rule and government from his fullness of authority. This attractiveness and courage are called the husband’s cheeks by his spouse. She describes him as a beautiful, desirable person, to show that spiritually he is so. And to his cheeks she ascribes,

1. A sweet savor, order, and eminence. God is said to smell a sweet savor from the grace and obedience of his servants. In Genesis 8:21, the LORD smelled a savor of rest from the sacrifice of Noah. In the same way, the saints smell a sweet savor from God’s grace laid up in Christ, Song of Solomon 1:3. It is what they rest in, delight in, and are refreshed with. The smell of aromatic spices and flowers pleases the natural sense, refreshes the spirits, and delights the person. Likewise, the graces of Christ please the saints’ spiritual sense, refresh their drooping spirits, and give delight to their souls. If Christ is close to them, they smell his raiment, as Isaac smelled the raiment of Jacob. They say, “It is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed,” Genesis 27:27; and their souls are refreshed with it.

2. Order and beauty are like spices set in a garden bed. So are the graces of Christ. When spices are set in order, anyone may recognize what is useful, and gather it accordingly. Complementing one another makes them beautiful. So too are the graces of Christ. In the gospel they are presented distinctly and in order, so that sinners may view them by faith, and take from him according to their need. They are ordered for the use of saints in the promises of the gospel. There is light, and life, and power in him, and there is all consolation in him a constellation of graces, shining with glory and beauty. Believers take a view of them all, see their glory and excellence, but fix especially on what is most useful to them in their present condition. One may take light and joy, while another takes life and power. By faith and prayer, they take and gather these things in this bed of spices. No one who comes to Christ goes away unrefreshed. What may they not take, and what may they not gather? What is it that the poor soul wants? Behold, it is provided here, and laid out in order in the promises of the gospel. These promises are like the beds in which these spices are planted for our use. Thus, the covenant is said to be “ordered in all things,” 2 Samuel 23:5.

3. Eminence. His cheeks are “a tower of perfumes” held up, made conspicuous, visible, and eminent. So it is with the graces of Christ when they are held out and lifted up in the preaching of the gospel. They are a tower of perfumes, a sweet savor to God and man. The next clause of that verse is, “His lips are like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh.” Two natural perfections are alluded to here: First, the glory of color in the lilies, and second, the sweetness of savor in the myrrh. The glory and beauty of the lilies in those countries was such that our Savior tells us, “Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of them,” Matthew 6:29. The savor of myrrh was such that when the Scripture presents things of an excellent savor, it compares them to the sweetness of myrrh (Psalms 45:8). The sweet and holy ointment was chiefly made from it, Exodus 30:23-25. Mention is frequently made of it in other places for the same purpose. It is said of Christ that “grace was poured into his lips,” Psalms 45:2. Men wondered or were amazed by the words of grace that proceeded out of his mouth “tois logois tes charitos,” [Luke 4:22]. So what is meant by the lips of Christ dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, is the savor, excellence, and usefulness of the word of Christ. In this he is excellent and glorious indeed. The glory, beauty, and usefulness of his word surpasses the excellence of those natural things that are most precious in their own way.

Hence, those who preach his word to save the souls of men, are said to be a “sweet savor to God,” 2 Corinthians 2:15, and the savor of the knowledge of God is said to be manifested by them, verse 14. I could insist on several properties of myrrh, to which the word of Christ is compared here: its bitterness in taste, its ability to preserve from spoiling, its use in perfumes and unctions; but I only insist on generalities. What the Holy Spirit means is that the word of Christ is sweet, savory, and precious to believers. They see him as excellent, desirable, and beautiful in the precepts, promises, exhortations, and bitter threats of his word. The spouse adds that, “His hands are as gold rings set with beryl,” verse 14. The word “beryl,” in the original, is “Tarshish,” which the Septuagint has retained. It does not restrict it to any particular precious stone; some say onyx; others say chrysolite. It is any precious stone shining with a sea-green color, for the word also signifies the sea. Gold rings set with precious, glittering stones, are both valuable and desirable for profit and adornment. So are the hands of Christ. That is, all the works of his hands the effects, by the cause. All of his works are glorious. They are all fruits of his wisdom, love, and bounty.

“And his belly is as bright ivory, overlaid with sapphires.” The smoothness and brightness of ivory, the preciousness and heavenly color of the sapphires, give luster to the excellence of Christ. This is what is compared to his belly, or rather his bowels (which includes the heart). It is the inward bowels, and not the outward bulk that is signified. It is unnecessary to show that affections are what is meant by “bowels” in the Scripture, whether ascribed to God or man. The tender love, and the unspeakable affections and kindness of Christ to his church and his people, is thus represented. What a beautiful sight it is to the eye, to see pure polished ivory set up and down with heaps of precious sapphires! How much more glorious are the tender affections, mercies, and compassion of the Lord Jesus to believers!

Verse 15. The strength of his kingdom, the faithfulness and stability of his promises, his height and glory in his dominion, the sweetness and excellence of communion with him, is represented in these words: “His legs are like pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold; his countenance is like Lebanon, as excellent as its cedars: his mouth is most sweet.” When the spouse has gone this far in describing him, she concludes with this general assertion: “He is wholly desirable, altogether to be desired or beloved.”

She could have said, “I have considered some things of greatest value, price, usefulness, beauty, and glory here below, and compared some of the excellences of my Beloved to them. I can go no higher. I find nothing better or more desirable to compare with him, or to represent his loveliness and desirability. All of this comes short of his perfection, beauty, and attractiveness. ‘He is all wholly to be desired, to be beloved.’”

He is lovely in his person, in the glorious all-sufficiency of his Deity, in the gracious purity and holiness of his humanity, in his authority and majesty, and in his love and power.

He is lovely in his birth and incarnation. When he was rich, he became poor for our sakes, taking on flesh and blood because we partook of the same. He was made of a woman, so that he might be made under the law for us, and for our sakes.

He is lovely in the whole course of his life. He exercised more than angelic holiness and obedience in the depth of poverty and persecution. For doing good, he received evil. For giving blessings, he was cursed, reviled, and reproached all his days.

He is lovely in his death, and in that he was most lovely to sinners. He was never more glorious and desirable than when he came broken and dead from the cross. For then he had carried all our sins into a land of forgetfulness; then he had restored peace and reconciled us; then he had procured life and immortality for us.

He is lovely in his whole undertaking, in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. He was a mediator between God and us to recover the glory of God’s justice, and to save our souls. We, who were set at such an infinite distance from God by sin, were brought near to God to enjoy him.

He is lovely in the glory and majesty with which he is crowned. Now he has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. There, although he is terrible to his enemies, he is full of mercy, love, and compassion towards his beloved ones.

He is lovely in all those supplies of grace and consolation, in all the dispensations of his Holy Spirit, of which his saints partake.

He is lovely in all the tender care, power, and wisdom that he exercises to protect, safe-guard, and deliver his church and his people in the midst of all the opposition and persecution to which they are exposed.

He is lovely in all his ordinances, and the whole of that spiritually glorious worship which he has appointed to his people, and by which they draw close and have communion with him and his Father.

He is lovely and glorious in the vengeance he takes, and will finally execute, upon the stubborn enemies of himself and his people.

He is lovely in the pardon that he has purchased and dispenses, in the reconciliation that he has established, in the grace he communicates, in the consolation he administers, in the peace and joy he gives his saints, and in his assured preservation of them to glory.

What will I say? There is no end of his excellence and desirability. “He is altogether lovely. This is our beloved, and this is our friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.” A second consideration of the excellence of Christ will endear the hearts of those who stand with him in this conjugal relationship. It arises from what is the great darling of men who misapprehend it. In its true conception, it is the great aim of the saints. And this is wisdom and knowledge. Let it be made clear that all true and solid knowledge is only found in, and attained from, the Lord Jesus Christ. The hearts of men must be engaged to him if they are to be true to themselves and their most predominate principles. This is the great design of all men, once they are freed from their professed slavery to the world, and the pursuit of sensual, licentious courses. It is so that they may be wise. The ways that men generally use to pursue that end will be considered later. The purpose of this digression is to show that all wisdom is laid up in Christ, and that it is to be obtained from him alone. This is to the glory and honor of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, and to establish our hearts in communion with him. In 1 Corinthians 1:24, the Holy Spirit tells us that “Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” This is not referring to the essential Wisdom of God that results from being the eternal Son of the Father. For that reason he is called

“Wisdom” in the Proverbs, chap. 8:22-23. Instead, it refers to the wisdom of God that results from his being crucified, verse 23. As he is crucified, so he is the wisdom of God. That is, all the wisdom that God has presented to discover and manifest himself, and to save sinners, the wisdom that makes foolish all the wisdom of the world, is in Christ crucified. It is held out in him, and by him; and it can be obtained only from him. And thereby we see the glory of God in him, 2 Corinthians 3:18. For he is not only said to be “the wisdom of God,” but he is also

“made wisdom to us,” 1 Corinthians 1:30. He is made wisdom to us not by creation, but by ordination and appointment. He not only teaches us wisdom as the great prophet of his church, but we become acquainted with the wisdom of God by knowing Christ. This is our wisdom. However promised, wisdom can only be obtained this way. The sum of what is contended for is asserted in Colossians 2:3, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

There are two things that might seem to be colored with wisdom: civil wisdom or prudence in managing our affairs, and our ability in learning and literature. But God rejects both of these as having no use at all to the end of true wisdom. In the world, there is what is called “understanding,” but it comes to nothing.

There is what is called “wisdom,” but it becomes folly. “God brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent, and makes foolish this wisdom of the world,”

1 Corinthians 1:19-20. If there is neither wisdom nor knowledge without the knowledge of God (Jeremiah 8:9), then it is all contained in the Lord Jesus Christ: “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the heart of the Father, has revealed him.” God is not seen at any other time, John 1:18, nor is he known by any other means, than by the revelation of the Son. The Son manifests God from his own heart, and therefore it is said that he is “the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world,” verse 9. He is the true Light, which he has in himself. No one has any light except from him. All who come to him have it.

All who do not come to him remain in darkness. More will be said of this human wisdom later.

