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us. Thus we are conducted to the knowledge of that faith and that peace and holiness, without which no man fhall fee the Lord: for this is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jefus Chrift whom thou haft fent.

of faith in Jefus Chrift.

SUNDAY III. PART II.

VI. We profess in the fecond ARTICLE of our chriftian faith, that we believe in Jefus Chrift his only-begotten Son our Lord: because, as we believe in God, fo we must alfo believe in Chrift: for this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jefus Chrift, who fhall fave his people from their fins. Therefore to believe in Jefus Christ our Lord imports not only to be fully perfuaded, that he is that eternal Son of God, whom he declared himself to be, and that he is the true Meffiah and Saviour of the world; but it farther includes our obligation and confent to obey all his commandments, who is our Lord and our King; and to put our whole trust in him alone, for our obtaining eternal life, and all other intermediate bleffings, only by his mediation for us with his Father. Therefore, fays the apostle, there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be faved. So that we are abfolutely obliged to believe this part of the christian faith; because we cannot be faved by Christ, but by believing in him.

When we give the title of the Christ or Meffiah unto Jefus Who is the our Saviour, when we profefs to believe that Jefus Chrift. is the perfon confecrated of God, by the most facred anointing, to that high office of faving mankind; like which were the offices of king, prieft, and prophet, under the law (in the setting of whom apart to their proper offices the anointing oil was ufed) as types and fhadows of the Saviour of all mankind. Wherefore the prophet A prophet. Ifaiah, forefecing this coming of the Son of God for our redemption, cries out in the person of the prophet Jefus, The fpirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gofpel to the poor. And that Jefus was anointed to the facerdotal office from that of the Pfalmift, The Lord fware, and

A pricft.

appears

A king.

will not repent, Thou art a prieft for ever after the order of Melchifedeck. It alfo appears that Jesus was to be anointed to the regal office, from the most ancient tradition of the Jews, and predictions of the prophets; and to this he was folemnly fet apart, when God raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality, might, dominion, and power. And he exerciseth this office by delivering his people a In what law: and by his grace inabling them to walk in it: manner. by preferving them from temptations; by fupporting and delivering them under afflictions; and will at last complete all, by rewarding them in the most royal manner, making them kings and priests unto God and his Father. Wherefore,

If we believe him to be our prophet, we fhould be induced thereby to hear, and receive, and obferve his word, The influas being delivered by one whom God himself hath ence of this declared to be his beloved Son, and hath command- belief. ed us to hear: and our belief in him, as our priest, should add confidence to that obedience, and give us boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jefus; and, having a highprieft over the house of God, to draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith; to confider ourselves as bought with a price and no longer our own, but bound to live only to him who died for us. Our belief in him, confidered as our king, fhould induce us to be his faithful fubjects, and to honour him by a chearful and ready obedience to his laws. And we may always remember, that this is part of the feal of the foundation of God, that every one that nameth the name of Chrift fhall depart from iniquity.

When we acknowledge Chrift to be our Lord, it is not only in refpect of his general dominion over all things, why called but more particularly as having by his death con- our Lord. quered him, to whom we had before yielded ourselves fervants to obey; and also having by that death purchased us by his blood. Confequently, feeing that Chrift is our abfolute Lord and Master; fince he has bought us, and hath the fole right to the property and poffeffion of us, we must remember that we are not our own; that we ought not to do our own will, but his; and neither live nor die to ourselves, but only to him, Some,

Some, that pretend to be guided by right and found reason, seem to ftumble at the dignity of the person, whom

Objection. we believe to have given himself a sacrifice and propitiation for the fins of mankind: they afk, How it is poffible, that the only-begotten Son of God should be made flesh, and become man? How it is conceivable that God should condefcend fo far as to fend, and the Son of God condefcend willingly to be fent, and do such great things for his creatures? and above all, How it is confiftent with reason to suppofe God condefcending to do fo much for fuch frail and weak creatures as men, who, in all appearance, seem to be but a very finall, low, and inconfiderable part of this world? Here it must readily be acknowledged, that human reason could never have discovered fuch a method as this Anfower. for the making peace between finners and an offended God without exprefs revelation. But then neither, on the other fide, when once this method is made known, is there any fuch difficulty or inconceivableness in it, as can reasonably make a wife and confiderate man call in question the truth of a well-attested revelation, merely upon that account: which indeed any plain abfurdity or contradiction, in the matter of a doctrine pretended to be revealed, would, it must be confeffed, unavoidably effect. For, as to the poffibility of the incarnation of the Son of God, whatever mysteriousness there onfeffedly was in the manner of it; yet, as to the thing itself, there is evidently no more unreafonablenefs in believing the poffibility of it, than in believing the union of our foul and body, or any o-. ther certain truth; which we plainly fee implies no contradiction in the thing itself, at the fame time that we are fenfible we cannot discover the manner how it is done. And it is notatall unreasonable to believe, that God thould make fo great a condefcenfion to his creatures; and that a perfon of fuch dignity, as the only-begotten Son of God, fhould vouchfafe to give himself a facrifice for the fins of men: he who duly confiders that it is no diminution to the glory and greatness of the Father of all things to infpect, govern, and direct every thing by his all-wife providence through the whole creation; to take care even of the meanest of his creatures, fo that not a fparrow falls to the ground, or a hair of our head perishes, without

