Divine supernatural truth is called by the apostle, "The truth which
is after godliness:" Tit. 1: 1. Whereas, therefore, the person of
Christ is the great mystery of godliness, we must, in the next place,
inquire--What is the relation of spiritual supernatural truth there
unto? And this I shall do, in pursuit of what was proposed in the
foregoing chapter, viz, that he is the great representative unto the
church, of God, his holy properties, and the counsels of his will.

All divine truth may be referred unto two heads. First, that which is
essentially so; and then that which is so declaratively. The first is
God himself, the other is the counsel of his will.

First, God himself is the first and only essential Truth, in whose
being and nature the springs of all truth do lie. Whatever is truth so
far as it is so, derives from him, is an emanation from that eternal
fountain of it. Being, truth, and goodness, is the principal notion of
God; and in him they are all the same. How this is represented in
Christ as in himself he is the essential image of the Father, and as
incarnate the representative image of him unto us --hath been
declared.

Secondly, The counsels of God are the next spring and cause--as also
the subject-matter or substance--of all truth that is so
declaratively. Divine truth is "the declaration of the counsel of
God:" Acts 20: 27. Of them all the person of Christ is the sacred
repository and treasury--in him are they to be learned. All their
efficacy and use depend on their relation unto him. He is the centre
and circumference of all the lines of truth--that is, which is divine,
spiritual, and supernatural. And the beauty of it is presented unto us
only in his face or person. We see it not, we know it not, but as God
shines into our hearts to give us the knowledge of it therein: 2 Cor.
4: 6.

So he testifieth of himself, "I am the truth:" John 14: 6. He is so
essentially--as he is one with the Father, the God of truth: Deut.
32:4. He is so efficiently--as by him alone it is fully and
effectually declared; for "no man has seen God at any time; the
only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared
him:" John 1: 18. He is so substantially--in opposition unto the types
and shadows of the Old Testament; for in him dwelt "the fullness of the
godhead bodily:" Col. 2: 9. "The body is of Christ:" verse 17. He is
so subjectively for all divine truth, relating to the saving knowledge
of God, is treasured up in him. "In him are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge:" verse 3. That is, the wisdom and knowledge of
God--in his counsels concerning the vocation, sanctification, and
salvation, of the church--concerning which the apostle falls into that
holy admiration, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God!" Rom. 11: 33. And they are called "treasures" on a
twofold account, both mentioned together by the Psalmist. "How
precious are thy thoughts unto me, O Lord; how great is the sum of
them!" They are treasures, because precious and invaluable--and are
therefore usually preferred above all earthly treasures which men most
highly esteem: Prov. 3: 14,15. And they are so, because of the
greatness of the sum of them; and therefore also called "unsearchable
riches:" Eph. 3: 8. These precious, unsearchable treasures of the
wisdom and knowledge of God--that is, all divine supernatural truths--
are hid, or safely deposited, in Christ--in and from whom alone they
are to be learned and received.

So we are said to learn the truth as it is in Jesus: Eph 4: 21. And
the knowledge of all evangelical sacred truth is, in the Scripture,
most frequently expressed by the knowledge of Him: John 8: 19; 17: 3;
2 Cor. 2: 14; 4: 5, 6; Eph. 1: 17; Phil. 3: 8, 10; 1 John 1: 1, 2; 2:
4, 13, 14; 5: 20; 2 Pet. 2: 20.

Setting aside what we have discoursed and proved before--concerning
the laying of the foundation of all the counsels of God in the person
of Christ, and the representation of them in the ineffable
constitution thereof--I shall give some few instances of this relation
of all supernatural truths unto him--manifesting that we cannot learn
them, nor know them, but with a due respect thereunto.

1. There are two things wherein the glory of truth does consist. (1.)
Its light. (a) Its efficacy or power. And both these do all
supernatural truths derive from this relation unto Christ.

(1.) No truth whatever brings any spiritual light unto the mind, but
by virtue thereof. "In him is life, and the life is the light of men:"
John 1: 4. He is "the true Light, which lighteth every man that comets
into the world:" verse 9. Wherefore, as truth is the only means of
illumination, so it cannot communicate any light unto the mind, but
only as it is a beam from him, as it is an organ to convey it from
that fountain. Separated from him and its relation unto him, it will
not retain, it cannot communicate, any real spiritual light or
understanding to the souls of men. How should it, if all light be
originally in him--as the Scripture testifieth? Then alone is the mind
irradiated with heavenly truth, when it is received as proceeding
from, and leading unto, the Sun of Righteousness the blessed spring of
all spiritual light--which is Christ himself. Whatever notional
knowledge men may have of divine truths, as they are doctrinally
proposed in the Scripture, yet--if they know them not in their respect
unto the person of Christ as the foundation of the counsels of God--if
they discern not how they proceed from him, and centre in him--they
will bring no spiritual, saving light unto their understanding. For
all spiritual life and light is in him, and from him alone. An
instance hereof we have in the Jews. They have the Scriptures of the
Old Testament, wherein the substance of all divine truth is revealed
and expressed; and they are diligent in the study of them; howbeit
their minds are not at all illuminated nor irradiated by the truths
contained in them, but they live and walk in horrible darkness. And
the only reason hereof is, because they know not, because they reject,
the relation of them unto Christ--without which they are deprived of
all enlightening power.

(2.) Efficacy or power is the second property of divine truth. And
the end of this efficacy is to make us like unto God: Eph 4: 20-24.
The mortification of sin, the renovation of our natures, the
sanctification of our minds, hearts, and affections, the consolation
of our souls, with their edification in all the parts of the life of
God, and the like, are the things that God has designed to effect by
his truth; (John 17: 17;) whence it is able to "build us up, and give
us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified:" Acts 20:32. But
it is from their relation unto the person of Christ that they have any
thing of this power and efficacy. For they have it no otherwise but as
they are conveyances of his grace unto the souls of men. So 1 John 1:
1, 2.

