Reflection 4

How happy are we who live under the clear and complete Light of the Gospel, as it is explained and illustrated by the inspired Apostles, since the Death and Resurrection of our blessed Savior. We are happier in several Respects, than those that lived even in the Life-time of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are ready to say within ourselves, Surely if I had seen Christ in the Flesh, I must have loved him: If I had beheld his pure and perfect Example of Holiness, I could not help imitating: If I had heard him speak as never Man spoke, I must have embraced his Doctrine, and submitted to his Instructions. But we are much mistaken in this Thought, for we might have been carried away from Christ by the common national Prejudices against him, we might have been among the proud Pharisees, building up a Righteousness of our own, and refusing the Gospel, while we heard Jesus himself preach it. Multitudes who heard this glorious Preacher rejected his Divine Counsels, and perished in their Unbelief and Disobedience, though they had as good an Opinion of themselves as we have.

Besides many other Advantages that we have now, beyond what they had in the Days of Christ; besides the many Predictions and Promises that are since accomplished, which confirm his Mission; besides the Explication of a greater part of the old Testament, by the Apostles, than could have been done before the Death of Christ; besides the many Proofs of the Christian Religion, which we derive from the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, and the Arguments drawn from the miraculous Gifts of the Spirit, which could never have been brought in our Savior's Life-time, we have this Advantage also among others, that we have the Gospel set in a clearer Light by his Apostles, in their Sermons and Epistles, than our Savior himself set it in, by his own personal Ministry.

That Divine Teacher explained the Law clearly, and set the Commands of it in their full Light and Beauty, partly to lead us to a more spiritual Practice than the Pharisees, and the Jewish Doctors of the Law were acquainted with, and partly to show our utter Incapacity of keeping the Law, or obtaining Eternal Life by it. He also began to publish the Gospel of Grace, Repentance and Forgiveness; but (as was declared before) his sovereign Wisdom did not think proper publicly to explain and illustrate this Gospel of Forgiveness with the Doctrine of his own Sacrifice, his Death, his Atonement for our Sins, his Resurrection for our Justification, his Intercession for us in Heaven, and his ruling the World for the Good of his People. He left all this to be done by his Apostles, when the Spirit should come down upon them and teach them many things which they could not bear in his Life-time, and which therefore he did not clearly teach them. John 16:12.

Value therefore and love the Gospel, and return not to the Law of Works, as the Means or Rule of your Justification, Galatians 4:21. Tell me you that desire to be under the Law, do you not hear the Law, how it curses every Sinner, and condemns them all without Remedy and without Hope? It is the Business of Sinners to fly to and live upon this Gospel of Forgiveness, and not seek to establish their own imperfect Righteousness before God. Rejoice in the Way of Justification by the Obedience, Death and Resurrection of the Son of God in Flesh. Never hope to obtain Pardon of Sin, and to secure the Salvation which Christ has revealed, by your own keeping the Commandments of the Law, for your best righteous acts are all very defective and insufficient. But repent of Sin, trust in Christ, and live upon atoning Blood and pardoning Grace, while you humbly seek after the highest Degrees of Holiness and Conformity to the Commands of the Law. By this means you shall magnify the Law of God, and make it honorable in the Sight of Men, even while your Hope of Salvation and Eternal Life is entirely owing to the rich Grace of God in the Gospel of his Son Jesus. To him that has loved us, and washed us from our Sins in his Blood, to him that has redeemed us from the Curse of the Law, by being made a Curse and a Sacrifice for us, be Glory, Honor and Dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

It is proper to put in a Remark here, which perhaps would have been better placed at the End of the first Essay, namely

That that ingenious Commentator Doctor Whitby, was well known to the learned World, when he wrote his Comment on the New Testament, to be a pretty warm Defender of the Arminian Doctrines concerning the Will of Man and Divine Grace, etcetera though at the same time he was a zealous Opposer of the Socinian Sentiments concerning the Person of Christ, and a strict and zealous asserter of the Doctrine of his Satisfaction and Atonement for Sin, and probably he borrowed some of his Sentiments on that Point from Doctor Owen, on the Epistle to the Hebrews. In his latter Days, a little before his Death, he seemed to raise the Character of the human Nature of Christ as high as the Arians do, but supposed it still below Divinity.