(L) Hence was \\e jlt^ to suffer and able to bear whatever was due unto us, in that very action wherein the " Son of man gave his life a ransom for many," Matt. xx. 28. " God redeemed his church with his o\m blood," Acts xx. 28 ; and therein was the " love of God seen, that he gave his hfe for us," 1 John iii. 16. On this account was there room enough in his breast to receive the points of all the ^sivords that were sharpened by the law against us ; and strength enough in his shoulders to bear the hurden of that curse that was due to us. Thence was he so luilling to undertake the work of our redemption, Heb. X. 7, 8, " Lo, I come to do thy will, O God," — because he knew his ability to go through with it. Had he not been man, he could not have suffered; — had he not been God, his suffering could not have availed either himself or us, — he had not satisfied ; the suffering of a mere man could not bear any proportion to that which in any respect was infinite. Had the great and righteous God gathered together all the sins that had been committed by his elect from the foundation of the world, and searched the bosoms of all that were to come to the end of the world, and taken them all, from the sin of then- nature to the least deviation from the rectitude of his most holy
' "Qui, propter homines liberandos ab feterna morte, homo factus est, et ita ad susceptiouem humilitatis nostrse, sine suae majestatis diminutione inclinans, ut manens quod erat, assumensque quod uon erat; veram servi formam, ei forma?, in qua Deo patri est a^qualis, aduuaret, ut nee inferiorem absumeret glorificatio, nee superiorem minueret assumptio; salva enim proprietate utriusque substantive, et in uuam coeuute personam, suscipitur a majestate humilitas, a virtute infirmi- tas, a mortalitate SEternitas, et ad rependendum nostra? conditionis debitum, na- tura inviolabilis naturve est unita passibili," etc.— Leo. Serm. i. De Nat.
2 Vind. Evan. c. vii. vol. xii.
^ " Deus verus, et homo verus in uuitatem Domini temperatur, ut, quod nostris remediis congruebat,unus atque idem Dei hominumque mediator et mori possit ex uno, et resurgere possit ex altero."— Leo. ubi sup. * Zech. xiii.7; Ps. Ixxxix. 19.
68 OF COMMUNION WITH THE SON JESUS CHRIST.
law, and the highest provocation of their regenerate and unregene- rate condition, and laid them on a mere holy, innocent, creature; — O how would they have overwhelcoed him, and buried him for ever out of the presence of God's love! Therefore doth tbe apostle pre- mise that glorious description of him to the purging of our sm : " He hath spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds ; who being the ])riglitness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power," hath " purged our sins." Heb. i. 2, 3. It was he that purged our sins, who was the Son and heir of all things, by whom the world was made, — the brightness of his Father's glory, and express image of his person ; he did it, he alone was able to do it. " God was manifested in the flesh," 1 Tim. iii. 16, for this work. The sword awaked against him that was the fellow of the Lord of hosts, Zech. xiii. 7; and by the wounds of that great shepherd are the sheep healed, 1 Pet. ii. 24, 25.
(2.) Hence doth he become an endless, bottomless fountain of grace to all them that believe. The fulness that it pleased the Father to commit to Christ, to be the great treasury and storehouse of the church, did not, doth not, lie in the human nature, considered in itself; but in the person of the mediator, God and man. Consider wherein his communication of grace doth consist, and this will be evident. The foundation of all is laid in his satisfaction, merit, and purchase; these are the morally procuiing cause of all the grace we receive from Christ. Hence all grace becomes to be his;^ all the things of the new covenant, the promises of God, all the mercy, love, grace, glory promised, became, I say, to be his. Not as though they were all actually invested, or did reside and were in the human na- ture, and were from thence really communicated to us by a participa- tion of a portion of what did so inhere: but they are morally his, by a^ compact, to be bestowed by him as he thinks good, as he is mediator, God and man; that is, the only begotten Son made flesh, John i. 14, *' from whose fulness we receive, and grace for grace." The real com- munication of grace is by Christ sending the Holy Ghost to regene- rate us, and to create all the habitual grace, with the daily supplies thereof, in our hearts, that we are made partakers of Now the Holy Ghost is thus sent by Chiist as mediator, God and man, as is at large declared, John xiv. xv. xvi. ; of which more afterward. Tliis, then, is that which I intend by this fulness of grace that is in Christ, from whence we have both our beginning and all our supplies; which makes him, as he is the Alpha and Omega of his church, the beginner and finisher of our faith, excellent and desirable to our souls :^ — Upon