FIRST, all true wisdom and knowledge are summed up in these three areas: I. The knowledge of God, his nature, and his properties; II. The knowledge of ourselves in reference to God’s will concerning us; and III. The skill to walk in communion with God:

I. The knowledge of the works of God, and the chief end of all, necessarily accompany all three.

1. In these three is summed up all true wisdom and knowledge; and, 2. None of them has any purpose, is obtained or manifested, except in and by the Lord Christ.

1. By the work of creation, and by creation itself, God revealed many of his properties to his creatures who are capable of his knowledge. His power, goodness, wisdom, and all-sufficiency are thereby known. The apostle asserts this in Romans 1:19-21. He calls it “to gnoston tou Theou,” that is, his eternal power and Godhead (verse 20). In verse 21, he asserts that knowing God comes by the creation. Yet, there are some properties of God that all the works of creation cannot reveal or make known, such as his patience, long-suffering, and forbearance. All things being made good, there was no place to exercise or manifest any of these properties. The whole fabric of heaven and earth alone, as first created, will not reveal such things as patience and forbearance in God. Yet, they are eminent properties of his nature. God himself proclaims this in Exodus 34:6-7 : “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

Therefore, the Lord goes further. He also reveals these properties by the works of his providence, in preserving and ruling the world that he made. By cursing the earth, and filling all the elements with signs of his anger and indignation, he has “revealed from heaven his wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,” Romans 1:18. By not immediately destroying all things, he has manifested his patience and forbearance to all. Paul tells us in Acts 14:16-17 that, “He suffered all nations to walk in their own ways; yet he sent a witness to his doing good; he gave rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness.” In Psalms 104, the psalmist gives us a large account of God’s goodness and wisdom. By these ways he gave witness to his own goodness and patience. And so it is said, “He endures with much long-suffering...” Romans 9:22. But now we are at a standstill. By all this, we have only an obscure glimpse of God, seeing not so much as his back parts. Moses did not see that until he was put into the rock; and that rock was Christ. We cannot even glimpse some of the most eminent and glorious properties of God apart from the Lord Christ. We see them only by and in him. Some we have no light of except in him, and all the rest we have no true light except by him:

(1.) Of the first sort are love and pardoning mercy. We cannot even imagine these in our heart except by Christ:

[1.] Love; I mean love to sinners. Without this, man is the most miserable of all creatures. We cannot have the least glimpse of it but in Christ. The

Holy Spirit says in 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16 that “God is love.” That is, he is not only of a loving and tender nature, but he is one who will exercise himself in a dispensation of his eternal love towards us. He is one who has purposes of love for us from of old, and will fulfill them all towards us in due season. But how is this demonstrated? How may we become acquainted with it?

He tells us in verse 9, “In this was manifested the love of God, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” This is the only revelation that God has made of any such a property in his nature, or of any thought that he would exercise it towards sinners. It is revealed in the fact that he has sent Jesus Christ into the world that we might live by him. Where now is the wise, the scribe, the disputer of this world, with all their wisdom? Their voice must be that of the hypocrites in Zion, Isaiah 33:14-15. Wisdom that cannot teach me that God is love will always pass for folly. Let men point to the sun, moon, and stars, or to showers of rain and fruitful seasons, and tell what they learn of this love by them. Men should not think themselves wiser or better than those who went before them, who, to a man, got nothing by these things, but were left without excuse.

[2.] Pardoning mercy, or grace. Without this, even God’s love would be fruitless. The only discovery of this grace that a sinful man can make may be seen in the father of us all. When Adam sinned, he had no reserve for mercy, but hid himself instead, Genesis 3:8. He did it “leruach hayom,”

[OT:7307, 3117] when the wind blew a little at the presence of God. He did it foolishly, thinking to “hide himself among trees!” Psalms 139:7-8. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” John 1:17. Pardoning mercy comes by Christ alone. It is that pardoning mercy which is manifested in the gospel, and in which God will be glorified to all eternity, Ephesians 1:6. I do not mean general mercy, which is that wish for acceptance or “pathos” that some put their hopes in. If we ascribe such a feeling to God, it would be the greatest dishonor that can be done to him. Not one ray of pardoning mercy shines outside of Christ. It is completely treasured in him, and revealed by him. Pardoning mercy is God’s free, gracious acceptance of a sinner upon satisfaction of God’s justice in the blood of Jesus. We cannot discover it without this satisfaction of justice, consistent with the glory of God. It is a mercy of inconceivable condescension in forgiveness, tempered with exact justice and severity. In Romans 3:25, God is said “to set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness in the remission of sins.” His righteousness is also manifested in the business of forgiveness of sins.

Therefore, it is said to be wholly in Christ, Ephesians 1:7. He alone purchases this gospel grace and pardoning mercy, and it is revealed in him alone. The main purpose of all typical institutions was to manifest that remission and forgiveness is wholly wrapped up in the Lord Christ. Apart from him there is not the least conjecture that we can make of it, nor can we taste the least morsel of it. If God had not sent the Lord Christ, all the angels in heaven and all the men on earth could not have imagined anything like this grace of pardoning mercy in the nature of God. The apostle asserts that the full manifestation and exercise of this mercy is in Christ alone. “After that, the kindness and love of God our Savior towards man appeared,” Titus 3:4-5. That is, it appeared in sending Christ, and in the declaration of him in the gospel. Then this pardoning mercy and our salvation apart from works were discovered.

These are of the properties of God by which he will be known. They cannot be glimpsed except by and in Christ. Whoever knows him without these properties does not know him at all. They know an idol, not the only true God. “He that has not the Son, has not the Father,” 1 John 2:23. Not to have God as a Father is not to have him at all. And he is known as a Father only as he is love, and full of pardoning mercy in Christ. The Holy Spirit tells us how this knowledge is to be had in 1 John 5:20. “The Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know the one who is true.” By him alone we gain the understanding necessary to know the one who is true.

Now, Christ reveals these properties of God in his doctrine, in the revelation that he makes of God and his will as the great prophet of the church, John 17:6. Through this doctrine, the knowledge of these properties is exposed to all. It is done with evidence far surpassing what the creation can reveal of his eternal power and Godhead. But the life of this knowledge lies in being acquainted with the person of Jesus Christ in whom the express image and beams of his Father’s glory shine forth, Hebrews 1:3.

(2.) There are other properties of God that can be discovered apart from Christ, but they are clearly, eminently, and savingly discovered only in Jesus Christ. For example, [1.] His vindictive justice in punishing sin;

[2.] His patience, forbearance, and long-suffering towards sinners;

[3.] His wisdom in managing things for his own glory;

[4.] His all-sufficiency in himself and to others.

All of these, though they may have inferior manifestations outside of Christ, clearly shine only in him. Thus it may be wise to be acquainted with them.

[1.] His vindictive justice - God has manifested his indignation and anger against sin in many ways. Men cannot help but know that it is “the judgment of God, that those who commit such things are worthy of death,”

Romans 1:32. In the law he has threatened to kindle a fire in his anger that will burn to the very heart of hell. And even in many providential dispensations, “his wrath is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness of men,” Romans 1:18. Men must confess that he is a God of judgment. The angels were cast from heaven for their sin, shut up under chains of everlasting darkness to the great judgment day. Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown and burned to ashes so they might be “examples to those who would thereafter live in ungodliness,” 2 Peter 2:6.

Someone who only considers these things will discover much of God’s vindictive justice, and his anger against sin. But this shines far more clearly into us in the Lord Christ:

1st. In Christ, God has manifested the naturalness of this righteousness to him. It was impossible to divert his vindictive justice from sinners without interposing a propitiation. Those who claim that the necessity of satisfaction rests merely on the free act and will of God, leave no just and indispensable foundation for the death of Christ. They assume it might have been otherwise. God did not spare his only Son, but made him an offering for sin. He would accept no atonement other than his Son’s blood. Plainly, he has manifested that his holiness and righteousness require him to render indignation, wrath, tribulation, and anguish in return for sin. Knowing how natural this vindictive justice is, and how necessary it is to execute it in response to sin, is the only true and useful knowledge of it. Looking at it as something that God may or may not do, does not make his justice a property of his nature, but a free act of his will. And a will to punish where one may do otherwise without injustice, is ill will rather than Justice.

2dly. This justice is far more gloriously manifested in the penalty inflicted on Christ for sin than it would be otherwise. The following will give some insight into this thing. See a world that was made good and beautiful, wrapped in wrath and curses, and clothed with thorns and briers. See the whole beautiful creation made subject to vanity, and given up to the bondage of corruption. Hear it groan in pain under that burden. Consider legions of angels, most glorious and immortal creatures, cast down into hell, bound with chains of darkness, and reserved for a more dreadful judgment for one sin. View the ocean of blood spilt to eternity on this account. But what is all this when it is compared to that view of it seen with a spiritual eye in the Lord Christ?

All these things are worms, and of no value in comparison to him. See the one who is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, always beloved of the Father. See him, then fear, and tremble, and bow, and sweat, and pray, and die. See him lifted up on the cross, the earth trembling under him, as if unable to bear his weight. See the heavens darkened over him, as if shut against his cry, with him hanging between both as if refused by both. And all of this is because our sins were laid on him. Of all things, this most abundantly manifests the severity of God’s vindictive justice. It is to be learned here, or nowhere.

[2.] His patience, forbearance, and long-suffering towards sinners - There are many glimpses of the patience of God shining out in the works of his providence. But all of them are far beneath the discovery of it that we have in Christ, especially in these three things:

1st. The manner of its discovery. It is evident to all that ordinarily God does not immediately punish men upon their offenses. It may be learned from his constant way in governing the world. Despite all provocations, he still does good to men. He causes his sun to shine upon them, sending them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness. Hence, it was easy to conclude that there is an abundance of goodness and forbearance in him. But all this is still very much in darkness, because it is only the outworking of men’s experience from their observations. The management of God’s patience has proved a snare almost universally to those towards whom it has been exercised, Ecclesiastes 8:11. It has also been a temptation to those who have observed it, Job 21:7; Psalms 73:2-4, etc.; Jeremiah 12:1; Habakkuk 1:13. The discovery of God’s patience in Christ is of another nature completely. In him the very nature of God is discovered to be love and kindness. He has promised, sworn, and solemnly engaged himself by covenant, to exercise this patience towards sinners. So that we will not hesitate about what God’s purpose is in this, there is a stable foundation in the reconciliation and atonement that is made in the blood of Christ.

