(1st.) Here the sacred truth of the trinity of persons in the divine nature or essence openeth itself unto the creatures. The nature, the essence, or being of God, is absolutely and numerically one. All the natural and essential properties of that being are abso- lutely and essentially the same; and all the operations of this divine essence or being, according to its properties, are undivided, as being the effects of one principle, one power, one wisdom. Hence it could not by any such acts be manifested that there was more than one person in that one nature or being. But now, in these actings of the persons of the Trinity in such ways as firstly respect themselves, or their operations “ad intra,” where one person is as it were the object of the other persons’ acting, the sacred truth of the plurality of per- sons in the same single, undivided essence is gloriously manifested.
414 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. IV.
The Son undertaking to the Father to become a high priest for sinners, openly declares the distinction of the Son, or eternal Word, from the person of the Father. And in these distinct and mutual actings of the persons of it is the doctrine and truth of the holy Trinity most safely contemplated. See concerning this our Exerci- tations at large.
(2dly.) It opens the mystery of the fountain of divine grace, the springs of life and salvation which are with God. These things fow from the counsel that was between the Father and the Son, when he undertook to be a high priest for us. Grace and mercy are the way suited to the pursuit and accomplishment of those counsels. Hereon also depend all that religion and all those institutions of worship which were of old in the church. Upon the entrance of sin there was an end put unto all the religion that was in the world, as to any glory of God or advantage to the souls of men. How came it, then, to be restored, revived, accepted? Wherefore did God ap- point anew a priesthood, sacrifices, and worship? What was aimed at, attained, or effected hereby? Men were sinners still, obnoxious to the law and the curse thereof, and what could their service do or signify? Here lay the invisible foundations of this new order of things. The Son of God had made an interposition for simners, un- dertaken to be their high priest, to reconcile them unto God, and thereon to make their worship acceptable unto him. God was not pleased at first to bring this forth unto light, but hid the mystery of it in himself from the beginning of the world until the fulness of time came. In the meantime he appointed the worship mentioned to be a shadow and obscure representation of what was secretly transacted between the Father and Son within the veil. This did the office of the priesthood among the people of God of old, and all their sacrifices, teach. This gave them life and efficacy; without a respect whereunto they were of no worth nor use. Thus is our high priest “the Son of God,” and thus ought he so to be.
Again; this Son of God is Jesus: “Jesus the Son of God.” Jesus is the name of a man: “She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus,” Matt. i121. And this our high priest also was to be. “ Everv high priest,” saith our apostle, “is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices unto God.” And “therefore of neces- sity” he who would be our high priest “must have somewhat to offer,’ and that somewhat of his own. And what had the Son of God, absolutely considered, of his own to offer? His divine nature or person is not to be offered. All things necessarily required in the matter and form of an offering are eternally incompatible with the infinite excellencies of the divine nature. God cannot be a sacrifice, though he who is God was so to be. Shall he, then, take an offering out of the works of the creation? Shall he take the blood
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of bulls and goats for this purpose, as did Aaron? The offering, in- deed, of these things might represent the sacrifice that should take away sin, but take away sin itself it could not do. For what wis- dom, righteousness, or equity, is in this, that whereas man had sinned, other brute creatures, that were none of his own (for whatever right he had to any creatures of God, belonging to his original dominion over them, after his sin he had none at all), should be accepted a sacrifice in his stead? Besides, what proportion did the blood of bulls and goats bear to the justice of God, that satisfaction for sin should be made unto it thereby? Should, then, the Son of God have taken and appointed any one man to be a sacrifice for himself and others? Every man being a sinner, the sacrifice of any one would have been a provocation unto God. In the typical sacrifices, he would not admit of a lamb or a kid that had the least blemish in it to be offered unto him. And shall we suppose that he would allow of a real expiatory sacrifice by that which was leprous all over? It would have been so far from yielding “a sweet savour to God,” from being an atonement for all men, for any one man, for the man him- self that should have been offered, that it would have been the highest provocation unto the eyes of his glory. Wherefore the Son of God himself kecame “ Jesus;” that is, he took human nature, “the seed of Abraham,” into union with himself, that he might have of his own to offer unto God. This by its oneness with our nature, the nature that had sinned, being itself not touched with sin, was meet to be offered for us; and by its union with his person was meet and able to make atonement with God for us; and so “ God redeemed his church with his own blood,” Acts xx. 28. Thus our high priest is “ Jesus, the Son of God.” And in these things consists his great- ness, which the apostle proposeth for our encouragement unto stead- fastness in profession. And it may do so on sundry accounts, which have been partly before insisted on, and deserve here to be enlarged, but that we must not draw out these discourses unto too