1. As it is an eminent virtue in human nature as absolutely in- nocent. So was the nature of Christ from the beginning; for therein was he “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” Now, though in that blessed estate wherein we were created there was no actual object for us to exercise compassion upon or towards, seeing every thing was at rest in its proper place and order, yet was there no virtue more inlaid in our rational constitution, as being abso- lutely inseparable from goodness and benignity, upon a supposition of a suitable object. Hence they are justly esteemed to be fallen into the utmost of degeneracy from our first make, frame, and state, and to be most estranged from our common original, who have cast off this virtue where it may and ought to have its actual exercise. Nor are any more severely in the Scripture reflected on than those who are unmerciful and without compassion, fierce, cruel, and im- placable. No men more evidently deface the image of God than such persons. Now, our nature in Christ was and is absolutely pure and holy, free from the least influence by that depravedness which befell the whole mass in Adam. And herein are the natural virtues of goodness, benignity, mercy, and compassion, pure, perfect, and
424 ; AN EXPOSITION OF THE ~ [ CHAP. Iv.
untainted. And he hath objects to exercise these virtues on which Adam could not have, and those such as are one with himself, by their participation in the same common principles of nature and grace,
2, This compassion is in him as a grace of the Spirit. For be- sides the spotless innocency and purity of our naturein him, there was a superaddition of all grace unto it, by virtue of its union with the person of the Son of God and the unction it had from the Spirit of God. Hence there was an all-fulness of created grace commu- nicated unto him; for he received not the Spirit and his graces by measure, John iii. 34. Of this fulness compassion is a part, and that no mean part neither; for of this rank and kind are all the principal fruits of the Spirit, Gal. v. 22, 23. And in and by these did he make a representation of God’s nature unto us, which he hath described as full of pity, compassion, and tender affections; whence he compares himself unto those creatures and in those rela- tions which have the most intense and merciful affections. And hereby doth the compassion of Christ, our high priest in our human nature, receive an eminent exaltation.
3. He had a peculiar furnishment with graces, virtues, habits of mind, and inclinations, suited to the good and useful discharge of his office in our behalf. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and peculiarly anointed him to that end, Isa. xi. 2-4, lxi. 1-3. Now unto the office of a high priest it is in especial required that he should be able to have compassion, Heb. v. 2; the reasons where- of we shall see afterwards, He had, therefore, in his human nature, an especial provision of compassion inlaid by the Holy Ghost, by whom he was anointed, for the due discharge of this office. Thus was he every way framed in his nature unto mercy and compassion. And whereas there seems nothing now wanting but an outward ob- ject of weakness, infirmities, and temptations, to excite and occasion the exercise of this virtue and grace, that this might be the more effectual to that purpose,—
4. He took an experience of such sufferings in himself as are the proper objects of compassion when they are in others. This the next words declare, which we shall afterwards consider.
By these means is the nature of our high priest filled with ten- derness, compassion, or sympathy, the foundation of whose exercise towards us lies in the oneness of his nature and ours. And these things belonging to the pure constitution of his nature, and receiving their improvement by the unction of the Spirit, are not lessened or impaired by his present glorification; for they all belonging unto. him on the account of his office, continuing still in the ewercise of the same office, their continuation also is necessary. And hence 1t is, namely, because of our concernment therein, that he gave so.
VER. 15.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 425
many particular instances of his retaining the same human nature wherein he suffered. For he did not only “shew himself alive to his disciples after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God,” Acts i. 3, providing particularly that they should not think or take him now to be a mere spirit, and so to have lost his natural human constitution, saying unto them, “ Behold my hands and my feet, that it is | myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have,” Luke xxiv. 39 ;—but when he left the world with that body of flesh and bones, the angels witnessed that he should “come again in like manner’ as he then went away, Acts 1.11. For “the heaven must” in that nature “receive him until the times of the restitution of all things,” Acts iii. 21. And to con- firm our faith in this matter, he appeared afterwards in the same nature to Stephen, Acts vii. 56; and to our apostle, telling him that he was “ Jesus whom he persecuted,” chap. ix. 5. All this to assure us that he is such a high priest as is able to be “affected with a sense of our infirmities.” And those who by the monstrous figment of transubstantiation, and those others who feign the Lord Christ to have an ubiquitarian body, both of them by just consequence de- stroying the verity of his human nature, do evert what lies in them a main pillar of the church’s consolation. Much more do they do so who deny him to retain the same individual body wherein he suffered, inany sense. Herein lies a great advantage of the church, a great encouragement and supportment unto believers under their infirmities, in their trials and temptations. For,—