Whatever discovery could be made of the patience and forbearance of God, if it was not also revealed that the other properties of God fully applied to us, such as his justice and revenge for sin, then there could be little consolation from the former. Though God may teach men his goodness and forbearance by sending rain and fruitful seasons, yet at the same time he reveals “his wrath from heaven against the ungodliness of men,” Romans 1:18. They can only tremble at these dispensations, not knowing which to expect. Yet this is the best that men can have or attain apart from Christ. Men might satiate themselves with the good things that were administered in this patience. Yet they were not delivered from their bondage to death, and the darkness that attends it. The law reveals no patience or forbearance in God. Instead, as to the issue of transgressions, it speaks of nothing but sword and fire. But now with the revelation that we have in Christ, we also discover the satisfaction of God’s justice and wrath against sin. We need not fear his justice interfering with the works of his patience, which are so sweet to us. Hence, “God is reconciling the world to himself in Christ,” 2 Cor.

5:19. He is manifesting himself in Christ as one who has no more to do to glorify himself than to forbear, reconcile, and pardon sin in him.

2dly. In the nature of it. Without Christ, what is revealed of that forbearance? Merely delaying the punishment for the offense, and continuing with temporal mercies. Men are prone to abuse such things.

They may perish with their hearts full of them to eternity. What lies hidden in Christ, and what he reveals, is full of love, sweetness, tenderness, kindness, and grace. It is the Lord’s waiting to be gracious to sinners, waiting for an advantage to show love and kindness, and to endear us to him. “Therefore the LORD will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you,” Isaiah 30:18. No revelation of God is sweeter than this. When we are experientially convinced that God has from time to time overlooked many iniquities, we are astonished. We admire that he did not take advantage of these provocations to cast us out of his presence.

We find that, with infinite wisdom and long-suffering, God has arranged all his dispensations to recover us from the power of the devil, to rebuke and chasten our spirit for our sins, and to endear us to him.

There is nothing sweeter to the soul than this. Therefore, the apostle says in Romans 3:25 that everything comes “through the forbearance of God.” God makes way for complete forgiveness of sins through his forbearance, which the law does not.

3dly. They differ in their ends and aims. What is the aim and design of God in his forbearance that is manifested and discovered outside of Christ? The apostle tells us in Romans 9:22, “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction?” It was to leave them without excuse, so that his power and wrath against sin might be manifested in their destruction. Therefore he calls it “suffering them to walk in their own ways,” Acts 14:16. Elsewhere, as in Ps.

81:12, he presents this as a most dreadful judgment, “I gave them up to their own hearts’ lusts, and they walked in their own counsels.” This is as dreadful a condition as a creature can fall into in this world. In Acts 17:30, he calls it a “winking at the sins of their ignorance,” as if taking no care nor thought of them in their dark condition. This is how it appears in its antithesis. “But now he commands all men everywhere to repent.” Before Christ, he did not notice them enough to command them to repent, at least not by any clear revelation of his mind and will. And therefore the apostle exhorts them in Romans 2:4, “Do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, not knowing that God’s goodness leads you to repentance?” This is spoken to the Jews, who had advantages over others to understand these things. They could learn the natural tendency of God’s goodness and forbearance in Christ to lead us to repentance. Otherwise, in general he intimates that by sheer reason, men ought to make another use of his forbearance than they usually do. In verse 5, he charges them with ignoring it: “But after your hardness and impenitent heart...” At best, then, by reason of their own incorrigible stubbornness, God’s patience with men who are outside of Christ proves to be like the waters of the river Phasis. They are sweet at the top and bitter at the bottom. Men swim for a while in the sweet and good things of this life, Luke 16:20. Then, being filled with them, they sink to the depths of all bitterness. But now, evidently and directly, the purpose of that patience and forbearance of God is exercised in Christ and discovered in him. It is saving and bringing into God those towards whom he is pleased to exercise them. Therefore, Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:9, that God is “longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” For its purpose is to accomplish his will concerning our repentance and salvation. Its nature and purpose are well expressed in Isaiah 54:9. “This is like the waters of Noah to me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wrath.” It is God’s taking a course, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, to ensure that we will not be destroyed despite our sins. And therefore, in Romans 15:5, these two things are laid together in God, and come together from him. He is “the God of patience and consolation.” His patience is a matter of the greatest consolation. This is another property of God that may appear in other things, yet its treasures are hidden in Christ. No one learns any spiritual advantage from it that does not learn it in Christ.

[3.] His infinite wisdom in managing things for his own glory, and the good of those towards whom he has thoughts of love. The Lord has laid out and manifested infinite wisdom in his works of creation, his providence, and the governing of his world. In wisdom he has made all his creatures. “How manifold are his works! In wisdom he has made them all; the earth is full of his riches,” Psalms 104:24. So in his providence, in his support and guidance of all things, he has arranged them for his own glory and their appointed ends. All these things “come forth from the LORD of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working,” Isaiah 28:29. His law is also to be forever admired for the excellence of the wisdom it contains, Deuteronomy 4:7-8. Yet there is something that Paul is astonished at, and in which God will forever be exalted. He calls it “The depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” Romans 11:33. And this is hidden in and revealed only by Christ.

Christ is said to be “the wisdom of God,” and he is “made wisdom to us.” So the design of God, which is carried along in Christ and revealed in the gospel, is called “the wisdom of God.” It is a “mystery; even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world; which none of the princes of this world knew,” 1 Corinthians 2:7-8. In Ephesians 3:10, it is called, “The manifold wisdom of God.” Paul tells us that principalities and powers, the angels themselves, could not discover the depth and riches of this wisdom, or become acquainted with it in the least, until God actually uncovered it by gathering a church of sinners. Hence, Peter informs us that those who are so well acquainted with all the works of God, still bow down and earnestly desire to look into these things, 1 Peter 1:12. It takes much wisdom to create an extraordinary work, fabric, or building. But if someone defaces it to give it more beauty and glory than ever, this is excellent wisdom indeed. In the beginning, God made all things good, glorious, and beautiful. When these things were innocent and beautiful, clearly marked with God’s wisdom and goodness, they were very glorious. This was especially true of man, who was made for his special glory. All this beauty was defaced by sin. The whole creation was rolled up in darkness, wrath, curses, and confusion. The great praise of God was buried in heaps of it. Man, especially, was lost. He came short of the glory of God for which he was created, Romans 3:23.

Here, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God opens itself. A design in Christ shines out from God’s heart, lodged there from eternity. It is to restore things to a state exceedingly advantageous to his glory. It is infinitely above what appeared at first, and it will put sinners into an inconceivably better condition than they were in before the entrance of sin. God now appears glorious. He is known to be a God who pardons iniquity and sin, and advances the riches of his grace. This was his design, Ephesians 1:6. In setting forth his Son for a propitiation, he has infinitely vindicated his justice in the eyes of men, angels, and devils. It is also to our advantage. We are more fully established in his favor, and we are carried on towards a greater glory than formerly revealed. Thus Paul tells us, “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness,” 1Tim.

3:16. We receive “grace for grace,” for the grace lost in Adam, we receive better grace in Christ. Confessedly, this is a depth of wisdom indeed. The love of Christ to his church, and his union with it to carry on this business, “is a great mystery,” Ephesians 5:32.

So, then, the great and unspeakable riches of the wisdom of God are hidden in Christ:

• in pardoning sin, • saving sinners, • satisfying justice, • fulfilling the law, • repairing his own honor, and • providing us a greater weight of glory;

All of this was designed while it was still impossible for angels or men to imagine how to repair the glory of God, or deliver one sinning creature from everlasting ruin. Hence it is said that at the last day God “will be glorified in his saints, and admired in all those who believe,” 2 Thess.

1:10. It will be an admirable thing, and God will be forever glorious in bringing believers to himself. Saving sinners through believing will be found a far more admirable work than creating the world out of nothing.

[4.] His all-sufficiency in himself and for others is the last category that I will name.

God’s all-sufficiency in himself is his absolute and universal perfection. This means nothing is wanting in him, and he wants nothing outside himself. His fullness cannot be increased or decreased. He is also all-sufficient for others. This is his power to communicate himself and his goodness to them in a way that satisfies and fulfills whatever is good and desirable to them. To communicate his goodness, God abundantly manifested its outward effect in the creation. He made all things good and perfect. But giving himself as an all-sufficient God who is to be enjoyed by his creatures, and to offer all that is in him to satiate and bless them, are things discovered by and in Christ alone. In Christ he is a Father. In Christ he is a God in covenant. In this covenant he has promised to lay himself out for them. In Christ he has promised to give himself to their everlasting fruitfulness. He is their exceedingly great reward. And so I have insisted on the second sort of properties in God. Although we have an obscure glimpse of them in other things, clear knowledge and acquaintance with them can only be had in the Lord Christ. What remains is to briefly declare that none of the properties of God can be known savingly and consolingly except in Christ. Consequently, all the wisdom of the knowledge of God is hidden in Christ alone, and it is to be obtained from him alone.

2. There is no saving or consoling knowledge of any property of God, except what is found in Christ Jesus alone. It is laid up in him and manifested by him.

Some observe the justice of God, and know that this is his righteousness. They know that those who sin “are worthy of death,” Romans 1:32. But the only purpose of his justice is to make them cry, “Who among us will dwell with the devouring fire?” Isaiah 33:14. Others fix their eyes upon his patience, goodness, mercy, and forbearance. Yet it does not lead them to repentance at all. Instead, “they despise the riches of his goodness, and after their hardness and impenitent hearts they store up wrath for themselves against the day of wrath,” Romans 2:4-5. Others, by God’s works of creation and providence, come to know “his eternal power and Godhead; but they do not glorify him as God, nor are they thankful. They become vain in their imagination, and their foolish hearts are darkened,” Rom.

1:20. Whatever men discover of truth outside of Christ, they “hold it captive under unrighteousness,” Romans 1:18. Hence, Jude tells us in verse 10 that “what they know naturally corrupts them like brute beasts.” To have a saving knowledge of the properties of God that consoles us, three things are required:

(1.) That God has manifested the glory of them all in a way that does us good.

(2.) That he yet exercises and displays them to the utmost in our behalf.

(3.) That being manifested and exercised this way, they are fit and powerful to bring us to enjoy him forever. That is our blessedness.

