4. Fourthly, Christ's eternal deity, co-equality, and consubstantiality with the Father may be demonstrated from his divine properties and attributes. I shall shew you for the opening of this that the glorious attributes of God are ascribed to the Lord Jesus. I shall begin, —
(1.) First, with the eternity of God. God is an eternal God. 'From everlasting to everlasting thou art God,' Ps. xc. 2 ; ' The eternal God is thy refuge,' Deut. xxxiii. 27 ; 'He inhabits eternity,' Isa. Ivii. 15. He is called ' the ancient of days,' Dan. vii. 9 ; and he is said to be ' everlasting,' and to be ' king of old,' Ps. Ixxiv. 12. This sheweth he had no beginning. In respect of his eternit}'', after time, he is called * the everlasting God,' Eom. xvi. 26 ; ' An everlasting king,' 1 Tim. i. 17. That there is no succession or priority or posteri[ori]ty in God, but that he is from everlasting to everlasting the same, we may see Ps. cii. 26, 27, ' The heavens shall perish, but thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed ; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.' There is no succession or variation in God, but he is eternally the same. Eternity is an interminable being and duration before any time, and beyond all time ; it is a fixed dura- tion, without beginning or ending, i The eternity of God is beyond all possible conception of measure or time. God ever was, ever is, and ever shall be. Though the manifestations of himself unto the crea-
^ Eternity ia taken three ways. [1.] Proprie, properly, so it notetli to be without beginning and end, so God only is eternal ; [2.] Improprie, imjiroperly, so it noteth to have a beginning but no ending; so angels, so the souls of men are eternal ; [3.] Abusive, so some things are said to be eternal which have had a beginning, and shall also have an end. They are called eternal in respect of their long continuance and duration ; so circumcision and other Mosaical ceremonies were called eternal or everlasting.
Christ's eternal deity proved. 157
tures are in time, yet his essence or being never did nor shall be bound up by time. Look backward or forward, God from eternity to eternity, is a most self-sufficient, infinite, perfect, blessed being, the first cause of our being, and without any cause of his own being ; an eternal infinite fulness, and possession to himself and of himself. What God is, he was from eternity, and what God is, he will be so to eternity. Oh, this glorious attribute drops mirth ^ and mercy, oil and honey !
Now this attribute of eternity is ascribed to Jesus Christ : John i. 1, ' In the beginning was the Word ;' ' was ' notes some former dura- tion, and therefore we conclude that he was before the beginning, before any creation or creatures, for it is said he was God in the beginning, and his divine nature whereby he works is eternal, Heb. ix. 14. He is ' the first and last,' Kev. i. 17. Hence it is that he is called ' the firstborn of every creature,' because he who created all, and upholds all, hath power to command and dispose of all, as the firstborn had power to command the family or kingdom, Col. i. 15-17 ; compare Isa. Ixvi. 6, with Kev. xxii. 13. John xvii. 5, ' Father glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before the world was.' Such glory had the Lord Christ with his Father, viz., in the heavens, and that before the world was. This he had not only in regard of destination, being predestinated to it by God his Father, as Grotius would evade it, but in regard of actual possession. ' The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way,' saith Christ the Son of God, Prov. viii. 22. And as his Father possessed him, so he was possessed of the selfsame glory with his Father before the world was, from eternity. ' His goings forth have been from Of old, from everlasting,' from the days of eternity, saith the prophet Micah, speaking of the Messiah, Micah v. 2. See the eternity of Christ further confirmed by the scriptures in the margin. ^ But,
(2.) Secondly, As the attribute of eternity is ascribed to Christ, so the attribute of omniscience is ascribed to Christ ; and this speaks out the godhead of Christ. He knows all things : John xxi. 17, ' Lord, thou knowest all things,' ra irapovTa koX ra fjueWovra, all things pre- sent and future ; what I now am, and what I shall be, saith one, [Chrysostom] on the words : John ii. 25, ' He needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man.' Shall artificers know the nature and properties of their works, and shall not Christ know the hearts of men, which are the work of his own hands ? Eev. ii. 23, ' And all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts.' Now of all a man's inwards, the heart and the reins are the most inward. Christ is nearer to us than we are to our- selves. The Greek word epevvwv, that is here rendered searcheth, signifies to search with the greatest seriousness, exactness, and dili- gence that can be ; the word is metaphorically taken from such as use to search in mines for silver and gold. He is also frequently said to know the thoughts of men, and that before they bewrayed themselves
1 Spelled 'myrth': query, 'myrrh'?— G.
2 John viii. 58, and xvii. 24 ; Rev. i. 8, 17 ; Heb. i. 10-12, and vii. 3 ; Isa. ix. 6, &c. Christ is without beginning of days or end of time, and without all bounds of precession or succession.
158 Christ's eternal deity proved.
by any ontward expressions, l Now this is confessedly God's peculiar, * God which knoweth the hearts.' He is the wisdom of the Father, 1 Cor. i. 24. He knows the Father, and doth, according to his will, reveal the secrets of his Father's bosom. The bosom is the seat of love and secrecy, John i. 18. Men admit those into their bosoms, with whom they impart all their secrets ; the breast is the place of counsels ; that is, Christ revealeth the secret and mysterious counsels, and the tender and compassionate affections of the Father to the world. Being in the bosom implieth communication of secrets : the bosom is a place for them. It is a speech of Tully to a friend that had betrusted him with a secret, crede mihi, &c., Believe me, saith he, what thou hast committed to me, it is in my bosom still, I am not ungirt to let it slip out. But Scripture addeth this hint too, where it speaketh of the bosom as the place of secrets : Pro v. xvii. 23, ' A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom, to pervert the ways of judgment,' speak- ing of a bribe : Prov. xxi. 14, ' A gift in secret pacifieth anger, and a reward in the bosom expiateth wrath.' Here is ' secret' and ' bosom' all one, as gift and reward are one. So Christ lieth in the Father's bosom ; this intimateth his being conscious to all the Father's secrets. But,