Secondly, Now we come to speak to the second head of christian doctrine, what is to be known concerning Jesus Christ ? I shall not wander and digress from the circumstances of the text.
Here are three things offered to our consideration: — (L) That he is sent ; (2.) That he is Jesus, or a saviour ; (3.) That lie is Christ, or an anointed saviour.
First, That he is sent. I in part opened this in the explication ; now I shall open it more fully. It implieth —
1. Christ's divine original ; he was a person truly existing before he came into the world, as a man must be before he is sent ; he came forth from God : Gal. iv. 4, ' When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Sou, made of a woman, made under the law ;'
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e^aTria-reiXev, the word is a double compound, sent forth from God. Jesus Christ was in the Godhead; to note his intimacy and famiUarity with God, he is said to be eV koXttw irarpo'^, John i. 18, ' The only- begotten Son of God, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' He is not only legatus a latere, from the side of God, but from the bosom of God ; so equals and dear friends are admitted into the bosom. Therefore he is said ' to come forth from God,' John xvi. 30. Not only to note the authority of his message, but the quality of his person, he came from out of the Godhead. No inferior mediator could serve the turn ; such an errand required a God himself : nothing but an infinite good could remedy an infinite evil. Sin had bound us over to an eternal judgment, and nothing could counterpoise eternity but the infiniteness and excellency of Christ's person. He that came on such an errand must needs be God, both to satisfy God and to satisfy us. God could not be satisfied unless his sufferings had re- ceived a value from his person. To satisfy God offended there must be a God satisfying for the offence ; therefore his blood is called ' the blood of God ;' Acts xx. 28, ' Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.' The satisfaction must carry proportion with the merit of the offence. A debt of a thousand pounds is not discharged by two or three brass farthings. Creatures are finite, their acts are due, and their sufferings for one another, if they had been allowed, would have been of a limited influence. Merit is above the creature ; no act of ours can lay an engagement upon God : 1 Sam. ii. 25, ' If a man sin against another, the judge shall judge him ; but if he sin against God, who shall entreat for him?' The judge may accord a difference between man and man, and one man may make satisfaction to another ; but to take up matters between us and God, a person must be sent out of the Godhead itself. So to satisfy us ; he had need be able to grapple with divine wrath that would undertake our cause ; he was not only to undergo it, but to overcome it. The creature would never have been satisfied if he had perished in the work ; if our surety were kept in prison, and held under wrath and death, we should have had no assurance that the debt was paid : Acts xvii. 31, ' Whereof he hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.' Christ's resurrection is our acquittance and discharge : John xvi. 10, ' Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more.' Well, then, we see the reasons why a person of the Godhead is employed in this work. You need not doubt but that it is accomplished to the fall, since it is in the hands of such an able surety. Besides, it showeth the greatness of our sin and misery, that a person of tlie Godhead must be sent to rescue us. Sin fetched the Son of God from heaven, and if we subdue it not, it will sink us into hell.
2. It implieth his distinct subsistence, that Christ is a distinct per- son from the Father ; for he that sendeth and he that is sent are dis- tinguished. Mark, I say, it implieth distinction, but not inferiority, against the Arians. Persons equal by mutual consent may send one another, as we see among men ; and Christ was equal with God : Phil. ii. 6, ' Who being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God;' he might take that honour upon him without
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usurpation. Now this sending is ascribed to the Father ; as John X. 36, ' Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world,' &c., and in other places. Partly because the Father in those places is not taken personally, but essentially ; for the decree of the Father is the decree of the Son and Spirit ; they are one in essence, and one in will, their actions are undivided. Partly because this pecu- liar personal operation is especially ascribed to the first person. The Father is said to send, and the Holy Ghost to qualify and fit him. It is ascribed to the Father, he sent the Spirit to accomplish it ; to God the Son, who took human nature, and united it to his own godhead ; to the Spirit of God, who formed, and sanctified, and furnished it with gifts without measure. In the economy of salvation, the original authority is made to reside in God the Father. So that here is a sen- sible argument to confirm the doctrine of the Trinity. Christ was sent, one of the persons took flesh by order and appointment of the whole Godhead. The distinction of the persons is by this discovered : Heb. i. 5, 6, ' For unto which of the angels said he at any time. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son ? And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him/