¿48 QtTESTIONS CONCEIîNING JESVS. and yet was content to forsake and leave it for your sakes, then be you ready to f'grsake and leave all the comforts youhave'on earth for Christ." Again; Semen IV. page 35. " Consider how near and dear Jesus Christ was to the Father : Hewas his Son, his ónly Son 'Saab the text: The Son of his love: 'I'lhe darling of his soul: IÏis other self ; yea, one with himself : The express image of his person The brightness of his Father's glary: In parting with him, he parted with his own heart, with his very bowels, as I may say. Yet to us a SOU is given; Asa. ix. 6. And such a Son as he calls his dear Son." Now if we suppose the human soul of our Lord Jesus Christ to Dave had a pre-existent state of joy and glory in the bosom of ''the Father through all former ages the world, and even be- fore the world was created, then these expressions are great and noble, are just and true ; and havea happy aptness and propriety in them to set forth the transcendent love of God the Father in ,sending his Son, and the transcendent love of Christ, the Son of Gqd, in coming from heaven, and leaving the joys and glor ries of his Father's immediate presence in heaven, to take on him Such flesh and blood as ours is, and in that flesh and blood to sus- tain shame, sorrow, pain, anguish of flesh and spirit, sharp agonies, and the pangs of death. And this love is exceedingly enhanced, whileweconsider that this human soul of Christ was personally united to this divine na- tore ; so that hereby God himself is joined to flesh and blood; " God becomes maniftst in the flesh.' I Tim. iii. 16. But on the other hand, if we suppose nothing but the pure divine nature of Christ to exist before his incarnation, then all ,these expressions seem to have very little justness or propriety in them ; for the divine nature of Christ, how distinct soever it is supposed to he from God the Father, yet can never leave the Father's bosom, can never divest itself of any one joy or felicity that it was ever possessed of,' nor lose even the least degree of it; nos could God the Father ever dismiss the divine nature of his Son from his own bosom. Godhead must have eternal and complete beatitude, joy and glory, and can never be dispossessed ,of it. Godheadcan sustain no real sorrow, suffering ór pain. .The .utmost that can be said concerning the deity of Christ is, ,that there is a relative imputation of the sorrows, sufferings and pains of the human nature, to thedivine, because of the union between them ; so that the sufferings acquire a sort of divine dignify and merit hereby : It is granted indeed that this relative and imputative sufferingmay be sufficient in a legal sense to ad- vance the dignity of the sacrifice of Christ, to a complete and equivalent satisfaction for sin ; Yet the exceeding greatness of the love of the Father and the Son does not seem to be so sensibly
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=