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him that he be so: He is the wisdom of God, and made of God our wisdom. Wonderful! that the same that is his own wisdom, and no less, he would make ours. And now, in a sense of all our ignorances and follies, it becomes us to go to him, to apply ourselves to him, and apply him to us. He is called our head, and so most fitly, for it is the place of all our wisdom, that lies in our head. And all the rest, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption: If he be righteousness in himself, and holy, and victor over his enemies, and set free from wrath and death; then are we so too in him, for he is ours, and so ours, that we become what he is, are inrighted to all he hath, and endowed with all his goods; though poor and base in ourselves, yet married to him, that is the title: We are made rich and noble, and free: We are righteous and holy, because he is. * The wife shines with the rays of her husband. All debts and pleas are taken off, he stands betwixt us and all hazard, and in him we stand acquitted and justified before God.

That which makes up the match, and ties the knot of this union, is faith. He is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, &c. tendered and held out as all these, in the promise of the gospel; not only declared to be really furnished and fit so to be, but offered to be so, and we warranted, yea, invited and intreated to receive him as such; but he is effectually made to be this to us, to me, by believing, brought home and applied of God, and faith wrought in the heart to entertain and unite to him; † it closes the bargain, and makes him ours. Now, in that he is made unto us, not of ourselves, but God, for that is his gift and work, we cannot believe more than we can fulfil the whole law; and though men think it a common and easy thing to accept of so sweet an offer at so cheap a rate, nothing being required but to receive him; yet this is a thing that * Uxor fulget radiis mariti. + Η πίσεις ἰσοποίει.

naturally all refuse: No man comes, (says he) except the Father draw him. Though men be beseeched to come, yet the most will not come unto me that they may have life. To as many as received him, he gave the privilege to become the sons of God: And yet for all that, many did not receive him; yea, as there it is expressed, He came to his own, but his own received him not. They that were nearest to him in natural relation and interest, yet refused him, for the most part, and attained not this blessed spiritual interest in him unto life.

It would be considered, my brethren, Christ is daily held out, and none are excluded or excepted, all are invited, be what they will, that have need of him, and use for him; and yet who is persuaded? Oh! Who hath believed our report? One hath his farm, another his oven, each some engagement or another. Men are not at leisure for Christ. Why? you think may be, you have received him. If it be so, you are happy. Be not deluded. Have you received him? Do you find him then living and ruling within you? Are your eyes upon him? Do you wait on him, early and late, to see what his will is? Is your soul glad iu him? Can you, in distress, sickness, or poverty, clasp to him, and find him. sweet, and allay all with this thought, "However things go with me, yet Christ is in me?" Doth your heart cleave to him? Certainly, if he be in you, it will be thus; or at least, your most earnest desire will be, that it may be thus.

Men will not believe how hard a matter it is to believe the fulness and sufficiency of Jesus Christ, till they be put to it in earnest to make use of him; and then they find it, when sin and death are set before their view, and discovered in their native colours unto the soul, when a man is driven to that, What shall I do to be saved? Then, then is the time to know what notion he hath of Christ. And as the difficulty lies in this, in the first awakening of the conscience from sin, so in after-times of

temptation, and apprehension of wrath, when upon some new added guiltiness, or a new sight of the old, in a frightful manner, Sin revives, and the soul dies, it is struck dead with the terrors of the law: Then to keep thy hold, and find another life in Christ, the law and justice satisfied, and so the conscience quieted in him, this is indeed to believe.

