who diggeth, and deepeneth, and layeth the foundation on a rock, &c. (Luke vi. 47, 48,) from which words we learn the three requisite qualifications to become a Christian; the first is, to come to Jesus Christ; the second is, to hear His words; and the third, to do them. The first therefore relates to the will, the second to the understanding, and the third to the life; for it is the will which comes, the understanding which hears words, and the life which doeth, or operates. Such a Christian therefore is likened to the builder of a house, only with this difference from a literal builder, that his house is a spiritual house, and consequently the digging, the deepening, and the laying the foundation on a rock are spiritual acts—digging having relation to inquiry after truth, deepening to the inquiry after spiritual or interior truth, and laying the foundation on a rock, to the grounding all on divine truth, or, what amounts to the same, on the Divine Humanity of the Lord.
167. Moses, in his charge to the children of Israel, appeals to two convincing proofs of divine government over them, the first of which is thus expressed, Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? The second is expressed in these words, Or hath God assayed to go, and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? (Deut. iv. 33, 34.) Thus it would appear, that the two surest evidences of the divine government of the Almighty
