[October 11th, 1843.]
The analysis of our faculties into our cognitive powers, into our susceptibilities and will, thought, feeling and volition, may be important to the understanding and classification of the phenomena of our nature; but these faculties are neither independent nor distinct. The exercise of the one includes the exercise of the other. There is always an exercise of will in thought, and an exercise of feeling in cognition. The Bible uses language founded on the common consciousness of men, and not on the speculations of philosophy. In the Scriptures, knowledge is not mere intellectual apprehension. It includes that but more. It includes also the proper apprehension not only of the object, but of its qualities; and if those qualities be either esthetic or moral, it includes the due apprehension of them and the state of feeling which answers to them.
The knowledge of Christ, therefore, is not the apprehension of what he is, simply by the intellect, but also a due apprehension of his glory as a divine person arrayed in our nature, and involves not as its consequence merely, but as one of its elements, the corresponding feeling of adoration, delight, desire and complacency. It includes, therefore,
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A knowledge of his person as God and man.
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The knowledge of his work in the redemption of man.
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The knowledge of his relation to us, and of the benefits which we derive from him, justification, sanctification, adoption and eternal life.
This knowledge is superlatively excellent, 1. Because he is himself the perfect object of knowledge. 2. Because eternal life, the hope of the soul, consists in that knowledge. Because the possession of it enlarges and enlightens the intellect, purifies the heart, and renders perfectly blessed. 3. Because without this knowledge we are not only ignorant of God, but ignorant of the way of salvation. We know not how to be justified or sanctified. We of necessity, therefore, are left to seek and trust in other ineffectual methods of obtaining these blessings.
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All religion is concluded or confined to one thing, to know Christ. To this we should concentrate all our attention and efforts. It is vain to seek the knowledge of God or his favor, to strive after either holiness or peace in any other way. 2. The only test of Christian character is to be found here. Men may be benevolent, in a certain sense pious, but they cannot be Christians unless they know Christ and find in that knowledge their spiritual life. Our experience must correspond with that of the Apostles and other believers recorded in the New Testament.
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The only way to save men is not by preaching the doctrines of natural religion, nor by holding up law, nor by expounding the anthropological doctrines of the Bible. These things are important in their place, but they are subordinate to preaching Christ, that is, holding him up in his person, his work, and his relation to us as the great object of knowledge, and as such, the great object of love, the only ground of confidence and our only and all-sufficient portion. It is by being brought to the knowledge of Christ that men are to be converted and the world saved.
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