Not to follow them in their imaginations, the just privileges of Moses above all other prophets lay in these three things:—(1.) That he was the lawgiver or mediator by whom God gave that law and revealed that worship in the observation whereof the very being of the Judaical church did consist. (2.) That God in the revelation made unto him dealt in a more familiar and clear manner, as to the way of his outward dealing, than with any other prophets. (3.) In that the revelation made unto him concerned the ordering of the whole house of God, when the other prophets were employed only about particulars built on his foundation.
In these things consisted the just and free pre-eminence of Moses; which whether it was such as would warrant the Jews in their ob- stinate adherence to his institutions upon their own principles shall be inquired into. But before we manifest that indeed it was not, the revelation of the mind of God in and by the Son, which is compared with and preferred before and above this of Moses,
28 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [ CHAP. I,
must be unfolded; and this we shall do in the ensuing observa- tions :—
1. The Lord Jesus Christ, by virtue of the union of his person, was from the womb filled with a perfection of gracious light and knowledge of God and his will. An actual exercise of that prin- ciple of holy wisdom wherewith he was endued, in his infancy, as afterwards, he had not, Luke i. 52; nor had he in his human nature an absolutely infinite comprehension of all individual things, past, present, and to come, which he expressly denies as to the day of judgment, Matt. xxiv. 36, Mark xiii. 32; but he was furnished with all that wisdom and knowledge which the human nature was cap- able of, both as to principle and exercise, in the condition wherein it was, without destroying its finite being and variety of conditions, from the womb. The Papists have made a vain controversy about the knowledge of the human soul of Christ. Those whom they charge with error in this matter affirm no more than what is expressly asserted in the places of Scripture above mentioned; and by their answers unto those places, it is evident how little they care what scorn they expose the Scripture and all religion unto, so they may secure their own mistakes. But this wisdom, whatever it were, is not that whereby God so revealed his mind unto him as thereby to be said to speak to usin him. He had it by his union, and therefore im- mediately from the person of the Son, sanctifyig that nature by the Holy Ghost, which he took into subsistence with himself. But the revelation by which God spake in him unto us was im a peculiar manner from the Father, Rev. i. 1; and, as we have showed, it is the person of the Father that is here peculiarly spoken of. And hence the inquiry of some on this place, how the second person re- vealed himself to the human nature, is not to the purpose of it; for it is the person of the Father that is spoken of. So that,—
2. The commission, mission, and furnishing of the Son, as inear- nate and mediator, with abilities for the declaration of the mind and will of God unto the church, were peculiarly from the Father. For the whole work of his mediation he received command of the Father, John x. 18, and what he should speak, chap. xii. 49; according to which commandment he wrought and taught, chap. xiv. 31. Whence that is the common periphrasis whereby he expresses the person of the Father, “ He that sent him;” as also, “He that sealed and anointed him.” And his doctrine on that account, he testified, was not his, his own, that is, primarily or originally as mediator, but his that sent him, John vi. 16. It was from the Father that he heard | the word and learned the doctrine that he declared unto the church. And this is asserted wherever there is mention made of the Father’s sending, sealing, anointing, commanding, teaching him; of his doing the will, speaking the words, seeking the glory, obeying the com-
VER. 1, 2.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 29
mands of him that sent him. See John viii. 26, 28, 40, xiv. 10, xv. 15, Rev. i. 1; and in the Old Testament, Zech. ii. 8; Isa. xlviii. 15-17, 1.4. That blessed “tongue of the learned,’ whereby God spake in and by him the refreshing word of the gospel unto poor weary sinners, was the gift of the Father.
3. As to the manner of his receiving of the revelation of the will of God, a double mistake must be removed, and then the nature of it must be declared :—
(1.) The Socinians, to avoid the force of those testimonies which are urged to confirm the deity of Christ, from the assertions in the gospel that he who spake to the disciples on earth was then also in heaven, John iii. 13, vi. 38, 51, vii. 33, 34, vill. 29, 41, 42, 57, 58, have broached a Mohammedan fancy, that the Lord Christ before his entrance on his public ministry was locally taken up into heaven, and there instructed in the mystery of the gospel and the mind of God which he was to reveal, Cat. Rac, cap. ii., de Offic. Ch. Pro- phet., queest. 4, 5; Smalcius ce Divinit. Christi, cap. iv.; Socin. Resp. ad Parzen. Vol. pag. 38, 39.