him, finding by experience him to be what he has heard and has heard believed him to be. He had fomething of this, but he would ftill have more. The doctrine arifing from the text is, DocT. The experimental knowledge of Chrift is the fum of practical religion, 1 Cor. ii. 2. flowing from faith, to be studied by all. In handling this point, I fhall, I. Shew what this experimental knowledge of Christ is. III. Make application. I. I am to fhew what this experimental knowledge of Chrift is. It is an inward and fpiritual feeling of what we hear and believe concerning Christ and his truths, whereby answerable impreffions are made on our fouls, Pfal. xxxiv. 8. like that of the Samaritans, John iv. 42. when they said unto the wo man, Now we believe, not because of thy faying: for we have heard him surfelves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. There is a favoury report of Chrift fpread in the gofpel; faith believes it, and embraces him for what the word gives him out to be; and thea the believing foul doth come and fee. There is a glorious fcheme of the lovely perfections of Chrift drawn in the Bible, and faith be lieves that he really is what he is faid to be; and then that scheme begins to be drawn over again in the Christian's experience, and this is always drawing more and more till he come to glory. It is just as if fome eminent phyfician fhould give a friend remedies for all difeafes he may be liable to; and when he leaves them with him, he lets him know that fuch, a remedy is good for that diffemper, and another is good for fuch another, &c. Now he knows them all; but he falls fick, and he takes the remedy fit for his difeafe, and it proves effectual. Now the man knows the remedy by experience, which he knew before by report only. Even fo Chrift is given as all in all to a believer, and he makes ufe of Chrift for his cafe, and that is the experimental knowledge of him. I will illuftrate this by fome inftances. ་ ༣ སྙམ་ 1. The fcripture fays of Chrift, He is the way to the Father, John xiv. 6. Now the man that has tried many ways of attaining accefs to God and communion with him, and fill is denied accefs, and can find no way to come to God, at length comes by Jefus Chrift, renouncing all things elfe, leans only on his merit and interceffion, and he finds an open door of accefs to God, and communion with him. The flaming fword he finds removed, and him who was still before a confuming fire, he finds now a warming fun to his foul. Here is experimental knowledge of Chrift. Hence the apostle fays, Rom. v. 1. 2. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jefus Chrift. By whom we have accefs by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 2. Chrift's blood purgeth the confcience from dead works tɔ ferve the living Gol, Heb. ix. 14. Now the experimental Chriftian knows from experience, that unremoved and unre pented-of guilt defiles the confcience, leaves a fting in it, un fits him to ferve the Lord, as much as a man in filthy rags is unfit to stand before a king; it breeds in the heart an unwillingness to come before God, and mars his confidence: he tries to repent, overlooking the blood of Chrift, but it will not do. He looks to an abfolute God, and his heart is indeed terrified, but nothing foftened. At length he looks to God in Chrift, throws the burden of his guilt, and dips his foul. in the fea of Chrift's blood; and then the heart melts for fin, the fting is taken out of the confcience, the foul is willing to converfe with God, and is enabled to ferve him, as a fon doth a father. 3. Chrift is fully fatisfying to the foul, Pfal. Ixxiii. 25. Hab,' iii. 17. 18. We all know this by report; but the Chriftian experimentally knows it by a fpiritual fenfation in the innermoft parts of his foul. Sometimes when all his enjoyments have been ftanding entire about him, he has looked with a holy contempt on them all, faying in his heart, Thefe are not my portion. His heart has been loofed from them, and he has been made willing to part with them all for Chrift, in whom his foul rejoiced, and in whom alone he was fatisfied. Sometimes again all outward things have been going wrong with him, yet he could comfort, encourage, and fatisfy himlelf in Christ, as David did in a great ftrait, 1 Sam. xxx. 6. He has gone away to his God and his Christ, and with Hannah_returned with a countenance no more fad, 1 Sam. i. 18. 4. Chrift helps his people to bear afflictions, and keeps them from finking under them; and he lifts up their heads when they go through thefe waters, If. xliii. 2. Now the Christian meets with affliction; and he takes a good lift of his own burden, for it is the thing he thinks he may well bear. But his burden is too heavy for him. He wrestles with it; but the more he wreftles, it grows the heavier, and he finks the more. At length he goes to Chrift, faying, "Lord, I VOL. III. 4 F thought to have borne this burden, but I am not man for it, I will fink under it, if I get not help: Mafler, fave us, for we perish." And fo he lays it over on the great Burden bearer, and he is helped, Pfal. xxviii. 7. Now the man, when he thought he could do all, could do nothing; and when he thinks he can do nothing, he can do all, 2 Cor. viii. 9 10. 5. Chrift is made unto us wifdem, I Cor. i. 30. The experimental Chriftian finds, that when he leans to his own understanding, he mistakes his way at mid day; and all that he reaps of it, is, that in end he has himfelf to call beaft and fool for his error. But when he comes into difficulties that he sees he knows not how to extricate himself out of, and is wary, and lays out his cafe before the Lord, and gives himself up as a blind man to be led by the Lord, he finds he is conducted in the way he knew not; and the refult is, to bless the Lord who has given him counfel. 