saw how inconceivably miserable we must have been to all eternity if left to ourselves : he therefore covenanted with his Son, and agreed to pardon us, to give us peace, to adopt us for his children, to restore us to our forfeited inheritance, and to exalt us to glory, if he would, by substituting himself in our place, remove the obstacles which prevented the exercise of his mercy towards us. When therefore these counsels were nearly executed, the Father was pleased with putting the bitter cup into the hands of his Son, be- cause it would henceforth be taken out of the hands of all those who should believe in Christ ; none should perish but through their obstinate rejection of this Saviour ; and all, who would embrace him, would be exalted to far higher glory than they would ever have obtained, if they had never fallen.
A third reason we may assign is this ; the Father was pleased with bruising his own Son, because it \\ov\<\ [rut great honour upon, the divine law. We can- not but suppose that God must be concerned for the honour of his own law, because it is a perfect tran- script of his own mind and will. Now this law had been violated and dishonoured by the transgression of man : if the sanctions of the law were not enforced, the law itself would be set aside ; or, if the sanctions were enforced, still the punishment of the offender would never repair the dishonour done to the law, and the contempt he had poured upon it. But by the sufferings of Jesus " the law was magnified and made honourable." The majesty of the law was ma- nifested in having the Son of God himself subject to it : the authority of the law was established in that its penalties were inflicted even on the Son of God, when he stood in the place of sinners ; and therefore no sinner could hope thenceforth to transgress it with impunity : the purity of the law was declared, in that nothing less than the blood of the Son of God could expiate any transgression against it : the justice of the law was held forth, in that it did not relax one jot or tittle of its demands even in favour of the Son of God. Now when the divine law was to be so magnified by
972.] TIIE father's conduct TOWARDS JESUS. 395
the voluntary sufferings of the Son of God, we cannot wonder that the lawgiver should be pleased ; espe- cially as the majesty of the law was more fully mani- fested, its authority more firmly established, its purity more conspicuously declared, and its justice more awfully displayed by means of the sufferings of the Son of God, than it could have been by the everlasting obedience of angels, or the everlasting misery of the whole human race.
The last reason we shall assign is this ; the Father was pleased with bruising his own Son, because he himself was tlweby transcendentlij glorified. God can- not but delight in the manifestation of his own glory : nor did he ever manifest it in such bright colours, as while he was bruising his own Son. When Judas went out to betray his Master, " Now," said Jesus, " the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in him." In that awful hour, the divine perfections, which seemed, as it were, to be at variance, were made to harmonize, and to shine with united splendour. We are at a loss what to admire most ; the inflexi- bility of his justice which required such a sacrifice, or the heights of his love which gave it ; his inviolable truth in punishing sin, or the extent of his mercy in pardoning the sinner ; the holiness of his nature in manifesting such indignation against iniquity, or his wisdom and goodness in providing such a way of deliverance from it. Every attribute of the Deity is incomparably more glorified than it could have been in any other way ; mercy shines in the way of satis- fying the demands of justice, and justice in the way of exercising mercy. This view of the Deity was not more new to man, than it was to the angels in heaven; and when a ray of this glory shone forth at the incar- nation of our Lord, the angels burst forth in joyful acclamations, and sang, "Glory to God in the highest." Since then the bruising of our Lord tended so much to the manifestation of the divine glory, no doubt the Father was well pleased with it.