Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have likewise believed in our day; for if we should receive all the doctrines of truth which they received, and be in the practice of all the establishments settled among them by the Wisdom of Truth, by way of tradition only, without the Life and Light of Truth revealed in ourselves, we shall fall short of salvation notwithstanding. (p)

But as we are all likewise called of God by his universal grace, and none excluded, we must comply with the means which God hath appointed, in order to obtain this salvation; that is, to believe, follow, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of Life, as He is divinely revealed and manifested in us; and I trust many of you of this age have already so believed.

And as He is God, He is omnipresent, and therefore very near unto all mankind, and in us, though we cannot perceive Him in our natural state, because of our want of proper qualifications: we are blind by nature, as to the things of God, and want eye-salve from Him. Saul, through a furious blind zeal, was persecuting the Church of Christ, till Light from the Son of God from heaven shined around Him, and with a voice from above confounded him, saying "Saul! "Saul! why persecutest thou Me?" For which unreasonable work he could offer no reason, but humbly submitted to the just judgment exercised upon from above.

him

We may see then how this great persecutor was convinced of the error of his ways by a light from heaven, and the voice of the Son of God. Oh! the blind zeal and wickedness of foolish and furious men, in persecuting the children of God! as saith the Scripture, "They that are born after the flesh always "persecute them that are born after the spirit," until

(p) We are reading the Bible from youth to old age-We are making a great deal of it. Many idolize it, and yet, if we judge by their fruits, we shall not see that they believe the book they read, at all. Their general works are in direct opposition to its teaching. The letter, if we trust to it, kills, but the spirit, and nothing but the spirit, can give us true life.-Shall we believe then that the letter-nay the best letter ever written-or engraven on earth, can bring us to know God.

approach him, come unto Him, and be saved with an everlasting and glorious salvation; and therefore he hath sent forth his word, clothed with a reasonable human mind and human body, to declare Him, according to that saying: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not "desire, mine ears hast thou opened: burnt-offering "and sin-offering hast Thou not required: then said I, "lo! I come: in the volume of the Book it is written "of me; I delight to do thy will, O God! yea, thy law "is within my heart."** This Son of the Highest, thus clothed with humanity, is the Mediator between God and all other men, by whose holy Spirit and power the mind of man is washed, sanctified, and qualified, so as, through this veil, to behold the inaccessible glory of the Father, and live.

Now the word Himself is the glory of the Father thus veiled, and is Light in men, variously proportioned in point of manifestation, and proposed as the object of the faith of all men, as He is Divine Light; the "true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh "into the world." And it is said, " The Gentiles shall

come to this Light, and kings to the brightness of his "arising. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust."‡

The Father hath sent his Son Christ, that all mankind may believe in Him, and look unto the Father in and by Him; and there is not another way. Mankind were in darkness, in ignorance, they had lost the knowledge of God; and we likewise by nature are all ignorant of God, and can never come to the knowledge of Him, and look to Him so as to be saved by Him, till we look unto Him in his own Light.()

* Psalm xl, 6, 7. Isaiah i, 11, lxvi, 3, Heb. x, 5.
† Isaiah, lx, 2, 3.

Matth. xii, 21, iv, 16.

(1) By merely turning to the light within us we have a clearer evidence than all the books in the world can ever give us. (Sermon V, Germantown, p. 104.)

The first thing therefore that we mortals must do, in order to this salvation, is, to believe in this Light, and the power that dwelleth therein, "For without faith it is impossible to please God," or to be born of this Light, or become a child of God, who is Light. This Faith is called the Faith of the operation of God, because it is raised in the heart by the mani. festation of the Light and Power of the Spirit of Christ in the mind. (m) There the Scriptures testify that He is: "The Word is nigh thee, in thy heart, and "in thy mouth, that thou mayest hear it, and do it;" and again, saith Christ of Himself; "I am the Light of the world, He that followeth me shall not abide in dark(6 ness, but shall have the Light of Life."

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Again; we must believe in Him, and receive Him, as He is the word of God, and as He is God; for the Scriptures so testify of Him, "That in the beginning 66 was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the "Word was God. In Him was Life, and the Life was "the Light of men." So then the Evangelist plainly declares the Lord Jesus Christ to be the true God, manifested in the proper nature of man. Does the Evangelist therefore teach that the Divine nature was changed into the human? No! Or that the human nature was become the Divine nature? No, truly! but that the human nature, a reasonable soul, clothed with a human body, was assumed by the Divine Word, the Wisdom and Power of God. (n)

And Jesus Christ, being the Eternal Son of God, is not made but begotten; neither was He made as he is man, with respect either to body or mind, but begotten by Divine Influence; and under this consideration, and by virtue of this union, the Lord Jesus Christ, as One with God, is properly and truly called