REDEMPTION WROUGHT IN HUMAN NATURE. 197
8. It was necessary that Satan should be justly despoiled of his advantage and power over mankind, inito the glory of God ; for he was not to be left to triumph in his success. And masmuch as man was, on his part, rightfully given up unto him, his deliverance was not to be wrought by an act of absolute dominion and power, but in a way of justice and lawful judgment; which things shall be afterward spoken unto.
Without these things the recovery of mankind into the favour and unto the enjoyment of God was utterly impossible, on the account of the concernment of the glory of his divine perfections in our sin and apostasy.
How all this might be effected — how the glory of the holiness and righteousness of God in his law and rule, and in the primitive con- stitution of our nature, might be repaii'ed — how his goodness, love, grace, and mercy, might be manifested and exalted in this work of the reparation of mankind — was left unto the care and contrivance of infinite wisdom. From the eternal springs thereof must this work arise, or cease for ever.
To trace some of the footsteps of divine wisdom herein, in and from the revelation of it by its effects, is that which lieth before us. And sundry things appear to have been necessary hereunto. As —
1. That all things required unto our restoration, the whole work wherein they consist, must be wrought in our own nature — in the na- ture that had sinned, and which was to be restored and brought unto gloFy^ On supposition, I say, of tl\e salvation of our natuf^, nQ satis- ipictiojj^ can be made unto the glory of God^for thS"sin of tliat nature, _,- but in the nature itself that sinned and is to be saved. For whereas | / God gave the law unto man as an effect of his wisdom and holiness, ^ which he transgressed in his disobedience, wherein could the glory of them or either of them be exalted, if the same law were complied withal and fulfilled in and by a nature of another kind — suppose that of angels ? For, notmthstanding any such obedience, yet the law might be unsuited unto the nature of man, whereunto it was origi- nally prescribed. Wherefore, there would be a veil drawn over the glory of God in giving the law unto man, if it were not fulfilled by obedience in the same nature; nor can there be any such relation between the obedience and sufferings of one nature in the stead and for the disobedience of another, as that glory might ensue unto the wisdom, holiness, and justice of God, in the deliverance of that other nature thereon.
The Scripture abounds in the declaration of the necessity hereof, with its condecency unto divine wisdom. Speaking of the way of our rehef and recovery, " Verily," saith the apostle, " he took not on him the nature of angels," Heb. ii. 16. Had it been the recovery of angels
198 THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
whicli he designed, lie would have taken their nature on him. But this would have been no relief at all unto us, no more than the assum- ing of our nature is of advantage unto the fallen angels. The obedience and sufferings of Christ therein extended not at all unto them — nor was it just or equal that they should be relieved thereby. What, then, was required unto our deliverance? Why, saith he, " Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same," verse 14. It was human nature (here expressed by flesh and blood) that was to be delivered ; and therefore it was human nature wherein this deliverance was to be wrought. This the same apostle disputes at large, Rom. v. 12-19. The sum is, that " as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obe- dience of one " (of one man, Jesus Christ, verse 15) " are many made /tighteous." The same nature that sinned must work out the repara- *^ tion and recovery from sin. So he affirms again, 1 Cor. xv. 21, " For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." No otherwise could our ruin be retrieved, nor our deliverance from sin with all the consequents of it be effected, — which came by man, which were committed and deserved in and by our nature, — but by man, by one of the same nature with us. This, therefore, in the first place, became the wisdom of God, that the work of deliverance ■1^' should be wi'ought in our own nature, — in the nature that had sinned.
A ^' 2. That part of human nature wherein or whereby this work was
^ to be effected, as unto the e^^ce or substance of it, was to be de-
'^ rived from the common root or stock of the same nature, in our first
parents. It would not suffice hereunto that God should create a man, out of the dust of the earth or out of nothing, of the same na- ture in general with ourselves ; for there would be no cognation or alliance between him and us, so that we should be any way concerned in what he did or suffered: for this alliance depends solely hereon, that God " hath made of one blood all nations of men," Acts xvii. 26. Hence it is that the genealogy of Christ is given us in the Gospel — not only fi'om Abraham, to declare the faithfulness of God in the promise that he should be of his seed, but from Adam also, to mani- fest his relation unto the common stock of our nature, and unto all mankind therein.