parison of what it will be in its heavenly and eternal state, when it shall be come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; when it shall see face to face, and know as it is known, then it shall put away such childish things, as the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, but love shall gloriously prevail. The world shall be a world of love. If we thus understand the apostle, it fully proves that the gifts of tongues, and miracles, &c., are not to be upheld in the church in the Millennium.

[304] 1 Corinth. xiii. 13. "And now abideth faith, hope, charity; these three, but the greatest of these is charity." The apostle in this place is not comparing these together as three distinct graces, but gifts of the Spirit of God. They cannot be properly three distributively distinct graces, or saving virtues, because charity or love is the sum of all saving virtue, as abundantly appears from the foregoing part of the chapter, and from innumerable other places of scripture. Love is an ingredient in saving faith, and is the most essential thing in it, is its life and soul, and so it is in hope. The apostle is here comparing gifts of the Spirit, and not graces, as is manifest from the last verse of the foregoing chapter, and the former verses of this and the beginning of the next; what is in faith and hope, which is distinct from love, which are principles or exercises of mind that are called also by those names of faith and hope, though they are not Christian, and saving faith and hope, yet they are principles that are gifts of God. And in those three gifts of the mind, Faith, Hope, and Love, are the three gifts into which all Christianity, as a principle in the mind, is to be resolved.

The first, viz. Faith, as distinct from love, hath its seat purely in the understanding, and consists in an understanding of divine things, and an apprehension of their reality. Hope, if we mean that hope that is distinct from love, has its seat both in the understanding and natural will, or inclination, and apprehends not only the reality of divine things, but our interest in them.

Love has its seat in the spiritual will, and apprehends divine things as amiable; and in these three consists the whole of that respect that the mind of man has to divine things wherein the Christianity of the mind consists; and those three, when joined together and united in one, constitute saving Faith, or the soul's savingly embracing Christ, and Christianity. But of these three constituents of justifying Faith, Love is the greatest the other two are the body, that is, the soul.

[158] 1 Corinth. xv. 28. "And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject

unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." Christ as Mediator has now the kingdom and government of the world so committed to him, that he is to all intents and purposes in the room of his Father. He is to be respected as God himself is, as supreme, and absolute, and sovereign Ruler. God has left the government in his hands wholly, now since his exaltation, that he may himself have the accomplishment, and finishing of those great things for which he died. He is made head over all things to the church until the Consummation; and he is now king of the church, and of the world, in his present state of exaltation. He is not properly a subordinate ruler, because God hath entirely left the government with him, to his wisdom, and to his power. But after Christ has obtained all the ends of his labours and death, there will be no farther occasion for the government's being after that manner in his hands. He will have obtained by his government, all the ends he desired; and so then God the Father will resume the government, and Christ and his church will spend eternity in mutual enjoyment, and in the joint enjoyment of God; not but that Christ will still be the king and head of his church, he will be as much their head of influence and source of good and happiness as ever. But with respect to government, God will be respected as supreme orderer, and Christ with his church united to him, and dependent on him, shall together receive of the benefit of his government.

[120] 1 Corinth. xvi. 21, 22, 23, &c. "The salutation of me, Paul, &c. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you." The apostle concludes his epistle with a curse and a blessing; he curses all that do not love the Lord Jesus Christ, but yet he blesses all that are of the church of Corinth; by which it is evident that those that are regularly of the communion of the Christian church are visible lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, they are so looked upon in public charity, and treated as if they were really such.

[67] 2 Corinth. i. 24. "Not for that we have dominion over your faith," &c.; this verse is to be joined to the 14th verse.

[363] 2 Corinth. ii. 14, 15, 16. "Maketh manifest the favour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one we are the savour of death, unto death, and to the other we are the savour of life unto life." This last verse might more literally, and more properly have

been translated thus: "To those indeed we are a savour of death unto death, but to these a savour of life unto life," which makes the sense much less perplexed. Ministers are, as it were, the vessels that carry the sweet ointment of the name of Christ, whose name is said to be as ointment poured forth. Christ is the fragrant rose. That knowledge of Christ that is diffused by his ministers is the savour of this rose, and this is the savour that the apostle speaks of, which in the 14th verse he calls the savour of his knowledge. This is always a sweet savour to God. The name of Christ is ever delightful to God, and the preaching of Christ in the world, whether to elect or reprobates, is acceptable to God, as he delights in having the name of his Son glorified; for Christ's being made known to those that perish, shall be greatly to the glory of Christ. God loves to have the name of his Son made known to all men for his Son's glory, so that the knowledge that reprobates receive of Christ, by the preaching of the gospel, is a sweet savour to God; for wherever the name of Christ is found, it is acceptable to God. But yet it is not always a sweet savour to them to whom the gospel is preached, though it be to God. Indeed to the elect, to those that are saved, it is a sweet savour as well as to God; it is a savour of life; we are to them a savour of a living Redeemer; they believe him to be a risen and glorified Redeemer. He is a savour of life unto life, i. e. not only a sweet savour as of a living Redeemer, but a refreshing, renewing, life-giving savour.