Now, all three of these lie hidden in Christ. We cannot glimpse them at all outside of him.

(1.) We are to accept that God has actually manifested the glory of all his attributes in a way that does us good. God is infinitely righteous, just, and holy.

He is unchangeably true and faithful. What good will it do our souls to know these things if we do not know how he preserves the glory of his justice and faithfulness apart from threats of our ruin and destruction? What comfort will it bring us? How will it endear our hearts to God? Is it only righteous for him to repay our iniquities with tribulation? What benefit of this consideration did Adam have in the garden? (Genesis 3). What sweetness and encouragement is there in knowing that God is patient and full of forbearance if the glory of these things is exalted only by his tolerating vessels of wrath that are fitted for destruction?

What will it avail us to hear God proclaim “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, abundant in goodness and truth,” if we only consider that he will “by no means clear the guilty.” Does our iniquity preclude the exercise of all his other properties towards us? Under such a naked consideration of the properties of God, his justice will make men fly and hide, Genesis 3; Isaiah 2:21; Isaiah 33:15-16. His patience will render them obdurate, Ecclesiastes 8:11. His holiness will completely deter them from thoughts of approaching him, John 24:19. What relief do we have from thoughts of his immensity and omnipresence if all we want to do is fly from him? (Psalms 139:11-12). What relief is there if we have no pledge of his gracious presence with us?

What brings salvation is when we see that God has glorified all his properties in a way that does us good. He has done this in Jesus Christ. In Christ, God made his justice glorious. He did so by laying all our iniquities on Christ, causing him to bear them all as the scapegoat in the wilderness. He did not spare him but gave him up to death for us all. Thus he exalted his justice and indignation against sin in a way that frees us from its condemnation, Romans 3:25; Romans 8:33-34. In Christ, God has made his truth and his and his faithfulness glorious by exactly accomplishing all of his absolute threats and promises. “In the day you eat of it you shall die the death” Genesis 2:17. This is followed with a curse.

“Cursed is every one that does not continue...” Deuteronomy 27:26, Galatians 3:10. That fountain-head and combination from which all others flow is accomplished and fulfilled in Christ. The truth of God contained in them is laid down in a way that does us good. Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for us, Hebrews 2:9. He delivered us when we were subject to death, verse 15. He fulfilled the curse by being made a curse for us, Galatians 3:13. So that in his very threats, God’s truth is made glorious in a way that is for our good. And as for his promises, “They are all ‘yes’, and in him they are ‘Amen’, to the glory of God by us,” 2 Corinthians 1:20. His mercy, his goodness, and the riches of his grace are made eminently glorious in Christ, and they are advanced for our good! God has set him forth to declare his own righteousness for the forgiveness of sin. In Christ, he has made way to exalt the glory of his pardoning mercy towards sinners forever. The great design of the gospel is to manifest this, as Paul admirably sets it out in Ephesians 1:5-8. In the gospel, our souls must either become acquainted with these attributes of God, or forever live in darkness. This is a saving knowledge. And it is full of consolation when we can see all the properties of God made glorious and exalted in a way that does us good. This wisdom is hidden only in Jesus Christ. Hence, when he desired his Father to glorify his name (John 12:28), that is, to glorify God’s nature, properties, and will in the work of redemption that he had in hand, Christ was instantly answered from heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” God gives his name its utmost glory in Christ.

(2.) The second requirement is knowing that God will yet exercise and lay out those properties of his to the utmost in our behalf. He has made them all glorious in a way that may tend to our good, yet it does not absolutely follow that he will use them for our good; for we see innumerable persons perishing forever despite manifesting himself in Christ. For that reason, God has committed all his properties into the hand of Christ to be managed in our behalf and for our good.

He is “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). He is “the LORD our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). And he is “made wisdom to us of God, and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Having glorified his Father in all his attributes, Christ now has the exercise of these attributes committed to him, so that he might be the captain of salvation to those who believe. If there is anything that will do us good in the righteousness, goodness, love, mercy, and all-sufficiency of God, then the Lord Jesus is fully interested in dispensing it in our behalf. Hence God is said to be “reconciling the world to himself” in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:18. Whatever is in God, he lays it out to reconcile the world in and by the Lord Christ. And thus Christ becomes “the LORD our Righteousness,” Jeremiah 23:5-6; Isaiah 45:24-25.

(3.) The only requirement remaining is that these attributes of God, so manifested and exercised, are powerful and able to bring us to the everlasting enjoyment of God. To show this, the Lord wraps up the whole covenant of grace in one promise: “I will be your God.” In the covenant, God becomes our God and we are his people. Thereby all his attributes are also ours. We are tempted to doubt when we see the inconceivable difficulty in this, and what unimaginable obstacles lie against us. We fear that there may not be enough to deliver and save us. But God says in Genesis 17:1, “I am.” He is saying, “I am God Almighty” (all-sufficient). “I am wholly able to perform all my undertakings and to be your exceedingly great reward. I can remove all difficulties, answer all objections, pardon all sins, and conquer all opposition. I am God all-sufficient.” Now, you know in whom this covenant and all its promises are ratified, and in whose blood it is confirmed. It is in the Lord Christ alone. Only in Christ is God an all-sufficient God to anyone, and an exceedingly great reward. Hence, Christ himself is said to “save to the uttermost those who come to God by him,” Hebrews 7.

I say that these three things are required to be known if we are to have a saving acquaintance with any of the properties of God, and to have any consolation from such knowledge. All of these are hidden only in Christ, and such knowledge is to be obtained from him alone.

This, then, is the first part of our first demonstration. All true and sound wisdom and knowledge is laid up in the Lord Christ, and is to be obtained from him alone. Because our wisdom consists mainly in the knowledge of God, his nature, and his properties, it lies wholly hidden in Christ and cannot possibly be obtained except by him.

II. The knowledge of ourselves in reference to God’s will concerning us. This SECOND part of our wisdom consists in three things that our Savior sends his Spirit to convince the world of: “sin, righteousness, and judgment,” John 16:8. To know ourselves in reference to these three things is a main part of true and sound wisdom. They all concern the supernatural and immortal end to which we are appointed. None of these can be attained except in Christ.

1. Concerning sin. There is a sense and knowledge of sin left in the consciences of all men by nature. They know in themselves what is good and evil in many things, and whether to approve or disapprove of what they do in reference to a judgment to come, Romans 2:14-15. But this knowledge is obscure. It relates mostly to greater sins. In sum, it is what the apostle gives us in Romans 1:32.

“They know the judgment of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death.” This is one of the common presumptions and notions received by mankind. It is “righteous with God, that those who do such things are worthy of death.” And if it is true that no nation is so barbarous or rude as not to retain some sense of a Deity, then it is also true that no nation is without a sense of sin, and God’s displeasure for it. For this is the very first concept of God in the world: that he is the rewarder of good and evil. From this arose all the sacrifices, purgings, and expiations that were generally spread over the face of the earth. But this knowledge of sin and its effects was very dark. The law gives a further knowledge of sin. It is the law which was “added because of transgressions.” Doctrinally, this revives all that sense of good and evil that was first implanted in man. It is a glass into which whoever is able to look spiritually may see sin in all its ugliness and deformity. The truth is, the law wonderfully uncovers sin on every account. Look at the law in its purity, holiness, compass, and perfection. Look at its manner of delivery with its dread, terror, thunder, earthquakes, and fire. Look at its sanctions in death, curse, and wrath. The law sees our pollution, guilt, and exceeding sinfulness. Yet all this is insufficient to give us a true and thorough conviction of sin. The glass is clear, but we do not have the eyes to look into it. The rule is straight but we cannot apply it. And therefore Christ sends his Spirit to convince the world of sin, John 16:8. Though for some purposes the Spirit makes use of the law, his unique work is conviction. Conviction alone gives a useful knowledge of sin. The discovery of sin may also be said to be by Christ, and to be part of the wisdom that is hidden in him. But there is a twofold regard (besides this one) in which this wisdom appears to be hidden in him. First, some concerns of sin are more clearly demonstrated in the Lord Christ’s being made sin for us than in any other way. Secondly, there is no knowledge of sin that gives a spiritual and saving improvement except in him. For the first, there are four things in sin that clearly shine out in the cross of Christ: (1.) The desert of sin. (2.) Man’s impotency because of sin. (3.) The death of sin. (4.) A new outcome for sin.

(1.) The desert of sin clearly shines in the cross of Christ for two reasons: [1.] Because of the person suffering for it, and [2.] Because of the penalty he underwent.

[1.] The person suffering for it. The Scripture often presents this very emphatically, and places great weight on it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,” John 3:16. It was his only Son that God sent into the world to suffer for sin. “He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,” Romans 8:32. To see a slave beaten and corrected argues that a fault was committed, but perhaps not a very great one. The correction of a son argues a great provocation. That of an only son implies the greatest imaginable provocation. Sin was never seen more abominably sinful and full of provocation than when its burden was upon the shoulders of the Son of God. God made his Son sin for us. He is the Son of his love, his only begotten son who was full of grace and truth. He did this to manifest his indignation against it, and to show how utterly impossible it is for him to let the least sin go unpunished. He lays hand on his son, and does not spare him. The father imputed our sin to the dear Son of his heart upon his own voluntary assumption of it. He said to his Father, “Lo, I come to do your will,” (Heb.

10:9) and all our iniquities were laid on him (Isaiah 53:6). He will not spare him any of sin’s deserts that are due. It is most clear from the blood of the cross of Christ that the demerit of sin makes it altogether impossible for God to pass by anyone to let it go unpunished. If he did it for anyone, he would have done it for his only Son. But he did not spare him.

Moreover, God does not delight in or desire the blood, tears, cries, and inexpressible torments and sufferings of the Son of his love. He does not delight in the anguish of anyone. “He does not willingly afflict nor grieve the children of men,” (Lamentations 3:33) much less the Son of his heart. He only required that his law be fulfilled, his justice be satisfied, and his wrath be atoned for. Nothing less than all this would bring it about. If the debt of sin might have been compounded at a cheaper rate, it would never have required the price of the blood of Christ. Here then, take a view of the desert of sin. It is far more evident in this than in all the threats and curses of the law. You may respond, “When found in a poor worm like me, I thought sin was worthy of death; but I never imagined it would have this effect when charged on the Son of God.”

[2.] Further, consider what he suffered. Being so excellent as he was, perhaps it was only a light affliction and trial that he underwent, especially considering the strength that he had to bear it. Yet, it made this “fellow of the LORD of hosts,” this “lion of the tribe of Judah,” this “mighty one,” “the wisdom and power of God,” tremble, sweat, cry, pray, and wrestle with strong supplications. Some of the Catholic devotionists tell us that one drop of the blood of Christ was enough to redeem the entire world, but they err. They do not know the desert of sin, or the severity of the justice of God. If one drop less than was shed, or one pang less than was laid on would have done it, then those other drops would not have been shed, nor those other pangs been laid on. God did not cruciate the dearly beloved of his soul for nothing. But there is more than all this:

It pleased God to bruise him, to put him to grief, to make his soul an offering for sin, and to pour out his life to the point of death. He hid himself from him.

He was far from the voice of his cry until Christ cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God made him sin and a curse for us. He executed the sentence of the law on him. He brought him into such an agony that Christ sweated thick drops of blood. He was grievously troubled and his soul was heavy unto death. The one who was the power of God and the wisdom of God stooped under the burden of our sin until the whole frame of nature seemed astonished at it. Now this clearly presents the desert of sin, and reveals God’s indignation against it. Would you, then, see the true demerit of sin? Take the measure of it from the mediation of Christ, especially his cross.

It brought the one who was the Son of God, equal to God, whom God blessed forever, into the form of a servant who had nowhere to lay his head. All his life it pursued him with afflictions and persecutions. And lastly, it brought him under the rod of God that bruised him, broke him, and slew the Lord of life. Hence there is deep humiliation for it, because of the one whom we have pierced. And this is the first spiritual view of sin that we have in Christ.

(2.) The wisdom of understanding our impotency is wrapped up in him because of sin. By our impotency, I understand two things: [1.] Our disability to make any atonement for sin with God. [2.] Our disability to answer his mind and will with the obedience that he requires.

[1.] For the first, atonement is only discovered in Christ. The sons of men have made many inquiries into an alternative atonement. They have tried many ways to accomplish it without him. After this fruitless search they ask,

“Will any type of sacrifices atone for my sin? Even though appointed by God, such as burnt offerings and year-old calves? Even though very costly, such as thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil? Even though dreadful and tremendous, those doing violence to nature, such as giving my children to the fire?” (Micah 6:6-7). Will any of these things make an atonement? David emphatically determines this business in Psalms 49:7-8. “None of them” (of the best or richest of men) “can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him; for the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceases forever.” It cannot be done. No atonement can be made. Yet men still attempt it. For that reason they heaped up sacrifices, some costly, some bloody and inhuman. The Jews, to this day, think that God was atoned for sin by the sacrifices of bulls, goats, and the like. And the Socinians acknowledge no atonement other than men’s repentance and new obedience. In the cross of Christ, the mouths of all are stopped as to this thing. For, 1st. God has revealed there that no sacrifices for sin, even though appointed by him, could ever make those who offered them perfect, Heb.

10:11. Those sacrifices could never take away sin. Those services that they performed could never make them perfect in their conscience, Hebrews 9:9, as the apostle proves in chap. 10:1. And therefore, the Lord rejects all sacrifices and offerings whatever that are made for any such purpose, verses 6-8. In their stead, Christ says, “Lo, I come.” By him we are “justified from all things from which we could not be justified by the law,”

Acts 13:39. God, in Christ, has condemned all sacrifices as wholly insufficient to make an atonement for sin. The event of the cross has manifested how great a thing it was to instruct the sons of men in this wisdom.

2dly. He has also written “vanity” on all other endeavors that have been undertaken for that purpose. By setting forth his only Son “to be a propitiation,” he leaves no doubt on the spirits of men that they could make no atonement by themselves, Romans 3:24-26. For “if righteousness were by the law, then Christ died in vain.” To what purpose would he be made a propitiation if we were not weak and without strength to accomplish it ourselves? This is what the apostle argues in Romans 5:6. When we had no power, then by his death Christ made an atonement for us (5:8-9). This wisdom is also hidden in Christ. Men may see consequences for their sin that fill them with dread and astonishment, such as those in Isaiah 33:14. But such a sight and view of sin that might lead them to any comfortable settlement about it, will only be discovered in this treasury of heaven: the Lord Jesus.

[2.] Our disability to answer the mind and will of God with all or any of the obedience that he requires, is only to be discovered in Christ. This, indeed, is a thing that many will not be acquainted with to this day. It is no easy task to teach a man that he cannot do what he ought to do, and for which he condemns himself if he does not do it. Man rises up with all his power to plead against a conviction of impotency, not to mention the proud conceits and expressions of the philosophers. How many who would be called Christians still creep by degrees in their persuasion that they have the power to fulfill the law! And where would men get this knowledge that we do not have this power? Nature will not teach that. It is proud and conceited. And it is one part of its pride, weakness, and corruption, not to know it at all. The law will not teach it. For though it will show us what we have done amiss, it will not reveal to us that we cannot do better. In fact, by requiring exact obedience of us, it takes for granted that such power exists in us. It takes no notice that we have lost it, and it is unconcerned to say otherwise. This, then, also lies hidden in the Lord Jesus. Romans 8:2-4, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” The law cannot produce righteousness, nor obedience. It is weak to any such purpose, because of the flesh and the corruption that has come upon us.

These two things are done in and by Christ: First, sin is condemned as to its guilt, and we are set free from that guilt. The righteousness of the law, by Christ’s obedience, is fulfilled in us who could never do it ourselves.

And, secondly, the obedience that is required of us is worked in us by his

Spirit. The perfect obedience that we have in Christ is imputed to us, and the sincere obedience that we have from his Spirit is bestowed on us. This is the most excellent glass in which we see our impotency. For why do we need his perfect obedience to be made ours, unless we do not have and cannot attain perfect obedience ourselves? Why do we need his Spirit of life to quicken us, unless we are dead in trespasses and sins?

(3.) The death of sin is discovered in the cross of Christ. Sin is dying in us to some extent while we are still alive. This is a third concern about sin that it is wise to be acquainted with, and this wisdom is hidden only in Christ. Sin is dying in two ways: it is dying in its exercise in our mortal members, and it is dying in its root, principle, and power in our souls. The first way may be seen in part outside of Christ. Christless men may have the outward exercise of sin dying in them just like those who are in Christ. Men’s bodies may be unable to serve their lusts, or practicing such lusts may no longer interest them. Sin is never more alive than when it is dying in this way. But there is another way of dying. And this is in the root and principle of it. It is the daily decaying of its strength, power, and life; and this is to be had in Christ alone. Sin is not apt to die or decay on its own. Instead, it is apt to gain ground, strength, and life in us to eternity. We may prevent all its actual eruptions, and yet its original enmity against God will still grow. In believers, it is dying and decaying until it is utterly abolished. The opening of this treasury of wisdom is found in Romans 6:3-6, etc.

“Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death.

Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we will also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this: that our old man is crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and so that we should not serve sin any longer.” This is the design of the apostle in the beginning of that chapter. He not only manifests where the principle and motivation of our mortification and the death of sin come from (the death and blood of Christ), but also the way sin continues and dies in us (the way that Christ died for sin). He was crucified for us, and thereby sin was crucified in us. He died for us, and the body of sin is destroyed so that we should not serve sin. As he was raised from the dead so that death would not have dominion over him, so we are also raised from sin so that it should not have dominion over us. This wisdom is hidden only in Christ. Moses at his dying day had all his strength and vigor. So do sin and the law to all those who are out of Jesus: at their dying day, sin has not decayed in any way. Now, knowing this is the best part of our wisdom, next to receiving the righteousness that was prepared for us. This is wisdom indeed: to be truly acquainted with the principle of the dying of sin, to feel virtue and power flowing from the cross of Christ for that purpose, and to find sin crucified in us as Christ was crucified for us. This wisdom is found in Christ alone.

(4.) Sin is appointed and ordained for a glorious purpose that others are unacquainted with, and it is discovered in Christ. Sin in its own nature tends to dishonor God, to debase his majesty, and to ruin the creature in whom it is found. Hell itself is only filling wretched creatures with the fruit of their own devices. The combinations and threats of God in the law manifest one other purpose for sin, which is to demonstrate the vindictive justice of God by measuring out a fit recompense. But here the law and the light stop, revealing no other use or purpose for sin at all. In the Lord Jesus there is another and more glorious end that is manifested. It is the praise of God’s glorious grace in the pardon and forgiveness of sin. God provided in Christ that the thing which tended toward his dishonor would be managed to his infinite glory. Of all the things that he desires to exalt, it is that he may be known and believed to be a

“God pardoning iniquity, transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:7; Micah 7:18). To return, then, to this part of our demonstration:

Much of our wisdom consists in the knowledge of ourselves, in reference to our eternal condition. In this depraved condition of nature, there is nothing we are more concerned with than sin. Without knowledge of that, we do not know ourselves. “Fools mock at sin.” (Proverbs 14:9). A true saving knowledge of sin can be obtained only in the Lord Christ. In him we may see the desert of our iniquities, and their pollution. These could not be borne or expiated except by his blood. There is no wholesome view of these things except in Christ. In him and in his cross we discover our universal impotency to either atone God’s justice, or to live up to his will. The death of sin is procured by, and discovered in, the death of Christ. So is the manifestation of the riches of God’s grace in pardoning it. A real and experimental acquaintance with all of this is our wisdom; and it is more valuable than all the wisdom of the world.

2. Concerning righteousness. Righteousness is the second thing of which the Spirit of Christ convinces the world. It is the main thing that it is our wisdom to be acquainted with. All men are persuaded that God is a most righteous God. That is the natural concept of God that Abraham insisted on in Genesis 18:25, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” They “know that this is the judgment of

God, that those who commit such things are worthy of death,” Romans 1:32. They know that “it is a righteous thing with him to recompense tribulation to offenders,” 2 Thessalonians 1:6. He is “a God of purer eyes than to behold evil,” Hab.

