Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

CHAP. I. The Proem, Division, and opening of the Words.

THE most excellent subject to discourse, or write of, is Jesus Christ. Augustine having read Cicero's works,¹ commended them for their eloquence, but he passed this sentence upon them, They are not sweet, because the name of Jesus is not in them. And Bernards saying is near the same; if thou writest, it doth not relish with me, unless I read Jesus there; if thou disputest, or conferrest, it doth not relish well with me, unless Jesus sound there. Indeed all we say is but unsavoury, if it be not seasoned with this salt. I determined not to know any thing among you (saith Paul) save Jesus Christ, and him Crucified: he resolved with himself before he Preached among the Corinthians, that this should be the only point of knowledge that he would profess himself to have skill in, and that in the course of his Ministry he would labour to bring them to: this he made the breadth, & length, & depth, & height of his knowledge; yea doubtless (saith he) and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: ²In this knowledge of Christ there is an excellency above all other knowledge in the World; there is nothing more pleasing & comfortable, more animating & enlivening, more ravishing & soul-contenting; only Christ is the sum & centre of all divine revealed truths; we can preach nothing else as the object of our faith, as the necessary element of our souls salvation, which doth not some way or other either meet in Christ, or refer to Christ; only Christ is the whole of mans happiness; the Sun to enlighten him, the Physician to heal him, the Wall of Fire to defend him, the Friend to comfort him, the Pearl to enrich him, the Ark to support him, the Rock to sustain him under the heaviest pressures; As an hiding place from the Wind, and a covert from the Tempest, ³as Rivers of Waters in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great Rock in a weary Land. Only Christ is that Ladder betwixt Earth and Heaven, the Mediator betwixt God and Man, a Mystery which the Angels of Heaven desire to pry, and peep, and look into.