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Take away then the doctrine of the Trinity, and both these are gone. There can be no purpose of grace by the Father in the Son, no covenant for the putting of that purpose in execution; and so the foundation of all the fruits of love and goodness is lost to the soul.

As to the execution of this purpose, with the actual dispensation of the fruits of grace and goodness to us, it lies wholly in the unspeakable condescension of the Son in his incarnation, with what ensued thereon. Word, by the power of the Holy Ghost, is the ground of our participation of grace. Without it,

The incarnation of the eternal

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it was absolutely impossible that man made partaker of the favour of God. inwraps the whole doctrine of the Trinity in its bosom; nor can once be apprehended, without its acknowledgment. Deny the Trinity, and all this means of the communication of grace, with the whole of the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ, falls to the ground. Every tittle of it speaks this truth: and they who deny the one, reject the other.

Our actual participation of the fruits of this grace, is by the Holy Ghost. We cannot ourselves seize on them, nor bring them home to our own souls. Now whence is this Holy Ghost? Is he not sent from the Father by the Son? Can we entertain any thought of his effectual working in us, but it includes this whole doctrine? They, therefore, who deny the Trinity, deny the efficacy of its operation also.

So it is, as to our obedience to God, by which the communion between God and man is completed.

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Although the formal object of divine worship be the nature of God; and the persons are not worshipped as persons distinct, but as they are each of them God; yet as God they are every one of them distinctly to be worshipped. So is it, as to our faith, our love, our thanksgiving, all obedience. Thus, without the acknowledgment of this truth, none of that obedience which God requireth at our hands, can, in a due manner, be performed.

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Hence the Scripture speaks not of any thing between God and us, but what is founded on this account. The Father worketh, the Son worketh, and the Holy Ghost worketh. The Father worketh not, but by the Son and his Spirit; the Son and Spirit work not, but from the Father. The Father glorifieth the Son; the Son glorifieth the Father; and the Holy Ghost glorifieth them both. Before the foundation of the world, the Son was with the Father, and rejoiced in his peculiar work for the redemption of mankind. At the creation, the Father made all things, but by the Son, and the power of the Spirit. In redemption, the Father sends the Son; the Son, by his own condescension, undertakes the work, and is incarnate by the Holy Ghost. The Father, as was said, communicates his love, and all the fruits of it, to us by the Son; as the Holy Ghost doth the merits and fruits of the mediation of the Son. The Father is not known nor worshipped, but by and in the Son; nor Father or Son, but by the Holy Ghost, &c.

Upon this discovery, the soul that was before startled at the doctrine in the notion of it, is fully convinced, that all the satisfaction it hath sought

after in its seeking to God, is utterly lost, if this be not admitted. There is neither any foundation left of the communication of love to him, nor means of returning obedience to God. Besides, all the things that he hath been inquiring after, appear, on this account, in their glory, beauty, and reality to him: so that that which most staggered him at first in the receiving of the truth, because of its deep mysterious glory, doth now most confirm him in the embracing of it, because of its necessity, power, and heavenly excellency.

Another consideration of the like efficacy, may be taken from a brief view of the whole Scripture, with the design of it. The consent of parts, or harmony of the Scripture in itself, and every part of it with each other, and with the whole, is commonly pleaded as an evidence of its divine original. Thus much certainly it doth evince, beyond all possible contradiction, that the whole proceedeth from one and the same principle-hath the same Authorand He wise, discerning, able to comprehend the whole compass of what he intended to deliver and reveal. Otherwise, that oneness of Spirit, design, and aim, in unspeakable diversity of means of its delivery, that absolute correspondency of it to itself, and unlikeness to any thing else, could not have been attained. Now it is certain, that this principle must be chief in its kind; either good or evil. If the Scripture be what it declares itself to be, it is then unquestionably the "word of the living God," truth itself; for that it professeth itself to be, from beginning to end; to which profession all that it reveals, has an unquestionable tendency to his glory

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If it be not so, it must be acknowledged that the author of it had a blasphemous design to hold forth himself to be God, when he is not so; a malicious design to deceive the sons of men, and to make them believe that they worship and honour God, and obey him when they do not; and thus draw them into everlasting destruction; and that to compass these ends of blasphemy, atheism, and malice, he hath laid out, in a long course of time, all the industry and wisdom that a creature could be made partaker of. Now he that should do thus, must be the devil, and none else; no other creature can possibly arrive at that height of obstinacy in evil. Now certainly, whilst God is pleased to continue to us any thing, by which we are distinguished from the beasts that perish; whilst there is a sense of the difference between good and evil, abiding amongst men; it cannot fall upon the understanding of any man, that that doctrine which is so holy and pure, so absolutely leading to the utmost improvement of whatever is good, just, commendable, and praise-worthy, so suitable to all the light of God, of good and evil that remains in us, could proceed from any one everlastingly hardened in evil, and that in the pursuit of the most wicked design, that that wicked one could possibly be engaged in; namely, to enthrone himself, and maliciously to cheat and ruin the souls of men; so that upon necessity the Scripture can own no author but Him, whose it is, even the living God.

ON THE

FOLLY AND DANGER

OF

MAKING LIGHT OF CHRIST.

BY

RICHARD BAXTER.

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