Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

changed into manhood dying or expiring on the cross, appears to me to be without any foundation in scripture, as may be gathered both out of the Old Testament and the New. Christ is the truth of all the legal types, and the substance of all those shadows; and I think the two goats, which were brought on the day of atonement, represented the two natures of Christ: one was to be offered for a sin offering, and the other to be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and then to be let go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. If it be objected that sinners are compared to goats, and therefore the divine nature could not be represented by them, it may be answered, that sinners are also compared to lions, and yet God is compared to that noble creature more than once; moreover, the goat is enrolled in the lists of clean beasts, and the lion is not. Furthermore, the two sparrows, that were to be taken at the cleansing of the leper, appear to me to represent the same mystery. One of the birds was to be killed in an earthen vessel, over running water; the other bird, preserved alive, was to be taken, and, with cedar wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop, to be dipt in the blood of the bird that was killed: the leper was to be sprinkled seven times with these, and to be pronounced clean, and then the living bird was to be let go upon the face of the field, Levit. xiv. 4, 5, 6. This ceremonial cleansing by the two birds, most beautifully prefigured our purgation by the two natures

of Christ, who purged our sins by his one offering, and made an atonement for us. One bird dies; the other escapes, dipped in the blood of his fellow. So Christ in human nature died, but divinity could not: "He was put to death in the flesh," or in the human nature, and in nothing else, "but quickened by the spirit." If it be objected that the two sparrows prefigured, one the body and the other the soul of the Saviour, I answer that the scape-goat and the living bird both escaped unhurt and unwounded, which the soul of Christ did not, for that was by far the greatest sufferer, as every child of God will own, who has felt the wrath of God and the pains of hell, and confess, too, that the most excruciating bodily pains are nothing when compared to a wounded spirit; which, as the wise man says, who can bear? But he allows that a man's spirit may sustain the infirmities of the body.

Furthermore, the law was ordained for man, not for Deity. God's voice is to the sons of men, "Cursed is he, [that is, the man] that continues not in all things written in the book of the law, to do them;" and "the soul that sinneth shall die." But neither of these awful sentences reaches Divinity, or Godhead; and unless this can be proved Mr. Loud's transubstantiation can never be established. God is the one lawgiver, but himself is above all law; he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will; and his uncontrollable will is the only law of all the creatures that He has made, either

in heaven above or in the earth beneath. Now, as the law's demands or threatenings, are not ordained for any person in the Trinity, nor for Divinity transubstantiated into flesh and blood, so I think it will be readily granted, that not Deity, nor Deity changed into manhood, is required to die in order to make restitution for man. The demands, both of law and justice, must be granted to the utmost mite: this I acknowledge: but the suffering of Deity, or the death of Divinity converted into flesh and blood, is never once to be found among all the demands both of law and justice: and, as this was never required or demanded, we have no reason to believe it was ever given. The utmost demand of vindictive justice is the death of the sinner, both body and soul: and the scriptures tell us that the Surety bore our own sins in his own body on the tree, and that he made his soul an offering for sin, the chastisement of our peace being upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. But eternal love in the abstract can never be miserable; eternal love can never die; infinite holiness is incapable of chastisement; and immortality can never be striped. He was the Mighty God when a child born. The divinity of our Lord filled both heaven and earth. 'when he was put to death in the flesh. Touching his incarnation, he came down from heaven, when, as God, he was in heaven, John iii. 13. Suffice it is to say, that Christ was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and in no

other sense is he the offspring of David. In the flesh he suffered, 1 Pet. iv. 1, and in the flesh he was put to death, 1 Pet. iii. 18; but not in divinity, for by that he raised the temple of his body in three days: David's offspring died, but David's root could never be conquered by death, being the Lord both of life and death. David's son was made a curse for us, but David's blessed Lord could never be cursed. The particular distinction which the Spirit makes between the two natures of Christ ought to be observed. When he says made of the seed of David according to the flesh, of the Jews as concerning the flesh, Christ came; he suffered in the flesh, and was put to death in the flesh. These distinctions of flesh and spirit do not mean the body and soul of the Saviour, for all the human nature suffered; but the distinction respects the Godhead and manhood of Christ.

Let Mr. Loud soberly learn, before he gets too far in the bog, to answer the Saviour's question "What think ye of Christ, whose son is he?” And, if he answers, "the son of David," then why doth David in the spirit call him Lord? And let him learn the difference between the corn of wheat that fell into the ground and died, and He who is the resurrection and the life, by the power of whom that grain was raised again, and all the glorious harvest that shall follow: the difference also between the Lord from heaven, and the branch from Jesse's root. The Saviour was crucified through weakness, into which omnipotence could

never be converted; and, as it was the weaker nature that went to the wall, so the weaker nature has no glory or honour, but what was given to it, or conferred on it. The Holy Ghost kept that nature in its place, by saying of him, respecting his manhood, that he was made lower than the angels; calling him the hind of the morning, the poor and needy man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, yea, despised and rejected of men, a worm and no man.

And it is mentioned as a matter of astonishment that God should take notice of him as man. "What is man, that thou art mindful of him; and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" The great things that are said of the human nature, abstractedly considered, are, that God hath highly exalted him; that he hath given him glory and honour, and put all things under his feet, and made him Lord and Christ; that he hath glorified him, and that in the same glorified body dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and into the likeness of whose glorious body all the saints shall be changed and fashioned in the great day. But, as touching his Godhead, the Most High can never be exalted above what he is; nor can any thing be added to the fulness of him who filleth all in all; nor can any glory be added to the God of glory; nor any honour to infinite majesty; nor any power to him that upholds all things by the word of his own power. As man, he is appointed heir of all things, and all power in heaven and earth is given to him, and all

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »