Christ Exalted and Wisdom Justified, Encomium
READER.
REEADER,
IT could not have fallen to my lot to recommend unto thee a more excellent treasure than Christ and Wisdom, the subject of this Book.
To praise him that is transcendently above all …ur praise, whose knowledge and praise will be …ur felicity for ever, must needs be a gratefull employment to a Believer. As it is not he …hat needs our everlasting love and praise, but we whose happiness consists in it, and yet his glory is our ultimate end; so it is you, and not Christ that need these praises given him by his Ministers, and yet his glory in your felicity is …heir highest aime. Men are everlastingly miserable, if they enjoy not Christ and Glory. They enjoy him not because they seek him not, and love him not. They love him not, because they know him not to be most lovely (and because their hearts are possessed, and corrupted with an adulterous love) They know him not, because they do not seriously study their necessity, and his excellencie.
What greater help then can be by man afforded thee for thy Salvation, than by proclamation of the preciousness of Christ, to be invited to that love, and excited to that dut… which hath so necessary a connexion thereunt…
The World is confessed to be our enemy, an… it kills by being over-valued and loved, an… therefore it is the most friendly saving office t… disgrace it to us, and wean us from it.
Christ is by all Christians acknowledge… their Saviour and Life: He saveth us by attraction, shewing us his amiableness, his Grac… and Glory: He calleth off the heart from vanity, and draweth it unto himself, and to the Father: And when it begins to love, it begins to live. Glory is the fruition of him i… perfect love, and Grace is the beginning of that love, which as to fruition doth here attain… but to a tast, but worketh most vigorously and observedly in desire, and endeavour after a full fruition; and the knowledge of him which is by Faith, is it that kindleth this love, and therefore is called Life Eternal, John, 17, 3. And the Revelation of him by the Word and Spirit, is the cause of this believing knowledge.
The Minister therefore doth his part when he holdeth thee the glasse: If the Spirit concurre for thine illumination (as he will if the fault, be not thine own) and if thou do not wilfully shut thine eyes, thou maist see that in Christ revealed in the Gospel, that will prepare thee for the beatifical vision.
No man shall have this Treasure that sells not all he hath to buy it. Mat. 13.45, 46. and no man will sell all for it that seeth it not to be better for him than all. An Hypocrite may say, that Christ is best, but it is only the Christian that can heartily and practically say, He is best for me.
This attractive excellencie of our dear Redeemer is closely, and yet plainly here set forth by the Reverend Author, for the awakening, winning, and saving of those souls that are in the way to a double death by despising the Way, the Truth and Life. For thee Christian that hast seen the Lord in his Life and Death, and Resurrection, and Glorification, that by faith hast known him in his Person, Works and Benefits, here is that revealed to thine eye, which hath been already revealed to thine heart, and the sweet and savory Truths of the Gospel here delivered, are so suitable to thy new nature, thy necessities, and thy manifold experiences, that they must needs be the more acceptable to thee, and thou wilt chearfully annex thy attestation that they are true.
And though the deluded World subscribe not to thy judgement, but take realities for dreams, and dreams for the only realities, because they do but dream themselves, yet Wisdom is justified of her Children, even all that by her … begotten to true and heavenly Wisdom. A… Judgement shall shortly compel the now delud… World to cry out of the folly of their fles… Wisdom, and to applaud that Wisdom of Bel… vers that flesh and bloud accounted foolishne…
Then they shall confess that it was great Wisdom to seek an unseen, than a seen felici… and to lay up a Treasure in Heaven than … Earth, and to let go all at Gods command, a… lose our lives upon a promise from him th… they shall be saved, and to vilifie all the Glo… of the World, and by shame, and scorn to … spire after an invisible Glory, venturing … upon a naked promise, as the best security, b… lieving that all is lost that's saved, and all saved that's lost for Christ.
It cannot be expected, that those whom Wi… dom never taught should understand the Doctrines, or take them for any better tha… folly, because they judge of all by sense, and s… vour not the things of the spirit, and are stra… gers to the life of Faith, which maketh absen… things as present, and things unseen, as thos… that are open to our eyes. But whether he b… the wiser man that gets his desire for a momen… upon Earth, and loseth Christ and his Salvation, or he that is wise for everlasting life, … Question that sense will shortly help them to resolve, that refuse the resolution of Faith and reason. Reader accept this Testimony to these weighty Truths, from,
A friend of Truth, and thee, RICH. BAXTER. Febr. 22. 1658.