PREFACE TO THE rr GLORY OF CHRIST AS GOD-MAN:! OUR Lord Jesus Christ is theauthor, the foundation and the glory of our rki'ígien. The scripture teaches us to describe this blessed person two ways ; that f§, as amen who is one with God, or as God who is one with man. He is called sometimes God with us ; Mat. i. 23. God manifest in the flesh ; I Tim. iii. 16. that is, God dwelling in our mortal nature. At other times he is described as the man Christ Jesus, in whom dwelleth all the fidness of the godhead bodily; 1 Tim. ii. 5. and Col. ii. 9. A manof theseed of David afterthe flesh, who is God over all, blessed for evermore; Rom. ix. 5. A man whose flesh Thomas the apostle saw and felt, and yet called him my Lord and my God ; John xx. 27, 28. Upon such scriptures as thesemy faith is built. And as it is the most general sentiment of thechristian world in our age, sò I must acknowledge it is very evident to me, that our blessed Saviour is often represented in scripture as acomplex person, wherein God and man are united, so as tomake up one -complexagent, one intellectual compound being, God joined with man, so as to become one common principle of action and passion. Christ wrought miraculous works, and yet it is "the Father or God in him who doththese works ;" Johnxiv. 10. The God and the man ar e one. And on this account the child Jesus may be well called the mighty God ; Is. ix. 6. And Godhimself is said to redeem the church with his own blood ; Acts xx. 28. And to lay down his life for os ; 1 John iii. 16. This intimate or present union between God and Christ allows him to say ; John x. 38. f am ist the Father, and the Father in me. And verse 30. L and the Father areone. Since Christ Jesus in his person and his offices hath so large a share in our holy religion, we cannot be too well acquainted with his variousglories. It is the study andjey of angels to pry into these wonders ; 1 Pet. i. 12. And it is the duty of men to grow in the knowledge of Christ their Lord, their God, and their Saviour ; 2 Pet. iii. 18. It is granted that many things relating to the ever blessed Trinity may haveheights and depthsin them which are unsearchable by our understand- ings. Though we learn from scripture, that true and properdeity is ascribed to the Father, theSon, and the Holy Spirit, and thatthey arerepresented often in scripture as distinct personal agents ; yet after all our enquiries and prayers . we may beStill much at a loss to describe exactly wherein this distinct per- sonalityconsists, and what is the distinct communion of each of them in the divine nature. We have never yet been able with any strongevidence and clear certainty precisely to adjust this sacred difficulty, how far they are one, and how far they are three. Several schemes and hypotheses have been in- vented for this purpose, and the best of them falls shot of solvingall questions relating to this doctrine completely -to our satisfaction, though someof them are evidently much more agreeable toscripture than others. As it is ourgreat happiness, that the knowledge of any such particular schemes of explication are not necessary to the salvation of men, so neither are any of those different schemes of the Trinity at all needful to our present enquiries concerning that glory of Christ, which is the subject of this treatise. Let no humble christian therefore be jealous of losing his own form of explaining the Trinity by reading these discourses, nor let him be afraid of being led into any particular human schemes or explications of that dive
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