562 THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS GOD-MAN. his imagination to fly beyond these limits, I am constrained to leave him, lest 1 should seem to deify a creature, and intrench upon the supreme majesty of God. II. Tomake ibappear that our blessed Lord in his human ;nature may possibly be capable of knowing 'all the most consi- del-able affairsand circumstancesof mankind, let us consider how -far the mere native capacitiesof a human spirit may extend. We must not judge of the innate powers and natural capacities of -the soul of the Messiah by the scanty measures of our own souls -and their nativepowers. The soul of. Christ may be reasonably supposed ill its own nature to transcend the powers of all other . souls as far as an angel exceeds an ideot, and yet be but a human soul still ; for Ñ radus non mutant speciem, different degrees do. not change, thekind or nature. When we narrow and limit our conceptions of the extensive pettersof the soul of Jesus, and bring them down too near to our own, it is because we have too high a conceit of ourselves, and too low an idea of the great and glorious God. We are ready to fancy the difference between God and ourselves so small, as that a mind so vastly superior to our own, as I have described, must be raised immediately to godhead : whereas by the view of the powers of angels, which I have hinted before, it is possi- ble there may be endowments and excellencies equal to all the millions -of men on 'earth united in one spirit, which may be yet but a created being, and infinitely inferior to the great God. And surely if there be súch a spirit of such extensive excellencies and endowtnent , it is divinely proper that this spirit should be thesoul of Jesus who is so intimately united to God, and who in all things must have the pre-eminence ; Col. i. 18. But let us proceed in this argument to raise our enquiries how great and glorious a creature may be formed by the Al- mighty Creator. ' If I might venttire to speak here in the language of philo- sophy, it is exceeding hard for us to determine what -is the maxi- mum or minimuiu, the greatest or the least thing in nature. That matter is infinitely divisible is a doctrine now universally received and maintained without controversy. New if we cannot limit the possible smallness of corporeal beings, how can we limit thepossible greatness of them ? Even in the animal world there are creatures whose particular limbs escape the nicest ml- croscope, and are perhaps a thousand times less than the smallest visible grain of sand. What amaiing difference is betwixt the _ bulk of these diminutive animals, and the bulk of an elephant or a whale ? And yet the Almighty Creator may form animals as much superior in bulk to a whale or an elephant, as these huge creatures exceed those invisible mites, when he had formed a world of air, earth and water fit for them. And why may not
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