(k) "I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus declared when he was outwardly present, as a teacher and Messiah to Israel. They did not look any higher. He was their director, their Saviour. He it was that saved them from their outward sicknesses. He was only an outward Saviour, that healed their outward diseases, and gave them strength of body to enjoy that outward good land. This was a figure of the great Comforter, which he would pray the Father to send them. An inward one, that would heal all the diseases of their souls, and cleanse them from all their inward pollutions. That thing of God. That thing of eternal life. It was the soul that wanted salvation. This no outward Saviour could do; no external Saviour could have any hand in it. (Sermon III, Western Meeting, p. 51.) 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. (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 darkness, but shall have the Light of Life." 66 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 |