1:13. And therefore, “the ungodly cannot stand in judgment,” Psalms 1:5. Hence, the great inquiry of everyone who is the least convinced of immortality and the judgment to come, concerns the righteousness with which to appear in the presence of this righteous God. They are more or less solicitous about this all their days. And so, as the apostle says in Hebrews 2:15, “through the fear of death they are subject to bondage all their life.” They are perplexed about the issue of their righteousness for fear it will end in their death and destruction.

(1.) Naturally, what first presents itself to men involved in this inquiry is the law. It provides them direction and assistance. It assuredly promises them a righteousness that will withstand the trial of God, provided they follow its direction. The law has many reasonable pleas to persuade people to embrace it for their righteousness before God. It was given out from God himself for that purpose. It contains the whole obedience that God requires of any of the sons of men. It has the promise of life annexed to it: “Do this, and live.” “The doers of the law are justified;” and, “If you will enter into life, keep the commandments.” Most certainly it must be wholly fulfilled if we think to stand with boldness before God. This being some part of the law’s plea, no man seeks after righteousness that does not at one time or another attend to it, and attempt to follow its direction. Many who will not admit to it do so every day. They labor to correct their lives, amend their ways, perform the duties required, and pursue a righteousness according to the prescript of the law.

Many men continue for a long time in this course of action with much perplexity. They sometimes hope, but more often fear. They are sometimes ready to quit, other times vowing to continue. Their consciences are in no way satisfied, nor do they attain any measure of righteousness all their days.

After they have strained and wearied themselves, perhaps for a long season, they come with fear, trembling, and disappointment to the same conclusion as the apostle. “By the works of the law no flesh is justified.” And with dread they cry that if God were to mark what is done amiss, there is no standing before him. The apostle testifies to the fact that they have this issue in Rom.

9:31, 32. “Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why is this? Because they did not seek it by faith, but by the works of the law.” It was not solely for want of effort that they were disappointed, for they earnestly followed after the law of righteousness.

It was from the nature of the thing itself. It would not bear it. Righteousness was not to be obtained that way. “For,” says the apostle, “if those who are of the law are heirs, then faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect; because the law works wrath,” Romans 4:14-15. The law itself cannot give life, Galatians 3:21. “If there had been a law given which could have given life, then truly righteousness would have been by the law.” In the next verse, he gives the reason why it could not give life. It is because “the Scripture concludes all under sin.” That is, it is very true, and the Scripture affirms it, that all men are sinners; and the law speaks not one word to sinners other than death and destruction. Therefore, the apostle tells us plainly that God himself found fault with this way of attaining righteousness, Hebrews 8:7-8. He complains of it; that is, he declares it insufficient for that end and purpose.

Now, there are two considerations that reveal to men the vanity and hopelessness of seeking righteousness by the law:

[1.] They have already sinned: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23. They understand that although they could fulfill the whole law for the time to come, there is a score, a reckoning, already upon them, that they do not know how to answer for. They may consult their guide, the law itself, as to how to be eased of the account that is past. But it has no word of direction or consolation. Instead, it bids them prepare to die. The sentence has been issued, and there is no escaping it.

[2.] If all former debts were blotted out, they are still unable to fulfill the law for the future. They can as well move the earth with a finger, as answer the law’s requirement of perfection.

Therefore, they conclude that this labor is lost. “By the works of the law no flesh will be justified.”

(2.) Secondly, being disappointed by the severity and inexorableness of the law, men generally resort to some other way to satisfy the necessary righteousness. For the most part, this is done by fixing on some way of atonement to satisfy God, and then making up the difference with hopes of mercy. Set aside the ways of atonement and expiation which the Gentiles depended on, and the many inventions of the Papists, such as indulgences and purgatory. It is normal for all persons convinced of their sin to search for this righteousness, partly by trying to make satisfaction for what is past, and partly by hoping for general mercy. This is what the apostle calls seeking righteousness “as it were, by the works of the law,” Romans 9:32. It is not done directly, “but as it were” by the works of the law, substituting one thing for another. And he tells us the result of this business in chap. 10:3. “Being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” By this personal righteousness they were enemies to the righteousness of God. The ground for establishing their own righteousness was that they were ignorant of the righteousness of God. Had they known the righteousness of God, and what exact conformity to his will he requires, they would never have undertaken such a fruitless enterprise “as it were by the works of the law.” Yet many will stick to this approach for a long time. Something they do, something they hope for; some old faults they will buy off with new obedience. And this pacifies their consciences for a season. But when the Spirit comes to convince them of righteousness, this will not hold. Therefore, (3.) They see themselves as needing two qualifications -

[1.] As sinners, they are liable to the law of God, and they are under its curse. Seeking to appear in the presence of God would be in vain unless the law can be satisfied. Then nothing from their sin will ever be laid to their charge.

[2.] As creatures, they were made for a supernatural and eternal end.

Therefore, they are bound to answer the whole mind and will of God in the obedience required at their hands.

It has been revealed to them that both these qualifications are beyond the scope of their own endeavors and the assistance that they formerly rested on. If their eternal condition is of any concern to them, then it is their wisdom to discover a righteousness that may completely fulfill both of these qualifications.

Now, both of these are to be had only in the Lord Christ, who is our righteousness. This wisdom and all its treasures are hidden in him.

1st. He expiates former iniquities. He makes satisfaction for sin, and he procures its remission. Romans 3:24-25, “Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” “All we like sheep have gone astray,” Isaiah 53:6. “Through his blood we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” Ephesians 1:7. “God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,” Romans 8:32. This alone is our righteousness. It removes the whole guilt of sin by which we come short of the glory of God. It is on this account that we are assured that none will ever lay anything to our charge or condemn us, Romans 8:33-34. There is

“no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,” 8:1. We are purged by the sacrifice of Christ so as to have “no more conscience of sin,” Heb.

10:2. That is, nothing troubles the conscience about it. This wisdom is hidden only in the Lord Jesus. Atonement is discovered in him alone. Give me the wisdom that will cut all scores concerning sin, and let the world take what remains. But,

2nd. Something more required. It is not enough that we are not guilty; we must also be actually righteous. Not only is all sin to be answered for, but all righteousness is to be fulfilled. By taking away the guilt of sin we are considered innocent, but something more is required to consider us obedient. Nothing teaches me that an innocent person will go to heaven (be rewarded), if he is not obedient. Adam was innocent at his first creation, but he was to “do this,” to “keep the commandments,” before he entered into “life.” He had no title to life merely by his innocence. This, moreover, is required: that the whole law be fulfilled and all of the obedience be performed that God requires at our hand. This is the soul’s second inquiry, and it finds a resolution only in the Lord Christ: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life,” Romans 5:10. His death reconciled us, and then we are saved by his life. The actual obedience, which he yielded to the whole law of God, is that righteousness by which we are saved. If that is so, then we are found in him, not holding our own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith, Php 3:9. I will handle this at large later.

I suppose it is not a difficult task to persuade men who are convinced of immortality and the judgment to come, that the main part of their wisdom lies in this: to find a righteousness that will accompany them forever, and withstand the severe trial of God himself. Now, all the wisdom of the world is folly in discovering this thing. The utmost that man’s wisdom can do is to find the most wretched, burdensome, and vexing ways of perishing eternally. All the treasures of this wisdom are hidden in Christ. He “of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness,” 1 Corinthians 1:30.

3. Concerning Judgment. We come to the last thing, which I will only touch on, and that is judgment. The true wisdom of this is also hidden in the Lord Christ. In particular, I mean the judgment that is to come. So at present I take the word in that context (John 16:8). I will not speak about what concern this is to us to know. It is about that principle which influences the sons of men and distinguishes them from the beasts that perish. I will not insist on the obscure intimations it has through the present proceedings of Providence in governing the world. Nor will I speak of that greater light it shines in the threats and promises of the law. The wisdom of judgment is hidden in the Lord Jesus in two regards:

(1.) As to the truth of it. (2.) As to the manner of it: (1.) The truth of this judgment is confirmed in and by him in two ways: [1.] By his death. [2.] By his resurrection:

[1.] By his death. In the death of Christ, God has given an abundant assurance of a righteous and universal judgment to come. He has done so by punishing and condemning sin in the flesh of his own Son, in the sight of men, angels, and devils. On what conceivable grounds could he be induced to lay such a load on his Son, except that he will certainly reckon one day with the sons of men for all their works and ways before him? The death of Christ is a most solemn exemplar of the last judgment. Those who believe him to be the Son of God will not deny a judgment to come.

[2.] By his resurrection. Acts 17:31 : God has given faith and assurance of this thing to all by raising Christ from the dead. He has appointed him to be the judge of all, in whom and by whom he will judge the world in righteousness.

(2.) And, as to the manner of judgment, it will be by the one who has loved us and given himself for us. He is himself the righteousness that he requires of our hands. And on the other side, it will be by the one who has been reviled, despised, and condemned by the men of the world in his person, grace, ways, worship, and servants. This holds out unspeakable consolation on the one hand, and terror on the other, so that the wisdom of this is also hidden in Christ. And this concludes the second part of our first demonstration. Thus, the knowledge of ourselves, in reference to our supernatural end, is no small portion of our wisdom. The things of the greatest concern in this are sin, righteousness, and judgment. What was proved is that the wisdom of all of these is hidden in the Lord Jesus alone.

III. The THIRD part of our wisdom is to walk with God.

Six things are required to walk with another:

1. Agreement. 2. Acquaintance. 3. A way. 4. Strength. 5. Confidence. 6. A mutual end. All of these and their wisdom are hidden in the Lord Jesus.