It is a thing of huge difficulty to bring men to a sense of their natural misery, to see that they have need of a saviour, and to look out for one; but then being brought to that, it is no less, if not more difficult, to persuade them that Christ is he; that as they have need of him, so they need no more, he being able and sufficient for them. All the waverings and, fears of misbelieving minds do spring from dark and narrow apprehensions of Jesus Christ. All the doubt is not of their interest, as they imagine; they who say so, and think it is so, do not perceive the bottom and root of their own malady: They say they do no whit doubt but that he is able enough, and his righteousness large enough; but all the doubt is, if he belong to me. Now, I say, this doubt arises from a defect and doubt of the former, wherein you suspect it not. Why doubts thou that he belongs to thee? Dost thou fly to him, as lost and undone in thyself? Dost thou renounce all that can be called thine, and seek thy life in him? Then he is thine. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. Oh! but I find so much, not only former, but still daily renewed and increasing guiltiness. Why? Is he a sufficient Saviour? Or, is he not? If thou dost say, he is not, then it is manifest, that here lies the defect and mistake: If thou sayest, he is, then hast thou answered all thy objections of that kind; much guiltiness, much or little, old or new, neither helps nor hinders, as to thy interest in him, and salvation by him. And for dispelling of these mists, nothing can be more effectual than the letting in of these gospel beams, the clear expressions of his riches and fulness in the scriptures, and VOL. III. C c

eminently this, made of God, wisdom, righteous

ness.

Wisdom.] Both objectively and effectively. Objectively, I mean, all our wisdom, to be in the right knowledge and apprehension of him; and this suits. to the apostle's present discourse. The Jews would have a sign, and the Gentiles, wisdom; but we preach Christ: So chap. ii. I determined to know nothing, save Christ crucified. He was learnedly bred, and knew many things beside; much of nature, and much of the law: But all this was to him overdated, useless stuff; it was as if he never had heard of, nor known any thing else but Jesus Christ. We may know other things; but this, and this alone, is our wisdom, to know him and him crucified: Particularly, we may have knowledge of the law, and by it the knowledge of sin; but in relation to our standing before God, and so our happiness, which is the greatest point of wisdom, Jesus Christ, is alone, and is all. And the more firmly a soul eyes Christ, and loses all other knowledge, and itself in contemplating him, the more truly wise and heavenly it is.

And effectively he is our wisdom. All our right knowledge of him, and belief in him, flows from himself, is derived from him, and sent into our souls. His Spirit is conveyed into ours; a beam of himself, as of the sun: This sun of righteousness is not seen but by his own light; so that every soul that is made wise unto salvation, that is brought to apprehend Christ, to cleave to him, and repose on him, it is by an immission of divine light from himself, that shews him, and leads unto him. And so we 'know God in him. There is no right knowledge of the Father but in the Son; God dwelling in the man Christ, will be found or known no where else; and they that consider, and worship God out of Christ, do not know or worship the true God, but a false notion and fancy of their own.

The Shechinah, the habitation of the majesty, is

Jesus Christ; there he dwells as between the cherubims over the mercy-seat. To apprehend God so, is to love him, and trust in him all our life, to hope to find favour and bliss with him; this is the only wise knowledge of him: Now, this alone is in Christ, and from him. He contains this represen tation of God, and gives his own light to see it; so that a christian's desire would be, in relation to Jesus Christ that of David to the temple, as a figure of him, One thing have I desired of him, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord; that I may get in to Christ, to know God there, to behold the beauty of the Lord. There we see beauty indeed, the Father's glory, and so as our father, reconciled to us, we see him merciful and gracious. And as to behold, so still to enquire in his temple, to advance in the knowledge of God, studying him in Christ; to admire what we see, and seek still to see more. And to know that this know→ ledge of God, as we have it in Christ, so from him. He reveals the Father; he came from his bosom for that purpose. We cannot believe on him, cannot come near God through him, but as he lets forth of his light, to conduct and lead us in, yea, powerfully to draw in, for his light does so. Now, knowing and apprehending him by his own light, his Spirit, the apostle clears it, that this is our wisdom, by those rich titles added: According to which we find him to us, when we receive from him that wisdom, by which we apprehend him aright, and lay hold on him; then made unto us righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

Righteousness.] This doubtless is meant of the righteousness by which we are justified before God; and he is made this to us, applied by faith: His righteousness becomes ours. That exchange made, our sins are laid over upon him, and his obedience put upon us. This, the great glad tidings, that wel are made righteous by Christ: It is not a righteous ness wrought by us, but given to us, and put upon