For the sun to fall from its sphere, and be degraded into £ wandering atom ; for an angel to be turned out of heaven, and be converted into a silly fly or worm, had been no such great abase- ment ; for they were but creatures before, and so they would abide still, though in an inferior order or species of creatures. The distance betwixt the highest and lowest species of creatures, is but a finite distance. The angel and the worm dwell not so far asun- der. But for the infinite glorious Creator of all things, to become a creature, is a mystery exceeding all human understanding. The distance betwixt God and the highest order of creatures, is an in- finite distance. He is said to humble himself, to behold the things that are done in heaven. What a humiliation then is it, to behold the things in the lower world ! but to be born into it, and become a man ! Great indeed is the mystery of godliness. " Behold, (saith " the prophet, Isa. xl. 15, 18) the nations are as the drop of a " bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance ; he " taketh up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before " him are as nothing, and they are accounted to him less than no- " thing, and vanity.11 If, indeed, this great and incomprehensible Majesty will himself stoop to the state and condition of a creature, we may easily believe, that being once a creature, he would expose himself to hunger, thirst, shame, spitting, death, or any thing but
SERM. XVIII. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 227
sin. For that once being a man, he should endure any of these things, is not so wonderful, as that he should become a man. This was the low step, a dee}) abasement indeed !
2. It was a marvellous humiliation to the Son of God, not only to become a creature, but an inferior creature, a man, and not an angel. Had he taken the angelical nature, though it had been a wonderful abasement to him, yet he had staid (if I may so speak) nearer his own home, and been somewhat liker to a God, than now he appeared, when he dwelt with us : for angels are the highest, and most excellent of all created beings : For their nature, they are pure spirits ; for their zvisdom, intelligences ; for their dig- nity, they are called principalities and powers ; for their habitations, they are stiled the heavenly host ; and for their employment^ it is to behold the face of God in heaven. The highest pitch, both of our ho- liness and happiness in the coming world, is expressed by this, we shall be /tfa/ysXo/, " equal to the angels*" Luke xx. 36. As man is nothing to God, so he is much inferior to the angels; so much below them, that he is not able to bear the sight of an angel, though in a human shape, rendering himself as familiarly as may be to him, Judges xiii. 22. When the Psalmist had contemplated the heavens, and viewed the celestial bodies, the glorious lumina- ries, the moon and stars which God had made, he cries out, Psal. viii. 5. " What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of " man that thou visitest him !" Take man at his best when he came a perfect and pure piece out of his Maker's hand, in the state of innocency : yet he was inferior to angels. They always bare the image of God, in a more eminent degree than man, as being wholly spiritual substances, and so more lively representing Godj than man could do, whose noble soul is immersed in matter, and closed up in flesh and blood: yet Christ chuseth this inferior order and species of creatures, and passeth by the angelical nature ; Heb. ii. 16. " He took not on him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham."
3. Moreover, Jesus Christ did not only neglect the angelical, and assume the human nature ; but he also assumed the human nature, after sin had blotted the original glory of it, and wither- ed up the beauty and excellency thereof. For he came not in our nature before the fall, whilst as yet its glory was fresh in it ; but he came, as the apostle speaks, Rom. viii. 3. " In the likeness of " sinful flesh," i. e. in flesh that had the marks, and miserable effects, and consequents of sin upon it. I say not that Christ as- sumed sinful flesh, or flesh really defiled by sin. That which was born of the Virgin was a holy thing. For by the power of the Highest (whether by the energetical command and ordination of the Holy Ghost, as some ; or by his benediction and blessing, I
228 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. XVIII.
here dispute not) that whereof the body of Christ was to be form- ed) was so sanctified, that no taint or spot of original pollution re- mained in it. But yet though it had not intrinsical native unclean- ness in it, it had the effects of sin upon it ; yea, it was attended with the whole troop of human infirmities, that sin at first let into our common nature, such as hunger, thirst, weariness, pain, mor- tality, and all these natural weaknesses and evils that clog our mi- serable natures, and make them groan from day to day under them.
By reason whereof, though he was not a sinner, yet he looked like one : and they that saw and conversed with him, took him for a sinner ; seeing all these effects of sin upon him. In these things he came as near to sin as his holiness could admit. O what a stoop was this ! to be made in the likeness of flesh, though the innocent flesh of Adam, had been much ; but to be made in the iikeness of sinful flesh, the flesh of sinners, rebels ; flesh, though not defiled, yet miserably defaced by sin ! O what is this ! and who can declare it ! And indeed, if he will be a Mediator of reconci- liation, it was necessary it should be so. It behoved him to assume the same nature that sinned, to make satisfaction in it. Yea, these sinless infirmities were necessary to be assumed with the nature, forasmuch as his bearing them was a part of his humiliation, and went to make up satisfaction for us. Moreover, by them our High-Priest was qualified from his own experience, and filled with tender compassion to us.
But O the admirable condescensions of a Saviour, to take such a nature ! to put on such a garment when so very mean and ragged ! Did this become the Son of God to wear ? O grace unsearchable !