28. Three comfortable sights seen in the glass of the gospel

Three comfortable sights seen in the glass of the gospel We see ourselves in Christ, and see the love of God to us in Christ.

These three sights are the foundation of all comfort. God gives us to Christ, and sees us as given to him in his election. Christ sees us as given of the Father, as you have it John 17:12; and loves us as we are loved of the Father, and then sees us as his own members. And we by a Spirit of faith see Christ, and see ourselves in Christ, and given to Christ by the Father. Hereupon comes a desire of imitation and expression of Jesus Christ. When we see ourselves in Christ God looks upon us in Christ, and we look upon ourselves in Christ; and when we look upon the mercy of God in Christ, it kindleth love, and love kindleth love, as fire kindleth fire. Fire hath that quality, that it turns all to itself. Now the meditation of the glorious love of God in Christ it works love, and love is an affection of changing; love transforms as fire doth. The love of God warms us, and we are fit for all impressions, as things that are warm. Iron is a dull and heavy thing, yet when it is warm it is bright and pliable, and hath as much as may be of the nature of fire imprinted upon it. So our dead, and dull, and inflexible, and unyielding souls become malleable and flexible by the love of Christ shining upon them. His love transforms them and kindles them. So here is the way how the glory of God’s love in Christ transforms us, because the discovery of the bowels of mercy in God towards us kindles love to him; and that being kindled it works likeness, for love to greatness transforms us. It works a desire to be like those that are great. Where there is dependence there is a desire to be like, even among men. Much more considering that God so loves our nature in Christ, and that our nature is so full of grace in Christ as it is, the love of God in Christ, that hath done so much for us, it breeds a desire to be like Christ in our disposition, all we can. By looking to the glory of God in Christ we see Christ as our husband, and that breeds a disposition in us to have the affections of a spouse. We see Christ as our head, and that breeds a disposition in us to be members like him.

Quest. How shall we know then that we see God in Christ, and the glory of God in the gospel comfortably?

Ans. Hath this sight a transforming power in thee, to the image of Christ, to make thee like him? If it have not a transforming power, it is a barren, empty contemplation, that hath no efficacy or comfort at all. So far as the sight of God’s love in Christ breeds conformity to Christ, so far it is gracious and comfortable. See therefore whether thou art transformed to the image of Christ. If there be not a change, there is no beholding of Christ to speak of. No man ever sees the mercy of God in Christ by the eye of faith, but he is changed.

For, beloved, as there must be a change, so it is in this order, from beholding the mercy of God in Christ. For can you imagine that any soul can see itself in the glass of God’s love in Jesus Christ, that it should see in the gospel Christ, and in him God reconciled unto him in particular, but that soul, out of the apprehension of God’s love in Christ, will love God again, and be altered and changed? It is impossible such a sight therefore, whereby we see ourselves in this glass, as when we look in a glass, and see our own image, we see our own selves in Christ, and the love of God.* Such a sight altereth and changeth alway. It works love, and love is the worker of imitation; for what doth make one labour to express another in their disposition, carriage, and conversation? Oh it is love, as children imitate their parents. Love is full of invention, and of this kind of invention, that it studies to please the person loved, as much as it can every way. Hereupon we come to be desirous to be like Christ, because we see the glory of God’s mercy shining in Christ. The adversaries of the grace of God they fall foul upon us, because we preach justification by the free mercy and love of God in Christ. Oh, say they, this is to dead the spirits of men, that they have no care of good works.

Beloved, can there be any greater incentive and motive in the world to sanctification, to express Christ and to study Christ, than to consider what favour and mercy we have in Christ? how we are justified and freed by him, by the glorious mercy of God in Christ? There cannot be a greater. Therefore we see here they depend one upon another. By seeing in the glass of the gospel the glory of God, we are transformed from glory to glory. An excellent glass the gospel is: by seeing God’s love in it we are changed. The law is a glass too, but such a glass as St James speaks of, that when a man looks into it, and sees his duty, he goes away, and forgets all, 1:23. The law discovers our sin and misery. Indeed, it is a true glass. If we look there, we shall see the true picture of old Adam and of corruption; but it is such a glass as works nothing upon us. But when this glass is held out by the ministers of the word, whose office it is to hold the glass to people, when they see the love of God in Christ, this is a changing, transforming glass, to make them that were deformed and disfigured before, that bore upon them the image of Satan before, now to be transformed to be like Christ, by whom they must be saved. Is there any study in the world, therefore, more excellent than that of the gospel, and of the mercy of God in Christ, that transforms and changes men from one degree of grace to another, as it follows in the text.

Therefore, those that find themselves to be the ’old men’ still, that have lived in corrupt courses, and do so still, let them not think to have any benefit by the gospel. They deceive themselves. They never knew God. For he that saith he hath communion with God, and walks in darkness, he is a liar, 1 John 4:20. St John gives him the lie, for God is light. How can a man see himself in the love of God, and remain in a dark state opposite to love? Will it not alter a man? It will not suffer him to live in sins against conscience. Let no man that doth so, think he hath benefit by Christ. That knowledge is but a notional knowledge, a speculation, a swimming knowledge: it is not a spiritual knowledge; because wheresoever the knowledge of God in Christ is to purpose, there is a change and conversion of the whole man. There is a new judgment and new affections. The bent and bias of them is another way than they were before. There is a change which is called a turning in the Scripture.* Those things that were before them before, are now behind them; and those things that were behind them, are now before them. Whereas they turned their back upon God and good things, now they turn their faces, they look God-ward and heaven-ward, and to a better condition; for this change is nothing else but conversion. Therefore a man may say as he said, ’I am not I.’ Those that have seen Christ, it makes them differ from themselves; this sight works a change.

If there were not a change, it would make God forsworn; as it is Luke 1:13, seq., in Zacharias’s song, ’He hath sworn that, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we should serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our lives.’ If any man, therefore, say he is delivered from his enemies, that he thinks he shall not be damned and go to hell, and yet doth not live in holiness and righteousness, he makes God’s oath frustrate, for God’s oath joins both together: ’He hath sworn that, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we should serve him without fear;’ without slavish fear, but with a fear of reverence: ’in holiness and righteousnes all the days of our life.’ Whosoever, therefore, are in a state of deliverance, have grace granted them whereby they may serve God in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life; they are changed into the same image, ’From glory to glory.’ By glory is meant especially grace here, and that which accompanies the grace of God, the favour of God. When we are persuaded of it by the Spirit, by which grace is wrought in us, upon grace in us there follows peace, and joy, and comfort, and many such things which the Scripture accounts to be glory.