In this world, believers are united unto God hy faith. It is by faith that they cleave unto him with purpose of heart. In heaven, it shall be by love. Ardent love, with delight, complacency, and joy, from a clear apprehension of God's infinite goodness and beauty, now made present unto us, now enjoyed by us, shall be the principle of our eternal adherence unto him, and union with him. His com- munications unto us here are by an external efficiency of power. He communicates of himself unto us, in the effects of his goodness, grace, and mercy, by the operations of his Spirit in us. Of the same kind will all the communications of the divine nature be unto ns, unto all eternity. It will be by what he worketh in us by his Spirit and power. There is no other way of the emanation of virtue from God unto any creature. But these things in Christ are of another nature. This union of his human nature unto God is immediate, in the person of the Son ; ours is mediate, by the Son, as clothed with our nature. The way of the communications of the divine nature unto the human in his person is what we cannot comprehend ; we have no notion of it, — nothing whereby it may be illustrated. There is nothing equal to it, nothing like it, in all the works of God. As it is a creature, it must subsist in eternal dependence on God ; neither hath it anything but what it receives from him. For this belongs essentially unto the divine nature, to be the only independent, eternal spring and fountain of all being and goodness. Nor can Omnipotency itself exalt a crea- ture into any such condition as that it should not always and in all things depend absolutely on the Divine Being. But as unto the way of the communications between the divine and human nature, in the personal union, we know it not. But wlicther they be of life, power, light, or glory, they are of another kind than that whereby we do or shall receive all things. For all things are given unto us, are wrought in us, as was said, by an external efficiency of power. The glorious immediate emanations of virtue, from the divine unto the human nature of Christ, we understand not. Indeed, the actings of natures of different kinds, where both are finite, in the same person, one to- wards the other, is of a difficult apprehension. Who knows how
CHRIST IX HIS PERSON THE OBJECT OF WORSHIP. 241
directive power and efficacy proceeds from the soul, and is communi- cated unto tlie body, unto every the least minute action, in every member of it, — so as that there is no distance between the direction and the action, or the accomplishment of it? or how, on the other hand, the soul is affected with sorrow or trouble in the moment wherein the body feeleth pain, so as that no distinction can be made between the body's sufferings and the soul's sorrow ? How much more is this mutual communication in the same person of diverse natures above our comprehension, where one of them is absolutely infinite ! Somewhat will be spoken to it afterward. And herein doth this eternal glory differ from that of all other glorified creatures whatever. And,—
(3.) Hence the human nature of Christ, in his divine person and together with it, is the object of all divine adoration and worship, E-ev. V. 13. All creatures whatever do for ever ascribe "blessing, honour, glory, and power, unto the Lamb," in the same manner as unto him who sits on the throne. This we have declared before. But no other creature either is, or ever can be, exalted into such a condition of glory as to be the object of any divine worship, from the meanest creature which is capable of the performance of it. Those who ascribe divine or relisdous honour unto the saints or angels, as is done in the Church of Rome, do both rob Christ of the principal flower of his im- perial crown, and sacrilegiously attempt to adorn others with it ; — which they abhor.
(•i.) The glory that God designed to accomplish in and hy him, is now made evident unto all the holy ones that are about the throne. The gi-eat design of the wisdom and grace of God, from eternity, was to declare and manifest all the holy, glorious properties of his nature, in and by Jesus Christ. And this is that wherein he will acquiesce, with which he is well pleased. When this is fully accomplished, he will use no other way or means for the manifestation of his glory. Herein is the end and blessedness of all.
Wherefore the principal work of faith, whilst we are in this world, is to behold this glory of God, as so represented unto us in Christ. In the exercise of faith therein is our conformity unto him carried on unto perfection, 2 Cor. iii. 18. And unto this end, or that we may do so, he powerfully communicates unto our minds a saving, internal light; without which we can neither behold his glory nor give glory unto him. He " who commanded the light to shine out of darkness," shines into our hearts, to give us " the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," 2 Cor. iv. 6. The end, I say, why God communicates a spiritual, supernatural light unto the minds of believers, is that they may be able to discern the manifes- tation and revelation of his glory in Christ; which is hid from the