588 THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS GOO-MAN. I have finished the work which thou gayest me to do. Andnatiw, O Father, glorify thou me with flay 'own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. It seems. very plain from these words that Christ parted with some glory which he had in heaven, when he came down to finish the work which God gave him to do on earth, and he prays to be restored to it again. 1 appeal to every reader, whether this is not the most obvious and natural sense. Now the glory which belongs to God, is either essential or manifestative. The divine nature of Christ could not lose or part with any essential glories ; for they are the very na- ture and essence of God ; nor had the divine nature any mani- festative glories before the world was, which. it lost at the Mean- ' nation : For, L It had no manifestative glories at all, if there were no angels, no creatures to which they could be manifested. Or, 2. If it be supposed that angels were before " this lower world was, and that the godhead of our. Lord Jesus Christ might then be known and glorified by angels," it may be justly replied, thatsuppose this be true, yet he did not part with that glory at his coming into our world, for the angels did not forget his dignity,- they continued to know and glorify - Christ ; they worshipped him on earth ; $eb. i. 6. and ministered unto him as their sovereign, on various occasions. Since therefore it cannot be the divine- nature that parted' with this glory, nor can the divine nature pray for the restoration' of it, then it follows that the human nature had such an early existence, and such glory ; for we cannot suppose the human nature in this place prays for a glory which it never had. This' seems contrary to the most obvious sense of the text. Or, shall we say as the Socinians do, that the human nature prays for a glory which it had in the eternal counsels and decrees` of God ? But all the elect of God had also glory before the world was, in this sense, viz. in the eternal decrees and coun- sels: And how very forced and unnatural an interpretation is' this ? Yet it is such as the Socinians are constrained to take up with, though without any reason : Besides, how uoliappilÿ would such an exposition tend to support the Antinomian lan- guage of our justification from eternity, &c.. * Since this treatise was written, I have met with another explication of this text, in opposition to the sense I have given, and which I confess may seem something more plausible than the rest, viz. That the human nature or person of Christ, does not here pray for any glory to be restored which was lost, but for the present manifestation of the glory of his godhead to mankind', which glory wasreally eternal, and before the creation : or he prays, that the human nature may have'its due share of h"onour, opon the account of its union to the dynenature, which had a glory before the- world was; which homier waswith- held from the human nature in a great measure till his spffetiuga were finished;
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=