14' THE PERSON OP CHRIST tongue can express the least part of the glory of this divine wisdom and grace? So also is it proposed unto us, Is. ix. 6. Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Princeof Peace." I-Ie is called in the first place Wonderful, and that deservedly, Prov. xxx. 4. That the mighty God, should be a Child born, and the everlastingFather a Son given untous, may well entitle him unto the name of Wonderful. Some amongst us say, that if there were no other way for the redemption and salvation of the church, but this only of the incarnation and mediation of the Son of God, that there was no wisdom in the contrivance of it. Vain man indeed would be wise, but is like the wild ass's colt. Was there no wisdom in the contrivance of that, which when it is effected, leaves nothing but ad- miration unto the utmost of all created wisdom? Who bath known the mind of the Lord in this thing? or who path been Isis counsellor in this work, wherein the mighty God became a Child born to us, a Son given unto us? Let all vain imaginations cease; there is no- thing left unto the sons of men, but either to reject the divineperson ofChrist, as many do unto their own de- struction, or humbly to adore the mystery of infinite wisdom and grace therein. And it will require a con- descending charity, to judge that those do really believe the Incarnation of the SonofGod, who live not in the admiration of it, as the most adorable effect of divine wisdom. The glory of the same mystery is elsewhere testified unto. Heb. i. 1, 2, 3. God hash spoken unto us by his Son, by whom also he made the world; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express imageof his 'person, upholding all things by the word of his power, by himself purged our sins." That he purged our sins by his death, and the oblation of himselftherein unto God, is acknowledged. That this should be done by him, by whom the worlds were made, who is theessen- tial brightness ofthe divine glory, and the express image of the person of the Father therein, who upholds, rules, sustains all things by the word of his power whereby God purchased his church with his ownblood. Acts xx. 28. is that wherein he will be admired unto eternity. See- Phil. ii. 6, 7, 8, 9. THE. MOST INEFFABLE Isaiah vi. there is a representation made of him as oo a throne, filling the temple with the train of his glory. The Son of God it was who was so represented, and that as he was to fill the temple ofhis human nature with divine glory, when the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him. bodily. And herein the seraphims, which adminis- tered unto him, had six wings, with two thereof they covered their faces, as not being able to behold or look tinto the glorious mystery of his incarnation, ver. 2, 3. John xii. 40. Chap. ii. 19. Col. ii. 9. But when the same ministering spirits under the name of cherubim, attended the throne of God in the administration of his providence, as unto the disposal and government of the world, they hadfour wings only ; and covered not their facee, but steadily beheld the glory of it, Ezek. i. 6. chap. x. 2, 3. This is the glory of Christian religion, the basis and foundation that bears thewhole superstructure, the root whereon it grows. This is its life and soul, that wherein it differs from, and inconceivably excels whatever was in true religion before, or whatever any false religion pre- tended unto. Religion in itsfiistconstitution, in the state of pure uncorrupted nature, was orderly, beautiful, and glorious. Man being made in the image ofGod, was fit and able to glorify him as God. But whereas whatever perfection God had communicated unto our nature, he had not united it unto himselfin apersonal union, the fabric of it quickly fell unto the ground. Want of this foundation made it obnoxious unto ruin.- God mani- fested herein, that nogracious relation between him and our nature could be stable and permanent, unless our nature was assumed into personal union and subsistence with himself. This is theonly rock and assured founda- tion ofthe relation of the church unto God, which now can never utterly fail. Our nature is eternally secured in that union, and we ourselves, as we shall see thereby. Col. i. 17, 18. In him all things consist; wherefore whatever beauty and glory there was in the relation that was between God and man, and the relation ofall things unto God by man, in the preservation whereofnatural religion did consist, it had no beauty nor glory in com- parison of this which doth excel; or the manifestation of God in the flesh, the appearance and subsistence of the divine and human natures inthe same single indivi- dual person. And whereas God in that state had given man dominion a over the fish of thesea, and the fowl of
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