6 A DESCRIPTION OP CHRIST.
sin eternally. Thus we see how he is God's servant, who set him apart, and chose him to this service.
And then he was a servant to us ; for the Son of man came to minister, not to be ministered unto, Matt. xx. 28. He washed his disciples' feet. He was a servant to us, because he did our work and suifered our punish- ment ; we made him serve by our sins, as the prophet saith, Isa. xliii. 24. He is a servant that bears another man's burden. There was a double burden — of obedience active, and obedience passive. He bore them both. He came under the law for us, both doing what we should have done, and indeed far more acceptably, and suffering that we should have suffered, and far more acceptably. He being our surety, being a more excellent person, he did bear our burden, and did our work, therefore he was God's servant, and our servant ; and God's servant, because he was our servant, because he came to do a work behoveful to us.
Herein appears the admirable love and care of God to us wretched creatures, here is matter of wonderment.
If we look to him that was a servant ;
If we look to that in God and him, that made him stoop to be a servant;
If we look to the manner of the performance of this service ;
If we look to the fruit of that service ; they are all matter of wondennent.
If we look to the person that was this servant ; the apostle, in Philip, ii. 6, will tell you, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet he took upon him the shape of a servant. Was not this wonderful, for God to become man, the glorious God to abase himself, to be a servant ? God- man, glorious God, and base servant ; for the hving God to die, for the incomprehensible God to be enclosed in the womb of a virgin, for glory itself to be abased, for riches to become poor, what matter of wonderment is here ! The very angels stand at a gaze and wonder, they pry into these things, 1 Peter i. 12 ; his name may well be wonderful.
There are four notable conjunctions that are especially wonderful, two in us, and two above us.
One in us, is the conjunction of so excellent a thing as the soul breathed in by God. The soul of man is an admirable thing. The world is not worth it in the judgment of him that gave himself for it. That this should be joined to a piece of earth (indeed, I am wonderfully made, saith David, Ps. cxxxix. 14) in regard of his body, but the conjunction of the soul and body together, so excellent a substance to so base a thing as earth, to a piece of red, wcll-colom-ed earth [a],* to a lump of flesh, it is a wondrous con- junction.
But there is a more supernatural conjunction of man when all of us, sinners as we are, are knit to Christ om' head, and head and members make one Christ. Here is a wondrous conjunction. St Paul calls it a mystery, Eph. v. 32. These conjunctions in us are wonderfal.
But now, to go higher, in Christ there are more wonderful conjunctions ; for the greatest and the meanest to join together, for God and man to come together, the Lord of all and a servant, and such a servant as should be under a curse, for the Highest of all to come to the deepest abasement. For there was no abasement ever so deep as Christ's was, in a double regard.
First, None ever went so low as he, for he suffered the wi'ath of God, and bore upon him the sins of us all ; none ever was so low.
And then in another respect his abasement was greatest, because he
* The letters a, b, c, &c,, in the text, refer to notes appended to the respective treatise, &c. — G,
A DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST. 7
descended from the highest top of glory ; and for him to be man, to be a servant, to be a curse, to suffer the wrath of God, to be the lowest of all — Lord, whither dost thou descend ? Here is a wonder in these conjunctions.
Next to Christ's abasement was Adam's ; because he was the most ex- cellent, being in the state of innocency, and carrying the image of God, and being famihar with God. For him presently to come into that fearful condition, it was the greatest abasement ; because it was fi'om the gi'eatest dignity that made the abasement of Christ so great. For lordship to submit to service, for God to be man, the blessed God to become a curse, here is matter of wonder indeed.
In Christ, again, there was a conjunction of perfect body, perfect soul, and perfect God, and all make one Christ. In the Trinity there is a con- junction of three persons in one nature. That is a wondrous conjunction, but it belongs not to our present purpose. Here you see there is matter of wonder in the person, that Christ should be a servant.
There is matter of wonder likewise in that from whence he is a servant. Whence comes it that Christ is a servant ? It is from the wondrous love of God, and the wondrous love of Christ. To be so abased, it was won- drous love in God to give him to us to be so abased, and the wondrous misery we were in, that we could not otherwise be freed from ; for such was the pride of man, that he, being man, would exalt himself to be like God. God became man, he became a servant to expiate our pride in Adam, so that it is wondrous in the spring of it. There was no such love as Christ's to become a servant, there was no such misery as we were in, out of which we were delivered by this abasement of Christ becoming a servant ; so it is wondrous in that regard, springing fi'om the infinite love and mercy of God, which is greater in the work of redemption and reconciliation than in the creation of the world, for the distance between nothing and something was less than the distance between sin and happiness. For nothing adds no opposition ; but to be in a sinful state there is opposition. Therefore it was gi-eater love and mercy for God, when we were sinful, and so obnoxious to eternal destruction, to make us of sinners, not only men, but to make us happy, to make us heirs of heaven out of a sinful and cm'sed estate, than to make us of nothing something, to make us men in Adam, for there God prevailed over nothing, but here his mercy triumphed over that which is opposite to God, over sinfulness and cursedness. To shew that the creature cannot be so low but there is somewhat in God above the misery of the creatm'e, his mercy shall triumph over the basest estate where he will shew mercy. Therefore there is mercy above all mercy and love above all love, in that Christ was a servant.