1. Agreement. The prophet tells us that two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, Amos 3:3. Until agreement is made, there is no communion, no walking together. God and man by nature (or while man is in the state of nature) are at the greatest enmity. He declares nothing to us but wrath, Romans 1:18. We are said to be children of wrath. That is, we are born unattracted to walking with God, Ephesians 2:3. While we remain in that condition, “the wrath of God abides on us,”

John 3:36. The only revelation that God makes of himself to us is that he is inexpressibly provoked, and therefore he is preparing against the day of wrath, and the revelation of his righteous judgment. The day of meeting between him and sinners is called “The day of wrath,” Romans 2:5-6. We do not come short in our enmity against him. In fact, we began it first and we continue in it longest. To express this enmity, the apostle tells us that our very minds, the best part of us, are “enmity against God,” Romans 8:7-8. We are not, will not, and cannot be subject to him because our enmity manifests itself by universal rebellion against him. Whatever we do that seems otherwise is either hypocrisy or flattery. Indeed, it is a part of this enmity to lessen it. In this state, the wisdom of walking with God must be most remote from the soul. He is a “light, and in him is no darkness at all.” We are darkness, and in us there is no light at all. He is life, a “living God.” We are dead, dead sinners, dead in trespasses and sin. He is “holiness” and glorious in it. We are wholly defiled, an abominable thing. He is “love.” We are full of hatred, both hating and being hated. Surely this is no foundation for agreement, or upon that foundation, of walking together. Nothing can be more remote than this frame from such a condition. The foundation of this, then, is laid in Christ, hidden in Christ. “He,” says the apostle, “is our peace; he has made peace” for us, Ephesians 2:14-15. He slew the enmity in his own body on the cross, verse 16.

(1.) He takes the cause of the enmity that was between God and us out of the way. That cause is sin and the curse of the law. He makes an end of sin by making atonement for iniquity, Daniel 9:24. And he blots out the hand-writing of ordinances, Colossians 2:14. He redeems us from the curse by “being made a curse for us,” Galatians 3:13.

(2.) He destroys the one who would continue the enmity, and make the breach wider, Hebrews 2:14. “Through death he destroyed the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil;” and Colossians 2:15, he “spoiled principalities and powers.”

(3.) He made “reconciliation for the sins of the people,” Hebrews 2:17. By his blood he made an atonement with God, to turn away the wrath which was due to us, thus making peace. Hereupon God is said to be “in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,” 2 Corinthians 5:19. And being reconciled himself, verse 18, he lays down the enmity on his part and proceeds to what remains, to slay the enmity on our part, so that we may also be reconciled.

(4.) And also, Romans 5:11, “By our Lord Jesus Christ we receive the atonement.” We accept the peace made and tendered, laying down our enmity to God. And thus we confirm an agreement between us in his blood, so that “through him we have access to the Father,” Ephesians 2:18.

Now, the whole wisdom of this agreement, without which there is no walking with God, is hidden in Christ. Outside of him, God is a consuming fire and we are like dry stubble. Yet we set ourselves in battle array against that fire. If we are brought together, we will be consumed. So approaching God outside of Christ is to our detriment. In Christ’s blood alone we have this agreement. And let us not think that we have taken any step in the paths of God with him, or that any duty is accepted, or that all is not eternally lost, if we have not done it on the account of Christ.

2. Acquaintance. Two may meet together in the same path and have no quarrel between them, no enmity. If they are strangers, they may pass by without the least communion together. It does not suffice that the enmity between God and us is taken away. We must also have an acquaintance with him. Our not knowing him is a great cause and a great part of our enmity. Our understanding is

“darkened,” and we are “alienated from the life of God...,” Ephesians 4:18. This acquaintance, then, must also be added if we are ever to walk with God, which is our wisdom. And this wisdom is also hidden in the Lord Christ, and comes from him. It is true that there are a number of other means, such as his word and his works, that God has given to men to disclose himself and give them some acquaintance. As the apostle says in Acts 17:27, he did this so that “they should seek the Lord, if haply they might find him.” Yet, the knowledge of God that we have by his works is weak and imperfect. And what we have by the letter of the word does not save us without additional help, because of our blindness. For even if they were as bright as the sun in the firmament, if we have no eyes in our heads, what can it avail us? No saving acquaintance with God that might direct us to walk with him can be obtained this way. This also is hidden in the Lord Jesus, and comes forth from him. “He has given us an understanding, that we should know him that is true,” 1 John 5:20. No other light that we may have will do it without his giving us understanding. He is the true Light which lights every one that is enlightened, John 1:9. He opens our understanding that we may understand the Scriptures, Luke 24:45. None has known God at any time,

“except that he has revealed him,” John 1:18. God dwells in that “light which no man can approach,” 1 Timothy 6:16. None has ever had any such acquaintance with him so as to have seen him except by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Hence he tells the Pharisees that, notwithstanding all their great knowledge which they pretend, they had “neither heard the voice of God at any time, nor seen his shape,” John 5:37. They had no manner of spiritual acquaintance with God.

Instead, to them he was like a man whom they had never heard nor seen.

Acquaintance with God means knowing his love, and that he is full of kindness, patience, grace, and pardoning mercy. On that knowledge of him alone can we walk with him. Such knowledge can only be had in Christ. This, then, is also hidden in him.

3. A way in which we must walk with God. At the beginning, God assigned us a path to walk in with him in a covenant of works, which was the path of innocence and exact holiness. Because of sin, this path is so filled with thorns and briers, so stopped up by curses and wrath, that no flesh living can take one step in that path. If we ever think to hold communion with God, a new way for us to walk in must be found. And this also depends on the former account: it is hidden in Christ. Except by and in Christ, the world cannot discover a path in which a man may walk one step with God. Therefore, the Holy Spirit tells us that, for that purpose, Christ has consecrated, dedicated, and set apart “a new and living way” into the holiest of all, Hebrews 10:20. It is a new one, for the first, old one was useless. It is a living one, for the other is dead. Therefore, he says in verse 22, “Let us draw near.” Having a way to walk in, let us draw near. And this way that he has prepared for us is none other than himself, John 14:6. In answer to those who would go to the Father and hold communion with him, he tells them, “I am the way; and no man comes to the Father but by me.” He is the medium of all communication between God and us. In him we meet; in him we walk. All influences of love, kindness, and mercy from God to us are through him. All our returns of love, delight, faith, and obedience to God are all through him. He is that “one way” that God so often promises his people. And it is a glorious way, Isaiah 35:8, a high way, a way of holiness, a way in which none can err once they enter it, as further presented in Isaiah 42:16. All other ways, all other paths but this, go down to the chambers of death. They all lead to a walk that is contrary to God.

4. Strength. But suppose all this is done, that an agreement is made, an acquaintance given, and a way provided. Yet if we have no strength to walk in that way, what will all this avail us? This, then, must also be added. Of ourselves we have no strength, Romans 5:6. We are poor weaklings, not able to go a step in the ways of God. When we are set in the way, we either throw ourselves down, or temptations cast us down, and we make no progress. The Lord Jesus tells us plainly that, “without him we can do nothing,” John 15:5, nothing that will be the least acceptable to God. Nor can all the creatures in heaven and earth give us the least assistance. Contending to do it in our own power comes to nothing. This part of the wisdom is also hidden in Christ. All strength to walk with God comes from him. “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,” says St. Paul, Php 4:13. He denies that of ourselves we have any sufficiency, 2 Cor.

3:5. We can do nothing in ourselves, being such weaklings, but we can do all things in Jesus Christ as giants. And therefore, in him we are “more than conquerors” against all opposition in our way, Romans 8:37. That is because “from his fullness we receive grace for grace,” John 1:16. From him have we the Spirit of life and power whereby he bears us on eagles’ wings, swiftly and safely in the paths of walking with God. Any step we take, that is in any way by strength that is not immediately from Christ, is one step towards hell. He takes us by the arm first and teaches us to go, until he leads us on to perfection. He has milk and strong meat to feed us. He strengthens us with all might, and he is with us in running the race that is set before us.

5. Confidence. Where will we take this confidence from to walk with our God who is “a consuming fire?” Hebrews 12:29. Was there not such a dread upon his people of old that it was taken for granted among them that, if they saw God at any time, it was not to be endured and they must die? Can any, without extreme horror, think of that dreadful appearance that he made to them on Mount Sinai?

Moses himself, who was their mediator, said, “I exceedingly fear and quake,”

Hebrews 12:21. All the people said, “Do not let God speak with us lest we die!”

Exodus 20:19. Though men understand the goodness and kindness of God, upon discovering any part of his glory, they tremble and are filled with dread and astonishment! Has it not been so with the “choicest of his saints?” Habakkuk 3:16; Isaiah 6:5; Job 42:5-6. From where, then, should we assume this boldness to walk with God? The apostle informs us of its source in Hebrews 10:19. It is “by the blood of Jesus.” And so, in Ephesians 3:12, “In him we have boldness, and access with confidence.” We are not standing far off, like the people at the giving of the law, but drawing close to God with boldness. We can do so on this account: the dread and terror of God entered by sin. Adam did not have the least thought of hiding himself until he had sinned. The guilt of sin is on the conscience; and it is left in the hearts of all that God is a most righteous revenger of sin. This fills men with dread and horror at an apprehension of his presence, fearing that he has come to recall their sins. But now this conscience of sin has been taken away by the sacrifice and atonement that the Lord Jesus has made. That is, the dread of revenge from God because of the guilt of sin has been taken away. He has removed the slaying sword of the law, and that gives us great boldness with God.

He is now no longer revealed to us as a revenging Judge, but as a tender, merciful, and reconciled Father. Moreover, although by nature there is a spirit of bondage on us that fills us with innumerable tormenting fears, he takes it away.

He gives us “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father,” and behave ourselves with confidence and gracious boldness, like children. For “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” 2 Corinthians 3:17. There is freedom from all that dread and terror which the administration of the law brought with it. Just as there is no sin that God will more severely revenge than any boldness that a man takes with him outside of Christ; so there is no grace more acceptable to him than that boldness which he is pleased to afford us in the blood of Jesus.

6. Mutual end. There is only one more thing to add, and it is that two cannot walk together unless they have the same design in hand, aiming at the same end. In a word, this is also given to us in the Lord Jesus. The end of God is the advancement of his own glory. No one can aim at this end except in the Lord Jesus. The sum of all this is that the whole wisdom of our walking with God is hidden in Christ, and it is to be obtained from him alone. And so have I brought my first demonstration of what I intended to a close. I have manifested that all true wisdom and knowledge is laid up in, and laid out by, the Lord Jesus. And this is done by an induction of the particular areas in which our wisdom consists. I have one more demonstration to add, and I will be brief.

SECONDLY, the truth that all true wisdom is hidden in Christ will be further manifested by considering the insufficiency and vanity of anything else that may lay claim or pretend to a title of wisdom.

