CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

3. It's acceptable Because hereby Christ as a Mediator is improved for all these glorious ends he was appointed by God, and thereby Christ is also glorified; What shall such unsearchable riches of grace as are bound up in Christ be buried? Shall there not be daily acknowledgements of him? Now consider, that if by Faith thou dost not receive him, thou declarest Christ lived in vain, and died in vain, by what reason thou dost not believe; for one effect thou must not for another, and so for all; Thus it will be as if there had never been such a person as Christ; We may in some sense call it thy Antichristian unbelief, He that denieth Christ to be come in the flesh is Antichrist, 2 Joh. 7 Doth not thy unbelief deny him? For the denying of his office is by consequence the denying of his person; Thy unbelief doth that practically which the damnable heresies of Socinians do doctrinally, make as if Christ were not a Mediator, and such who had satisfied the wrath of God for us; Oh then know it's not all thy sins do so immediately oppose Christ as a Mediator as thy unbelief doth, which makes Divines say, that in some sense only unbelief damneth, because that rejecteth the Mediator, refuseth the Saviour, so that as we say, It's not the disease but the neglect of the medicine that kills.

3. It's acceptable Because hereby Christ as a Mediator is improved for all these glorious ends he was appointed by God, and thereby Christ is also glorified; What shall such unsearchable riches of grace as are bound up in Christ be buried? Shall there not be daily acknowledgements of him? Now consider, that if by Faith thou dost not receive him, thou declarest Christ lived in vain, and died in vain, by what reason thou dost not beleeve; for one effect thou must not for another, and so for all; Thus it will be as if there had never been such a person as Christ; We may in some sence call it thy Antichristian unbelief, He that denieth Christ to be come in the flesh is Antichrist, 2 Joh. 7 Doth not thy unbelief deny him? For the denying of his office is by consequence the denying of his person; Thy unbelief doth that practically which the damnable heresies of Socinians do doctrinally, make as if Christ were not a Mediatour, and such who had satisfied the wrath of God for us; Oh then know it's not all thy sins do so immediatly oppose Christ as a Mediatour as thy unbelief doth, which makes Divines say, that in some sence only unbelief damneth, beeause that rejecteth the Mediatour, refuseth the Saviour, so that as we say, It's not the disease but the neglect of the medicine that kils.