448 4TESTIONS CONCERNING 'JESUS. QUEST. III Could the Son of Godproperly enter into a Cove mint with his Father to do and suffer what was Necessary to our Redemption, without a Human Soul? SECTION I. IT is granted that the generality of our christianwriters be- lieve that it was only the divine nature or godhead of Christ had an existence before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary, and became incarnate ; yet whensoever they would represent the ex- ceeding great love of the Father in sending his Son into our world, that he might suffer and die for us, and when they would describe the transcendent love of Christ, in his coming into our . world; and his submitting to death for our sakes, they usually represent it in such language as cannever agree to his divine na- ture in any propriety of speech, but only to the pre-existent human soul of Christ, with its descent into flesh and blood, and the sufferings of his human soul for us. And it is evident that the scripture itself leads them plainly to such a representation of things : so that while they are explaining the transcendent de- gree of the love of God and Christ to sinners, according to scripture, they are led by tile force of truth into such expressions as are indeed hardlyconsistent with their own professed opinions, butperfectly consistent withthe revelation of scripture, and the doctrine of the pre existent soul of Christ. I was lately looking into the sermons of that most excellent, practical and evangelical writer, the late Mr. John Flavel, in his treatise called the Foun- tain of Life Opened; or, a Display of Christ ; where I found the following expressions : Sermon II. page 13. in quarto, where the excellent author is describing the glorious condition of the non-incarnate Son of God, he says, " Christ was not then abased to the conditionof it creature, but it was an inconceivable abasement to the absulute independent being to come under the law ; yea, not only under the obedience , but also under the malediction and curseof the law ; Gal. iv. 4. God sentforth his Son, made ofa woman, made unde, the law. Page 14. " He was never pinched will, poverty and wants whilehecontinued in that bosom, as he was afterwards. Ah blessed Jesus ! Thou needest not to have wanted a place to have lain thy head, hadst thou not left that bosom for my sake." And here' the author quotesMr. Anthony Burges, in his lectures onJohn " He that was in the bosom of the Father and had themost inti- mate, close, and secret delight and love from the Father, how unspeakable is it that he should deprive himselfof thesense of it, to, put himself, as it were out of heaven into hell !" Mr. Flavel then proceeds, " He never underwent reproach and shame in that bosom : There was nothing but glory and honour reflected
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