, Covenant r;f Grace. 43 enquire, How Chrifi, the Son ofGod, became fecond .Adam? and then, How the covenant was made \Yfth him as fuch ? The former being, as it were, prefimi· . nary to the latter. ) · · 1fi; ' How Chrifi, the Son of God, became fecond Adam ?' This we may take up in two things. Firjl, The Father willed and defigned, that his . own Son, the Etern~l Word, ihould, for the ~urpofe. of mercy towards mankind loft, take on thejr nature; and become man. He faw that facrifice and offering would not anfwer ' the cafe : the debt ~as greateJ; than to be paid at _thiH rare ; the redemption of fouls could nor be manage~, but by a perfon of infinite c\ignity; wherefore, having purpofed, that the qarling attri• 1 bute ofmercy ihould_:be ipufirated, in the caie ofloft mankind; he will'ed the human nature to be united, in time, to the Divine nature, in the perfon of the Son. And hereunto the Son, as the eternal Word, the fe– cond perfon of the glorious Trinity, having no near– er relation to man, tham as . his fovereign Lorq Crea- / ior, readily ,agreed, Heb. x. 5· ' Sacrifice and offer":' i.ng thou wouldfi not, but a body hail: thou prepared me.' -- - - Ver. 7. ' · Then faid I , Lo, I come (in the volu'me of the book it is written ofmr) to do thy will, 0 God.' The Eternal Word' confented to be made flefh, that all fleih might not pedih: He contented to become man, to take into a ·perfonal union with him– felf, a human nature, to wit, a true bodv and a rea– fonable foul, accorcli~g to th~ eternal defii~ation of his Father. This was an infiance of ama,zing cond~fcenfion : The highefi Monarch's confent, to lay afide his robes of m~1jefiy, to clothe himfeltwith rags, and be– come a beggar, is not to compated with it. Nay,, the highefi angel's confent to become a worm, is not to • · be named in one day, with the eternal Son ofGod the Father'j Equal, his confent to become man: fo; the difiance btttweeu the Divin~ 1~ature and the human, :J ' .,. is
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