But to them that perish he is a savour of death unto death; the preaching of Christ crucified is not a sweet savour unto them, but an odious savour, as of a slain dead carcass; they do not believe his resurrection; they look upon him dead still; and the doctrine of Christ crucified is nauseous to them; it is a savour of death unto death.

[96] 2 Corinth. iii. 17. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." It seems to refer to that place, li. Psalm, 12th verse, where the Spirit of God is called the free spirit.

[89] 2 Corinth. iii, 17, 18. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;" that is, freedom of looking; and behold our sight is not hindered as the children of Israel's was, but we have liberty to see. "But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord;" with open face, not covered with a veil, as Moses' face was, as in the 7th and 13th verses; [are changed into the same image;] as Moses was by beholding God's brightness, his own face shone; [from glory to glory;] that is, changed from

the glory of God, from a sight of his glory, to a glory to, and glory in, ourselves like it.

[335] 2 Corinth. iii. 18. "But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord." The word in the original, xaorgioμEVO, signifies beholding, as in a reflecting glass, or looking-glass. Had the meaning been, beholding through a transmitting glass, the word dorgiouevos, would rather have been used, which signifies to see through, or to look through.

We behold the glory of God, as in a glass, in two respects, both which seem to be intended in these words.

1. We behold the glory of God, as in the face of Jesus Christ, who is the brightness of God's light or glory, as it were reflected, and is the express image of the Deity; the perfect image of God, as the image in a plain and clear looking glass is the express image of the person that looks in it; and this is the only way that the glory of God is seen by his church, he is seen no other way but in this perfect, and as it were reflected image; for no one hath seen God immediately, at any time; the only begotten Son of God that is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. He is "the image of the invisible God;" and "he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father;" and the Father is seen no other way but by the Sou; and it is only by this image in Christ, that God is seen in heaven by the saints and angels there; yea, it is by this image only that God sees himself, for he sees himself in his own perfect substantial idea. And that one thing here meant by the image in the glass, is the image of Christ, that is to be seen in Christ's face, may be argued from two things.

(1.) The apostle is here comparing the glory of God that we see in Christ to the reflected glory of God which the children of Israel beheld in Moses, where Moses' face was instead of a glass to them, in which they beheld the glory of God, reflected to their view; though with this difference that a veil was put over the glass then, or there was a veil between their eyes and Moses' face, which was the glass that reflected God's glory, because the children of Israel could not bear to look upon the glass immediately; but now we all with open face behold the image in the glass.

(2.) Another thing that argues this, is what follows here in the continuance of the apostle's discourse on this subject, in the 4th verse of the next chapter; where the apostle, speaking of the same glory, mentions it as the light of God's glory, which we see in Christ as the image of God; (i. e. as the image in the glass is the image of the man it represents ;) and in the 6th verse he speaks of this same glory as that which is seen in the face of Christ; alluding to the children of Israel seeing the reflected light of God's glory in the face of Moses.

2 We behold the glory of God as in a looking-glass in another respect, and that is as we behold it by the intermediation of the outward means of our illumination and knowledge of God, viz. Christ's ministers, and the gospel which they preach, and his ordinances which they administer; which serve instead of a looking-glass, to reflect the glory of the Lord. When men read the holy scriptures, they there may see Christ's glory as men see images of things by looking in a glass, so we see Christ's glory in ordinances. Ministers are burning and shining lights; but then they do not shine by their own light, but only reflect the light of Christ. They are called stars, that are held in the right hand of Christ, and shine by reflecting Christ's light, as the stars shine by reflecting the light of the sun, and so they are as mirrors that bring the light of Christ's glory to the view of the church. They are lights set up in golden candlesticks; by looking on these lights, they see light, they see the light of Christ reflected. It is evident the apostle is here speaking of the light of Christ's glory as ministered and communicated by ministers of the gospel, and ministers of the Spirit, which is that light and glory, as we shall show presently. Verses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So in the words next following in the beginning of the next chapter, ver. 1, 2, 5, and which is strongly to the purpose in the 6th verse, he expressly speaks of the light of this glory as communicated to men by ministers in this way, viz. by first shining upon them or into their hearts, and then being communicated, or given from them to others, which is just as light is communicated from a reflecting glass. "For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." And in the next verse they are spoken of as the vessel that conveys the treasure: now a vessel is to the treasure that it conveys; as a glass is to the light that that conveys. And, it further argues that the apostle has respect to ministers and to the means of grace, as a glass in which we see the glory of the Lord, by that to which he here alludes, viz. the children of Israel's seeing the glory of the Lord in Moses' face; but Moses is here by the apostle spoken of, as in this representing both Christ and gospel ministers. That he speaks of him as in this thing representing Christ, is most evident by the 6th verse of the next chapter; and that he also speaks of him as herein like gospel ministers-the apostles and othersis also evident, because the apostle does expressly compare Moses' holding forth the glory of God in his face to ministers' holding forth the glory of Christ, as in the 12th and 13th verses.

And herein the sight, that the saints have of the glory of Christ in this world, differs from that sight that the saints have in heaven, for there they see immediately face to face, but here by a