Part 154

mp;amp;quot;This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him." Unless we actually regard him by faith as the only begotten Son of God, we can perform no duty aright in the hearing of him, nor shall we learn the truth as we ought. Hence it is that those who deny his divine person, though they pretend to attend to [Auto-modernized] him as the teacher of the church, do yet learn no truth from him, but embrace pernicious errors in the stead of that [Auto-modernized] . So it is with the Socinians, and all that follow them. For whereas they scarcely own any other office of Christ but his prophetical -- looking on him as a man sent to teach the mind of God, and to confirm his doctrine by his sufferings, whereon he was afterward highly exalted of God -- they learn nothing from him in a due manner.

But this respect to [Auto-modernized] the person of Christ is that which will ingenerate in us all those holy qualifications that are necessary to enable us to know the mind and will of God. For hence do reverence, humility, faith, delight, and assurance, arise and flow; without whose continual exercise, in vain shall men hope to learn the will of God by the utmost of their endeavours. And the want of these things is the cause of much of that lifeless, unsanctified knowledge of the doctrine of the Gospel which is amongst many. They learn not the truth from Christ, so as to expect all teachings from his divine power. Hence they never come to know it, either in its native beauty drawing the soul into the love and delight of what they know, or in its transforming efficacy changing the mind into its own image and likeness.

(2.) The same also is the state of things with respect to [Auto-modernized] his kingly office and power. But this I have at large treated on elsewhere, and that much to [Auto-modernized] the same purpose; namely, in the exposition of the 3d verse of the First [Auto-modernized