6401 THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS GOD-MAT. to his human nature before his incarnation, as he has now in heaven III. It is very plain that though the human soul of Christ might enjoy a glorious degree of honour and happiness before his incarnation, yet having properly the natureof a human soul, it could not arrive at its perfection of appointed happiness, but by its union with a human body ; even as the spirits of departed saints enjoy a glorious degree of honour and happiness in the world of spirits ; yet neither their honour nor happiness is com- plete until the resurrection, when they shall he rejoined to im- mortal bodies; and their happiness and honour shall be completed by unknown sensations of pleasure. Besides, that sensible sur- vey, those various sensations and eye-sight of their own exalta- tion, which they acquire by the means of their union to a glori- fied body, is a farther kind of honour and happiness than in a se- parate state they were capable of. Thus the human soul of Christ having passed through the sorrows of life, and the pain- ful sensations that arose from its union to our flesh in such poor and infirm circumstances, having suffered shame and reproach; and a thousand indignities frommen, and having felt the agonies, ofdeath as a ransom for them, was exalted both to greater honour and greater happiness at his resurrection and ascension,. by being united to a body raised in power and in glory, than he could have been without it. I. IIe was exalted to greater degrees of happiness, by re- ceivingall that intense pleasure, and those unknown sensations of delight, which are capable of beingconveyed to a spirit by the medium of a body, a glorious body ; and this as a reward of his sensations of pain in the body of his humiliation. 2. It is most probable that he is and shall be exalted also to greater degrees of honour, by seeing and hearing, or taking its perhaps by some corporeal methods, all the honours done to him by the whole human and material creation, and in beholding with a vast and comprehensive survey, all the subjection and obedi- ence of the known and unknown worlds of spirits dwelling in flesh, paid to him ; and particularly all the acclamations and wor- shipof all the glorifiedsaints paid to his divine person as dwell- ing in a human body, and this as a reward of that shame and reproach, and those uneasy passions which he might sustain in animal nature in his humbled state. Thus it appears how the soul of Jesus Christ, though it had very great powers and dignities and blessedness in its pre- existent state, yet may receive a most sensible addition to its honours and happiness when he was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven in a glorified body. There are parallel in- stances in scripture which confirm this account of things ; John xvii. 22. our Saviour says, The Father loved him before the
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