6. Laftly, Chrift is made unto us fanctification, 1 Cor. i. 30. Now the Chriflian falls fecure, does not make use of Christ, and then ere ever he is aware, he is like Saifon without his hair. When he awakens, he fees his cafe is all gone to wrack, the courfe of fanctifying influences is flopt, the graces are ly ing in the dead-throw, and lufts are ftrong and rampant, He fails a grappling with them, but is worfied ftill; until he come to himself, and acknowledge his utter weaknefs to fland in this battle, and renew the actings of faith in Chrift; and then out of weaknefs he is made ftrong, waxes valiant in fight, and turns to flight the armies of the aliens, Heb. xi. 34. He Hlings down the confidence in himself, like the broken reed that has pierced his hand; and though the promise lie before him like the rod turned into a ferpent, which unbelief tells him he would be too bold to meddle with, he ventures and takes the ferpent by the tail, and it becomes the rod of God in his hand. Let thefe fuffice for examples of experimental religion. II. I proceed to confirm the point; or to fhew, that the experimental knowledge of Chrift is the fum of practical reliligion. Confider, 1. The fcripture-teftimonies concerning this. To learn reJigion in the power of it, and in all the parts of fanctification, is to learn Chrift. Hence the apoftle fays, Eph. iv. 20.-24. But ye have not fo learned Chrift; if fo be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jefus that ye put off, concerning the former converfation, the old man, which i. corrupt according to the deceitfu lufts; and be renewed in the fpirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which af ter God is created, in righteousness and true holiness. There needs no more to be known, for that comprehends all, 1 Cor. ii. 2. I determined not to know any thing among you, fays Paul, fave Fefus Chrift, and him crucified. It is eternal life, John xvii. 3. It is a pledge of eternal life; it is eternal life begun. Yea, Chrift is the fum and fubftance of a believer's life, Phil. i. 21. To me to live is Chrift. 2. All true religion is the creature's conformity or likeness to God, made by virtue of divine influences transforming the foul into the divine image. Now there can be no conformity to God but through Jefus Chrift; for he is the only channel of the conveyance of divine influences, and God can have no communication with finners but through him. He alone makes us partakers of the divine nature, 2 Cor. iv. 6. 3. Whatever religion or holiness a man seem to have, that doth not come and is maintained this way, is not of the right fort. It is but nature varnished over: for he that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father. The foul's clofing with Chrift by faith, opens the way to this experimental knowledge of him; fo that whofoever would know Chrift thus, muft in the first place fo close with him. (1.) Faith clofing with Chrift believes he is fuch an one as he is held out in the gospel, gives credit to the report; and it is the want of this that mars this knowledge, If. liii. 1. (2.) Faith clofes with Chrift to that very end, that the foul may fo know him. The foul ftands in need of Chrift in all that wherein he is held out as ufeful to a finner, and faith takes him for that. (3.) Faith unites the foul to Chrift, and fo makes way for this knowledge, which is the happy refult of this union. I come now to a word of improvement, which I fhall difcufs in an ufe of exhortation, O Sirs, labour to be experi-. mental Chriftians, to have the inward feeling of what you hear and fay ye believe concerning Chrift. Why will ye fand in the outer coprt all your days? Come forward, and dip into the heart of religion. Come in where the world's ungracious feet could never carry them. And be not fatisfied with lefs of religion, than what the beloved difciple in the name of believers fays he felt, Truly our fell.wfhip is with the Father, ard with his Son Jefus Chrift, 1 John i. 3. This is a weighty and feafonable point. To enforce this exhortation, I offer the following motives. 1. Religion is not a matter of mere fpeculation to fatisfy mens curiosity, but a matter of practice. Mens eternal state lies at the stake, which can never be brought to a comfortable iffue by a fpeculative knowledge, more than a man can be cured by the knowledge of a remedy without application of it. An unexperimental profeffor is like a foolish fick man, who entertains thofe about him with fine difcourfes of the nature of medicines, but in the mean time he is dying himself for want of application of them. 2. The fweet of religion lies in the experience of it: hence the pfalmift fays, My foul fhall be fatisfied as with marrow and fatness, Pfal. lxiii. 5. No man can have the idea of the sweetnefs of honey like him that taftes it, nor of religion like him that feels the power of it. One reads the word, and it is tastelefs to him; to another it is fweeter than the honey-comb; why, but because he feels the power of it on his fpirit, Pfal. xix. 11. Religion would not be fuch a burden to us as it is, if we could by experience carry it beyond dry fapless notions: it would be a reward to itself, and fo chain the heart to it.. 3. All the profit of religion to ourfelves lies in the experience of it, Matth. vii. 22. What avails all the religion men have in their heads, while it never finks into the heart? Knowledge without experience will no more fanctify a man than painted fire will burn, or the bare fight of water will wash. Ah! what avails that knowledge to a man, by which he is never a whit more holy, nor less a flave to his lufts? True, it may do good to others, as the profit of the carpenters gift cime to Noah, while they themselves perifhed in the deluge. Light without heat ferves only to fhew the way to hell, where there is fcorching heat without light. Gifts without grace are. like a fhip without ballast in a boisterous fea, that cannot miss to fink. And when fuch a one is finking into hell, his gifts: will be like a bag of gold on a drowning man, precious in itfelf, but will only help to fink him the fafter. 4. The experimental Chriftian is the only Chriftian whose religion will bring him to heaven. Heaven in effect is but a perfect experimental knowledge of Chrift, where the faints will for ever feed upon that fweetness they have heard to be in him. And there is no attaining of heaven, unless men first begin on earth to know Chrift thus. 5. Lafly, It is abfolutely neceffary to qualify a man to go on and hold right in an evil time. And furely, if ever there was need for it, there is need now. ་་་ (1.) The experimental Chriftian is fitted thereby to suffer for Chrift, because he has the teftimony within himfelf, that. the way which the world perfecutes is the way of God. No |