ÁPPttiDIS. 658 Could not have been said of him had he not been God. The first-born or first-begotten of every creature is spoken of him as be is admitted into the catalogue or society of the creatures, or as he is become one of them. Or take him as he is the Son of God ordained to human nature, and then to have his name stand highest among the rest of the creatures. It is spoken of him in respect of a dignity and birth-right that this God-man hath at that instant he is admitted amongst the creatures ; Ps. lxxxix. 27. 1 will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth ; Prov. viii. 23. I was set up from everlasting. The phrase, I was set up, will less permit us to understand it of his eternal generation, for that was an act of God's will Page 113. For whom all things.were created, Col. i. 16. Christ as God-man is set up as an universal end of the whole creation of God. His person decreed to subsist in man'snature was considered by God to be of that worth and distanceabove the creatures that their very being and existing was to become absolutely and simply his propriety, of which prerogative no mere creature is capable. Page 114. Suppose God would de- cree him to be God-man and to subsist in a human nature, and likewise withal would ordain multitudes of other things, viz. angels and men, &c. then it becomes the necessary clue of this Christ, and that as God-man, to be set up by God in his decrees as the end of all those things. This did become that man's due and the necessary consequent of that union withGod's Son ; and accordingly that God should cast his decrees for Christ's glory as well as for his own. Hencewe read Heb. i. 2. He is ap- pointed heir of all things. And if it be affirmed, that then Christ needed not to have merited any glory to himself, this surely is a truth, though it may not bemade use of to exclude another title unto this his own glory, namely that of purchase ; for it is no dishonour to him to have two claims. Page 116. It is certain that all God'sworks ad extra," whereof 'the union of the divine and human nature of Christ is one, are the objects of God's decrees, Col. i. 19. It pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell in him. And again, Psalm ii. 6, 7. Iwill publish the decree, I have set my king ou my holyhill of Zion: And upon this decree his kingdom over all is his due and inheritance. Chapter 1V. page 120. This human nature is made God's fellow, as Zechariah calls him, Zech. xiii. 7. "'l'he man, God's fellow," is advanced to a fellowship in this society of the Trinity, and therefore to him God communicates proportionably without measure, as John iii. 34. page 121. Bymeans of taking up one reasonable creature, a man, into this highest union, he communi- cates the riches of his knowledge and wisdom, to the utmostthat they are communicable to that creature so united ; for it is his due to know more at the first instant of that his union than all the angels : for by virtue of that union be .is presently in his
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