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ever:"* and the kingdom of Christ is represented, both in the Old and in the New Testament, as everlasting. The meaning, therefore, of the words of the Apostle must be, that the office with which the Son of Man was invested, in order to carry into full effect the purposes of his incarnation, which divines are accustomed to call his mediatorial kingdom, shall cease when these purposes are accomplished. His authority to execute judgment must expire, after the quick and the dead have received according to their works; and he can no longer rule in the midst of his enemies, after they are all put under his feet. Every thing which the ancient theological writers meant by oxova will then be concluded and although the Son of God never can lay aside his relation to those whom by that economy he hath brought to his Father, yet the offices implied under the character of Mediator, which had a reference to their preparation for heaven, can have no place amongst the glorified saints, but God shall be all in all, and the Son shall reign in the glory which he had with the Father before the world was.

In this manner, from the union between the divine and human natures of Christ, and the communication of the properties of the two natures, we are able to deduce an explication of several passages of Scripture which would otherwise appear unintelligible. There is one other use of the doctrine concerning the incarnation, which is clearly stated in Scripture, and with which I close all that relates particularly to the person of Jesus Christ.

It is by the union of two natures in one person that Christ is qualified to be the Saviour of the world. He became man, that with the greatest possible advantage to those whom he was sent to instruct, he might teach them the nature and the will of God; that his life might be their example; that by being once compassed with the infirmities of human nature he might give them assurance of his fellow-feeling; that by suffering on the cross he might make atonement for their sins; and that in his reward they might behold the earnest and the pattern of theirs.

But had Jesus been only man, or had he been one of

* Rev. v. 13.

the spirits that surround the throne of God, he could not have accomplished the work which he undertook: for the whole obedience of every creature being due to the Creator, no part of that obedience can be placed to the account of other creatures, so as to supply the defects of their service, or to rescue them from the punishment which they deserve. The Scriptures, therefore, reveal, that he who appeared upon earth as man is also God, and, as God, was mighty to save; and by this revelation they teach us that the merit of our Lord's obedience, and the efficacy of his interposition, depend upon the hypostatical union.*

All modern sects of Christians agree in admitting that the greatest benefits arise to us from the Saviour of the world being man; but the Arians and Socinians contend earnestly that his sufferings do not derive any value from his being God; and their reasoning is specious. You say, they argue, that Jesus Christ, who suffered for the sins of men, is both God and man. You must either say that God suffered, or that he did not suffer; if you say that God suffered, you do indeed affix an infinite value to the sufferings, but you affirm that the Godhead is capable of suffering, which is both impious and absurd: if you say that God did not suffer, then, although the person that suffered had both a divine and a human nature, the sufferings were merely those of a man, for, according to your own system, the two natures are distinct, and the divine is impassible.

In answer to this method of arguing, we admit that the Godhead cannot suffer, and we do not pretend to explain the kind of support which the human nature derived under its sufferings from the divine, or the manner in which the two were united. But from the uniform language of Scripture, which magnifies the love of God in giving his only begotten Son, which speaks in the highest terms of the preciousness of the blood of Christ, which represents him as coming in the body that was prepared for him, to do that which sacrifice and burnt-offering could not do— from all this we infer that there was a value, a merit, in

* Ηνωσεν ουν τον ανθρωπον τῷ Θεῷ.—Εδει γαρ μεσιτην Θέου τε και ανθρωτων δια της ίδιας προς ἑκατέρους οικειότητος εις φιλίαν και ὁμονοιαν τους aμQorigous ouvayayu. Iren. cont. Hær. lib. iii. cap. 187.

the sufferings of this person, superior to that which belonged to the sufferings of any other: and as the same Scriptures intimate in numberless places the strictest union between the divine and human natures of Christ, by applying to him promiscuously the actions which belong to each nature, we hold that it is impossible for us to separate in our imagination this peculiar value which they affix to his sufferings, from the peculiar dignity of his person.

The hypostatical union, then, is the corner-stone of our religion. We are too much accustomed, in all our researches, to perceive that things are united, without being able to investigate the bond which unites them, to feel any degree of surprise that we cannot answer all the questions which ingenious men have proposed upon this subject : but we can clearly discern, in those purposes of the incarnation of the Son of God which the Scriptures declare, the reason why they have dwelt so largely upon his divinity; and if we are careful to take into our view the whole of that description which they give of the person by whom the remedy in the Gospel was brought; if, in our speculations concerning him, we neither lose sight of the two parts which are clearly revealed, nor forget what we cannot comprehend, that union between the two parts which is necessarily implied in the revelation of them, we shall perceive, in the character of the Messiah, a completeness, and a suitableness to the design of his coming, which of themselves create a strong presumption that we have rightly interpreted the Scriptures.

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CHAP. IX.

OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT.

I HAVE now given a view of the different opinions that have been held concerning that Person, by whom the remedy offered in the Gospel was brought to the world. But there is also revealed to us another Person, by whom that remedy is applied, who is known in Scripture by the name of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost; and whom our Lord, in different places of that long discourse which John has recorded in chap. xiv. xv. and xvi. of his Gospel, calls Taganλnros. When you read John xv. 26, you cannot avoid considering i ragazλros as the same with To TVεua, and as a person distinct from the Father and the Son. Παρακλητος is derived from παρακαλεω, the precise meaning of which is, "standing by the side of a person I call upon him to do something," and which is commonly translated, "I comfort or encourage." Hence the word Taganλros is rendered in our Bibles the Comforter; but if you attend to the analogy of the Greek language, you will perceive that the manner in which it is formed from the verb, suggests as the more literal interpretation of the noun advocatus, advocate, "one who, being called in, stands by the side of others to assist them."

Of the offices of this Person I shall have to speak, when I proceed in the progress of my plan to the application of the remedy. At present I have only to state the information which the Scriptures afford, and the different opinions to which that information has given rise, concerning the character of this Person. The subject lies within a much narrower compass than that which I have just finished.

Dr. Clarke has collected, in his Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity, all the passages of the New Testament in which the Spirit is mentioned. They are very numerous; they have been differently interpreted; and corresponding

to this difference of interpretation is the variety of opinions which have been held concerning this Person. The simplest method in which I can state the progress of these opinions, is to begin with directing your attention to the form of baptism taught by our Lord, Matt. xxviii. 19. Baptism or washing is found in the religious ceremonies of all nations. Among the heathen, the initiated after having been instructed in certain hidden doctrines and awful rites, were baptized into these mysteries. The Israelites are said by the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. x. 2, to have been baptized into Moses, at the time when they followed him as the servant of God, sent to lead them through the Red Sea.

Proselytes to the law of Moses from other nations were received by baptism; and all the people who went out to hear John, the forerunner of Jesus, were baptized by him into the baptism of repentance. In accommodation to this general practice, Jesus, having employed his apostles to baptize those who came to him during his ministry, sent them forth, after his ascension, to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them. But, in order to render baptism a distinguishing rite, by which his followers might be separated from the followers of any other teacher who chose to baptize, he added these words, "into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

The earliest Christian writers inform us that this solemn form of expression was uniformly employed from the beginning of the Christian church. It is true, indeed, that the Apostle Peter said to those who were converted on the day of Pentecost, Acts ii. 38, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ;" and that, in different places of the book of Acts, it is said that persons were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus: and from hence those who deny the argument, which I am about to draw from the form of baptism, have inferred that, in the days of the apostles, this form was not rigorously observed. But a little attention will satisfy you that the inference does not follow, because there is internal evidence from the New Testament itself, that when the historian says persons were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, he means they were baptized according to the form prescribed by Jesus. Thus the question put by

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