Wherefore, as professors of the truth, if separated from Christ as
unto real union, are withering branches--so truths professed, if
doctrinally separated from him, or their respect unto him, have no
living power or efficacy in the souls of men. When Christ is formed in
the heart by them, when he dwelleth plentifully in the soul through
their operation, then, and not else, do they put forth their proper
power and efficacy. Otherwise, they are as waters separated from the
fountain--they quickly dry up or become a noisome puddle; or as a beam
interrupted from its continuity unto the sun--it is immediately
deprived of light.

2. All divine spiritual truths are declarative, either of the grace
and love of God unto us, or [of] our duty, obedience, and gratitude
unto him. But, as unto these things, Christ is all and in all; we can
have no due apprehensions of the love and grace of God, no
understanding of the divine truths of the Word--wherein they are
revealed, and whereby they are exhibited unto them that believe--but
in the exercise of faith on Christ himself. For in, by, and from him
alone, it is that they are proposed unto us, that we are made
partakers of them. It is from his fullness that all grace is received.
No truth concerning them can, by any imagination, be separated from
him. He is the life and soul of all such truths--without which, they,
as they are written in the Word, are but a dead letter, and that of
such a character as is illegible unto us, as unto any real discovery
of the grace and love of God. And as unto those of the other sort,
which are instructive unto us in our duty, obedience, and gratitude--
we cannot come unto a practical compliance with any one of them, but
by the aids of grace received from him. For without him we can do
nothing; (John 15: 5;) and he alone understands divine truth who does
it: John 7: 17. There is not, therefore, any one text of Scripture
which presseth our duty unto God, that we can so understand as to
perform that duty in an acceptable manner, without an actual regard
unto Christ, from Whom alone we receive ability for the performance of
it, and in or through whom alone it is accepted with God.

3. All the evidence of divine spiritual truth, and all the foundation
of our real interest in the things whereof it is a declaration--as to
benefit, advantage, and comfort--depend on their relation unto Christ.
We may take an instance in one article of divine truth, which seems to
be most disengaged from any such relation, namely, the resurrection of
the dead. But there is no man who rightly believes or comprehends this
truth, who does it not upon the evidence given unto it, and example of
it, in the person of Christ rising from the dead. Nor can any man have
a comfortable expectation or faith of an especial interest in a
blessed resurrection, (which is our whole concern in that truth, Phil.
3: 11,) but by virtue of a mystical union unto him, as the head of the
church that shall be raised unto glory. Both these the apostle inserts
upon at large, 1 Cor. 15. So is it with all other truths whatever.

Wherefore, all divine supernatural truths revealed in the Scripture,
being nothing but the declaration of these counsels of God, whose
foundation was laid in the person of Christ; and whereas they are all
of them expressive of the love, wisdom, goodness, and grace of God
unto us, or instructive in our obedience and duty to him--all the
actings of God towards us, and all ours towards him, being in and
through him alone; and whereas all the life and power of these truths,
all their beauty, symmetry, and harmony in their union and
conjunction, which is expressive of divine wisdom, is all from him,
who, as a living spirit diffused through the whole system, both acts
and animates it--all the treasures of truth, wisdom, and knowledge,
may be well said to be hid in him. And we may consider some things
that ensue hereon.

1. Hence it is, that those who reject the divine person of Christ--
who believe it not, who discern not the wisdom, grace, love, and power
of God therein--do constantly reject or corrupt all other spiritual
truths of divine revelation. Nor can it otherwise be. For they have a
consistency only in their relation unto the mystery of godliness--"God
manifest in the flesh"--and from thence derive their sense and
meaning. This being removed--the truth, in all other articles of
religion, immediately falls to the ground. An instance hereof we have
in the Socinians. For, although they retain the common notions of the
unity and existence of the divine nature, which are indelibly fixed on
the minds of men, yet is there no one truth that belongs peculiarly
unto the Christian religion, but they either deny it or horribly
deprave it. Many things concerning God and his essential properties--
as his immutability, immensity, prescience--they have greatly
perverted. So is that fulfilled in them which was spoken by Jude the
apostle, verse 10. They "speak evil of those things which they know
not: and what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things
they corrupt themselves." So they do in the things mentioned, whereof
there are natural notions in the minds of men; but of evangelical
truths which they know not--they speak evil, and deride them. The holy
Trinity they blaspheme--the incarnation of the Son of God they scorn--
the work of his mediation in his oblation and intercession, with the
satisfaction and merit of his obedience and suffering, they reject. So
do they [reject] whatever we are taught of the depravation of our
natures by the fall, of the renovation of them by the Holy Ghost; and
unto all other articles of our faith do they offer violence, to
corrupt them. The beginning of their transgression or apostasy, is in
a disbelief of the divine person of Christ. That being rejected, all
other sacred truths are removed from their basis and centre, [from]
that which gives them their unity and harmony. Hereon they fluctuate
up and down in the minds of men, and, appearing unto them under
various deceiving colours, are easily misapprehended or disbelieved.
Yea, there can no direct, proper representation be made of them unto
the understandings of men. Dissolve the knot, centre, and harmony in
the most beautiful composition or structure--and every part will
contribute as much unto the deformity and ruin of the whole, as it did
before unto its beauty and consistency. So is it with every doctrine--
so is it with the whole system of evangelical truths. Take the person
of Christ out of them, dissolve their harmony in relation thereunto--
whereby we no longer hold the Head in the faith and profession of them-