There are two things in the world that pass for wisdom: 1. Learning or literature, which is skill and knowledge in the arts, sciences, tongues, and knowledge of things that are past. 2. Prudence and skill in managing ourselves in reference to others, that is, in civil affairs for the public good. This is primarily the fairest flower within the border of nature’s garden. Concerning both of these, I will briefly show, (1.) That they are utterly insufficient to encompass and obtain the ends to which they are designed. (2.) That both of them in conjunction, with their utmost improvement, cannot obtain the true general end of wisdom. Both of these considerations will set the crown in this issue on the head of Jesus Christ: (1) FIRST, as to their utter insufficiency.

1. Learning itself, if it were all in one man, is not able to encompass the particular end to which it is designed. “Vanity and vexation” are written upon its forehead (Ecclesiastes 1:14; Ecclesiastes 2:26). The particular end of literature is none other than to remove some part of the curse that has come upon us by sin. Learning is the product of the soul’s struggling with the curse of sin. Adam, at his first creation, was completely furnished with all that knowledge, apart from things not yet existing, such as what we now call tongues. There was no restraint, much less darkness, on his understanding that would make him sweat for a way to improve it. Take his knowledge of nature. It is manifest from his suitably naming all the creatures, and the approval given in Scripture of his nomination of things, that he was clearly acquainted with their natures. Hence Plato could observe that the one who first imposed names on things was most wise; in fact, he had more than human wisdom. Let the wisest man living, or even a collection of the wisest men in the world, demonstrate their skill and learning by giving names to all living creatures suitable to their natures and expressive of their qualities. They would quickly realize the loss they have incurred by sin. Adam was made perfect. The whole purpose of ruling the creatures and living to God, for which Adam was made, required knowledge of the nature of the one and the will of the other. All of this was lost by sin. The multiplication of tongues was imposed as a curse for a later rebellion. The whole design of learning is to disentangle the soul from this issue of sin. Ignorance, darkness, and blindness have come upon the understanding. Acquaintance with the works of God, spiritual and natural, has been lost. Alienation of communication has resulted from the multiplication of tongues. Unruly passions and affections, and innumerable darkening prejudices, have also come upon us. The aim and tendency of literature is to remove this confusion and corruption. It is to disentangle the mind in its competence, to recover an acquaintance with the works of God, and to reduce the effects of the curse of the division of tongues on the soul. Ignoring the “vanity and vexation of spirit,” and the innumerable evils that attend this, in itself it is insufficient to attain its end. To this purpose I desire to observe two things: (1.) The knowledge to be recovered was given to man for his walk with God, and that was the supernatural end to which he was appointed. After he was furnished with all his endowments, the law of life and death was given to man so that he might know why he received them. Therefore, all knowledge in him was spiritualized and sanctified. In respect to its principle and end, even the knowledge that he had by nature was spiritual.

(2.) The loss of that knowledge is part of the curse that was inflicted on us for sin. Whatever we come short in from the state of the first man in innocence, whether it is in the loss of good or the addition of evil, it is all from the curse for sin. The blindness, ignorance, darkness, and deadness that are ascribed to us in the state of nature, are also part of the curse. On these two considerations, it is most apparent that learning in itself cannot attain the end it aims at. For,

[1.] The light by which it is discovered is little, weak, obscure, imperfect, uncertain, and conjectural. Knowledge is not in the least measure spiritualized by this light, or brought into that order of living to God, and with God, in which it first lay. This is wholly beyond its reach. As to this end, the apostle assures us that the most men come to is darkness and folly, Romans 1:21-22. Who is not familiar with the profound inquiries, subtle arguments, acute insights, and admirable discoveries of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others?

What did they attain by all their studies and endeavors to help them walk with God? “Emorantesan,” [NT:3471] says the apostle, “They became fools.” The one who, by general consent, bears the crown of wisdom from them all, and with whom to have lived was counted an inestimable happiness, died like a fool, sacrificing a cock to AEsculapius. Another tells us that Jesus Christ alone is “the true Light” that lights us, John 1:9. None has any true light that is not immediately from him. After all the learning of men, if they have nothing else, they are still natural men. They do not perceive the things of God. Their light is still only darkness, and how great is that darkness! It is the Lord Jesus alone who is anointed to open the eyes of the blind. Men cannot spiritualize a notion, or make it glorifying to God. After all their endeavors, they are still blind and dark. They are darkness itself, knowing nothing as they should. I know how men of such lofty attainments are apt to say, “Are we blind also?” with great contempt for others. But God has blasted all their pride: “Where,” he asks, “is the wise? Where is the scribe...,” 1 Corinthians 1:20. I will not add what Paul has cautioned, seeming to condemn philosophy as fitted to spoil souls, or what Tertullian and other ancients have spoken of it. I am very confident that it was the abuse, and not the true use and advantage of it, that they opposed. But,

[2.] Because the darkness and ignorance that learning strives to remove has come upon us as a curse, learning is unable to remove it. Someone who has attained the greatest height of literature, if he does not have Christ, is as much under the curse of blindness, ignorance, stupidity, and dullness, as the poorest, silliest soul in the world. The curse is only removed in Christ who was made a curse for us. Everything that is penal is taken away only by the one on whom all our sins were placed for punishment. The more abilities the mind is furnished with, the more it embraces the curse, and the more it strengthens itself to act out its enmity against God. All that it receives only helps it to set up high thoughts and imaginations against the Lord Christ. So this knowledge comes short of what it is designed to attain, and therefore it cannot be the solid wisdom we are inquiring after.

There are a number of other things by which it would be easy to blur the face of this wisdom, such as its intricacy, difficulty, uncertainty, and unsatisfactoriness.

It betrays its followers into accepting what they most profess to avoid, which is blindness and folly. I hope I will not need to add anything to clear myself for not giving due esteem and respect to literature. My intent is only to cast it down at the feet of Jesus Christ, and to set the crown upon his head.

2. Nor can the second part of the choicest wisdom outside of Christ attain the unique end to which it is appointed; and that is prudence in the management of civil affairs. No perishing thing is more glorious or useful for the common good of human kind. Now, the immediate end of this prudence is to keep the rational world in bounds and order, to draw circles around the sons of men, and to keep them from passing their allotted bounds and limits which might lead to their mutual disturbance and destruction. All kinds of trouble and disturbance arise from lack of regulation: one man breaks in on the rights, uses, interests, and relations of another, thus setting the world at variance. The purpose of all earthly wisdom is to cause all things to move in their proper sphere, just as the celestial orbs, despite their diverse and various motions, keep their own allotments within the compass of their assigned lines.

Now, it will be a very easy task to demonstrate that civil prudence is unable to attain this end. The present condition of affairs throughout the world, and those of former ages, will abundantly testify to this. But I will further reveal the vanity of it for this end in a few observations.

(1.) Through the righteous judgment of God lopping off the top flowers of the pride of men, it frequently comes to pass that those who are furnished with the greatest abilities of civil administration use it for purposes directly contrary end to their natural aim. From whom do we get, for the most part, all the commotions in the world, the breaking up of bounds, and setting the whole frame of nature on fire? Is it not from men such as these? Were men not so wise, perhaps the world would be quieter; the end of wisdom is to keep it quiet. This seems to be a curse that God has spread on the wisdom of the world.

(2.) God has leavened the wisdom and counsel of the wisest of the sons of men with folly and madness. This makes a constant path towards the advancement of his own glory. In the depth of their policy, men advise things as unsuitable to attain their ends as anything that might proceed out of the mouth of a child or a fool. They ensure their own disappointment and ruin better than anything that could be invented against them. “He destroys the wisdom of the wise, and brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent,”

1 Corinthians 1:19. He largely describes this in Isaiah 19:11-14. Drunkenness and staggering is the outcome of all their wisdom; and so the Lord gives them the spirit of giddiness. See also Job 5:12-14. They meet in the day-time when all things seem clear about them. One wonders how they could miss their way.

Then God makes it darkness to such as these, Psalms 33:10. Hence God, as it were, sets them at work, and then undertakes their disappointment. Isaiah 8:9-10 : “Go about your counsels,” says the Lord, “and I will ensure that it comes to nothing.” And Psalms 2:1-4, when men are deep at their plots and contrivances, God is said to hold them in derision, to laugh at them in scorn, seeing the poor worms industriously working out their own ruin. Never has this been clearer than in the days in which we live. Scarcely any wise men have been brought to destruction except by their own evident folly. Nor has the wisest counsel of most of them been one jot better than madness.

(3.) This wisdom, which should tend toward universal quietness, has almost constantly given universal disquiet to those in whom it has been most eminent. “In much wisdom is much grief,” Ecclesiastes 1:18. And in the issue of it, some have done away with themselves, such as Ahithophel; and many have been violently dispatched by others. There is indeed no end to the folly of this wisdom. The great men of the world destroy its reputation; really it is found in few of them. Events that are ascribed to their care, vigilance, and foresight are ordinary for the most part. These men do not contribute the least mite to their outcome. Inferior men, who have learned to adore what is above them, reverence the meetings and conferences of those in greatness and esteem. The weakness and folly of those who are revered is little known. Where this wisdom has been most eminent, it has dwelt so close to the borders of atheism, and been attended with such falseness and injustice, that it has made its possessors wicked and infamous.

I will not need to give any more instances to manifest the insufficiency of this wisdom to attain its unique and immediate end. The vanity of anything is that it comes short of the mark it aims at. It is far from being true and solid wisdom. On its forehead you may read “Disappointment.” This is the first reason why true wisdom cannot consist in either of these things, because they come short even of the particular and immediate ends they aim at.

(2) SECONDLY, both of these in conjunction, even with their utmost improvement, are not able to reach the true general end of wisdom. This assertion is also easy to demonstrate. But it is so professedly done by the one who had the largest portion of both of them of any of the sons of men (Solomon in his Preacher), that I will not insist on it any further.

Let me draw to a close. If true and solid wisdom is not to be found in these, if the pearl is not hidden in this field, and if these two are but vanity and disappointment, then it serves no purpose to seek true wisdom in anything else on earth. Therefore, with one accord, let us set the crown of this wisdom on the head of the Lord Jesus.

Let the reader review the tendency of this whole digression. Its aim is to draw our hearts to the more cheerful entertainment of, and delight in, the Lord Jesus.

If all wisdom is laid up in him, and can only to be attained by having an interest in him, and if all things beside him and without him that lay claim to being wisdom are folly and vanity, then let those who would be wise learn where to rest their souls.