without his knowledge; and to obferve exactly every particle, even of inanimate matter, in the universe: he (I fay) who duly confiders this, cannot with reason think it any real difparagement to the Son of God (though it was indeed a moft wonderful and amazing inftance of humility and condefcenfion) that he should concern himself so far for finful men, as to appear in their nature, to reveal the will of God more clearly to them, to give himself a facrifice and expiation for their fins, and to bring them to repentance and eternal happiness.

christianity

By these and fuch-like confiderations we arrive at the truth and excellency of the chriftian religion, or that way The truth and manner of worshipping and ferving God, which and exwas revealed to the world by Jefus Chrift; wherein cellency of are contained articles of faith to be believed, pre- proved. cepts of life to be practifed, and motives and arguments to inforce obedience. For the truth of this religion appears from that full and clear evidence, which our Saviour and his apoftles gave of their divine miffion and authority, and from the nature of that religion they taught, which was worthy of God, and tended to the happiness and welfare of mankind. And it is not only univerfally acknowledged by chriftians; but it hath been owned by Jews and Heathens, who have writ of From hifthofe times, That there was fuch a perfon as Jefus tory. Chrift, who lived in the reign of Tiberius Cæfar. And that the fame Jefus was crucified is averred both by the chriftians, who, notwithstanding the ignominy they might thereby seem to bring upon themselves, worshipped him as God; but also by the Jews. Alfo it is very probable there were public records of the whole matter at Rome, as the account was fent by the Roman governor from Jerufalem to Cæfar : for the ancient chriftians in their writings, in the defence of their religion, appeal thereto; which they had too much understanding and modesty to have done, if no such account had ever been fent, or had not been then extant to be produced: fo that no history can be better established by the unanimous teftimony of people otherwife very different from one another, than the life and death of Chrift Jefus. Besides,

All

All the former prophecies, which related to the Meffiah, From prowere fulfilled in him alone: He received the testiphecy. mony of a voice from heaven several times: and he was endowed with the power of working miracles, particularly with the gift of prophecy, proved and made good by the fulfilling of his own predictions; than which nothing can be a greater evidence of a divine miffion, because it is the greatest argument of infinite power and wisdom. And

racles.

The miracles which he wrought prove him to be sent From mi- from God. For the power of working true miracles, when they are great and unquestionable, and frequently wrought in public, is one of the highest evidences we can have of the divine miffion of any perfon. Upon this ground, Nicodemus concludes that our Saviour was fent from God: and our Saviour himself infifts upon this as the great proof of his divine authority; and the refifting the evidence of his miracles he reckons as an aggravation of unbelief: If I had not, faith he, done among them the works which no other man did, they had not had fin: and further, he tells us fuch an obftinate refiftance of the evidence of his miracles is the fin against the Holy Ghoft. And the greatest enemies to him and our holy religion confefs, that our Saviour did many wonderful things, though they attributed them to the power of magic: he healed all forts of diseases in multitudes of people, by a touch or word, and that fometimes upon those at a distance. The most desperate diseases fubmitted to his power: he restored fight to the man born blind: he made the woman straight that had been crooked and bowed together eighteen years: and the man that had an infirmity thirty-eight years, he bids take up his bed and walk: hemultiplied a few loaves and fishes for the feeding of fome thoufands: and he raised several from the dead, particularly Lazarus, after he had been four days in the grave. All thefe miracles he wrought publicly in the midst of his enemies; and indeed they were fo public and fo undeniable, that the apoftle appeals to the Jews themselves, declaring, that Jefus of Nazareth was a man approved of God among them by miracles, and wonders, and figns, which God did by him in the midst of them, as they themselves alfo knew. But the great

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