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

3. Faith must go and lye at the feet of Christ; faith must fix and fasten it self on this God in our flesh: some go to Christ, and look on Jesus with loose and transient glances, they bring in but flashy, secondary, ordinary actings of faith, they have but course and common apprehensions of Jesus Christ. Oh but we should come to Christ with solemn serious spirits; we should look on Jesus piercingly, till we see him as God is in him, and as such a person thus and thus qualified from Heaven; we should labour to apprehend what is the riches of this glorious mystery of Christ's Incarnation; we should dive into the depths of his glorious actings; we should study this mystery above all other studies; nothing is so pleasant, and nothing is more deep; that one person should be God and Man, that God should be man in our nature, and yet not assume the person of a man; that blessedness should be made a curse, that Heaven should be let down into Hell, that the God of the world would shut himself up (as it were) in a body; that the invisible God should be made visible to sense; that all things should become nothing, and make it self of no reputation; that God should make our nature, which had sinned against him, to be the great Ordinance of Reconciling us unto himself, that God should take our flesh, and dwell in it with all his fullness, and make that flesh more Glorious than the Angels, and advance that flesh into oneness with himself, and through that flesh open all his counsels and rich discoveries of love and free-grace unto the Sons of men; that this Man-God, God-Man should be our Saviour, Redeemer, Reconciler, Father, Friend; Oh what mysteries are these! no wonder if when Christ was born,¹ the Apostle cries, we saw his glory, as of the only begotten Son of God; noting out, that at first sight of him, so much glory sparkled from him as could appear from none, but a God walking up and down the world. O my soul, let not such a treasury be unlooked into; set faith on work with a redoubled strength; surely we live not like men under this great design, if our eye of faith be not firmly and steadfastly set on this. O that we were but insighted into these glories! that we were but acquainted with these lively discoveries?² how blessedly might we live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved us, and gave himself for us?

3. Faith must go and lye at the feet of Christ; faith must fix and fasten it self on this God in our flesh: some go to Christ, and look on Jesus with loose and transient glances, they bring in but flashy, secondary, ordinary actings of faith, they have but course and common apprehensions of Jesus Christ. Oh but we should come to Christ with solemn serious spirits; we should look on Jesus piercingly, till we see him as God is in him, and as such a person thus and thus qualified from Heaven; we should labour to apprehend what is the riches of this glorious mystery of Christ's Incarnation; we should dive into the depths of his glorious actings; we should study this mystery above all other studies; nothing is so pleasant, and nothing is more deep; that one person should be God and Man, that God should be man in our nature, and yet not assume the person of a man; that blessedness should be made a curse, that Heaven should be let down into Hell, that the God of the world would shut himself up (as it were) in a body; that the invisible God should be made visible to sense; that all things should become nothing, and make it self of no reputation; that God should make our nature, which had sinned against him, to be the great Ordinance of Reconciling us unto himself, that God should take our flesh, and dwell in it with all his fulness, and make that flesh more Glorious than the Angels, and advance that flesh into oneness with himself, and through that flesh open all his councels and rich discoveries of love and free-grace unto the Sons of men; that this Man-God, God-Man should be our Saviour, Redeemer, Reconciler, Father, Friend; Oh what mysteries are these! no wonder if when Christ was born,