DISCOURSE 111. 591 stale and circumstances, and representing how he emptiedhim-' seif of them, and appeared on earth in a very mean and low estate. Therefore he saith, Who being in the formof Gode thought it no robbery to be equal with Gid ; that is, his human soul, which is the chief part of the man, being in union with his godhead,. was vested with a god-like form and glory in all former ages ; thus he oftentimes appeared to the patriarchs, as the angel of the Lord, and as God or Jehovah, with a heavenly brightness about him, er clothed with the divine shekinah, the robe of light, and spoke and acted like God himself. This seems tobe the form of God, which the apostle speaks of; nor did he think it any robbery_ or sinful presumption so to do, that is, to appear and act as God, since he was united to the divine nature, and was in that sense one with God* : Yet he emptied himself, that is, he divested himself of this god -like form or appearance, this divine shekinah, and coming into the flesh, he consented to be made in the likeness of other men; nay, he took upon him the form of a servant instead of the form of a God, that is, instead of the glorious vestment of light, in which he once appeared and acted as God ; he now came in a mean ser- vile form, and humbled himself even to death, &c. as it follows : Now that this text is most naturally interpreted, concerning the pre-existent soul of Christ and its humiliation, and not concern- ingthe abasement of his human nature, will appear, ifwe attend to these things : 1. It is the chief design of this scripture to propose to the Philippians a wonderous example of humility and self-denial. * I might have omitted the paraphrase of these words, " who thought it not robbery tobe equal with God," since I am constrained to confess that I am not fully satisfied in the true meaning of them. Those who will read with an impar- tial eye what Doctor Whitby has written in his Annotations on this text, even while he was zealous against the Arian doctrines, and took all opportunities in bis comments to refute them, and who consider at the same time what sense the ancient Greek writer Heliodorus in several places, and the Greek fathers gene- rally put upon this phrase, will be.ready to believe they signify, that Christ did not think equally. with God to be apoaypov, a thing to be seized, a thing to be assumed by him, he did not think proper to appear like God, or assume equa- lity to God in his humble state : and so this sentence expresses one part of his humility. On the other hand, he that peruses what the learned Doctor Water- land has written in his sermon on this text, may beinclined to doubt of this ex- position of Doctor Whitby and the fathers, and to construe these words as part' of the most exalted dignity of Christ, according to our Eu_lish translation: though Doctor Waterland himself does not deny that the ancient Greek writer Heliodorus, and most of the ancient fathers, expounded it' in the sense which. Doctor Whitby gives ofit. However I have here followed our English translation, and paraphrased it as expressive of Christ's most exalted character and godhead, that it may evi- dently appear that the'otherparts of this verse are most happily applied to the preexistence and the incarnation of the human soul of Christ, even though these controverted words should be referred to his divine nature; and that this doctrine-. of Christ's pre-existent soul does not want any change, in the common English translation, nor the sense of this phrase to he.altered in order to suppert it.
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