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for our priest and mediator? What affurance does this give us of all good things from God? "For he that fpared not his own Son, but "delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him alfo freely give "us all things?" Rom. viii. 32. The fittest minifter of a difpenfation of grace and love is the Son of God's love; a creature-prophet may publifh God's love to the world, but the appearance of the Son of God is a visible manifestation of it.

3. If God fave mankind by a Saviour, the fittefl person to be our Saviour must be his own eternal Son. To be the Saviour of men is too great a glory and dignity to be conferred on a creature, for it advances fuch a creature into the throne of God. He who is our Saviour will be the object of our faith, and hope, and religious affiance, of our praises and adorations, which is a true divine glory; fo that to make a creature our faviour is to make him our God; and had God no eternal Son, who is the proper object of divine honours, he must have faved us immediately by himself without a Saviour, unless he would have fhared divine honours with his creature. This is evident in that glory to which Chrift is advanced; he fits at the right hand of God, and has divine worship given to him, as we are commanded to “honour the Son as we honour the Father;" so that if he be but a mere man, a man is made a God, and so muft be, if he be made the Saviour of men; for men themselves will transform their Saviour into a God; for to fave is as endearing a name, and as divine a glory, as to make. Now, if to be a Saviour be too great an advancement for a mere creature, and a glory fit only for the Son of God, this juftifies the reasonableness of the Chriftian faith, and the wisdom as well as love of God, in making his own Son to be our Saviour, who is by nature the object of divine honours, but no rival with his Father.

But befides that it is too great an advancement to a creature to be the Saviour of finners, it requires a power alfo much fuperior to any created power. We do not call him a Saviour who has not an inherent power to fave us, who can do nothing for us by his own power, but only publifh to us the promifes of falvation, and intercede with God as an humble fupplicant that he would fave us; this indeed a creature-prophet and prieft may do, but the Scripture gives us a very different notion of a Saviour, that "he is one mighty to fave;" that "he is able to fave to the uttermoft;" that he is the "horn of falvation," which fignifies strength and power; that he is "the author of eternal falvation," which certainly fignifies fomething more than to be the preacher of it. When our Saviour was rifen from the dead, he declares to his difciples, that "all power 66 was committed to him both in heaven and in earth," Matth. xxviii. 18. How committed to him, if he cannot exercise this power, if he

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cannot fway the fceptre of the whole world, which no mere creature can do? The falvation of finners requires the exercise of a truly divine power, in forgiving fin, in renewing and sanctifying our na ture, which is the new creation, in conquering death, and raifing the dead into immortal life, in governing all the affairs of the world in fubordination to his fpiritual kingdom, in fubduing all his enemies, whether men or devils, in restraining their malice in this world, and in their final condemnation and punishment in the next. He who cannot do all this cannot be the Saviour of mankind; and he who can do all this cannot be a mere creature, but the Son of God. A power to do all that is necessary to our falvation is included in the notion of a faviour; and when God promises to do all this for us by a faviour, it fignifies, that he will fend us fuch a faviour as can do all this; and we can have no greater affurance of the performance of these promises than we have of our Saviour's power to do all this; and we are fure that no creature has this power; and therefore a faviour who can do all this must be the Son of God.

Let us then stop here a while, and confider what infinite fecurity this gives us of falvation and eternal life, that God has fent his own Son, the Son of his love, in whom he is well pleased, to be the Saviour of finners. This is the highest demonstration of God's love to finners, and how much he defires they should be faved. Though God had never fo exprefsly declared his readiness to be reconciled to finners, this would not be fuch a fenfible demonstration of his love as giving his Son to fave us. When we fee our Saviour, then, as Simeon speaks, our eyes fee his falvation. This is not a bare declaration of his love to finners, but a vifible execution of it. And yet the only foundation of our hope is in God's good-will to finners; without this we can never be faved; and we can have no greater afsurance of falvation than we have of God's will to fave us; and when we are af fured of this, our falvation is fecure; for God never wants means to fave us.

Especially, if we confider farther, that, when he fends his own Son to fave us, as I obferved before, he fends one that is mighty to fave. For the Son of God can neither want intereft, nor merit, nor power, to fave; for he is the Son of his love, does always that which pleases him, and has the power of God. This is fuch fecurity, as thofe can never have who believe our Saviour to be a creature. For the most excellent creature can never have the intereft, the merit, the power, of the Son of God. And if we must be faved by a faviour, our fecurity of falvation can be no greater than the perfonal intereft, merit, and power, of our Saviour. That Chrift is man qualifies him to be the Saviour of mankind; but that he is God

makes him able to save. A creature-faviour can no otherwise save us than a creature-prophet can work miracles; they have no power of their own to do either, but are only God's minifters to declare his will, and to give the fignal; but God does all himself by his own immediate power; which gives us no other affurance of our falvation 1 than the word of a prophet can give us. But God has done better for us, has given us his own Son to be our Saviour, who is the arm, the power, and the wisdom of God, who in his own person is eternal life, and therefore can bestow eternal life. And what greater affurance can we defire of life and immortalitythan that God has given us Eternal Life to be our Saviour, that "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son?"

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The vifible reconciliation of human nature in the incarnation of the Son of God.

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AVING thus fhown you that we must be saved by a Saviour, and who this Saviour is, no less a person than the eternal Son of God; there wants nothing to complete this demonstration, and to give us the most abfolute fecurity that we can poffibly have of falvation and immortal life, but to fee the actual accomplishment of our redemption in what Chrift our Saviour has done and fuffered for us, in his incarnation, death, refurrection, and afcenfion into heaven, where he now fits at the right hand of God to make interceffion for us. I fhall begin with the incarnation; that this eternal Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, the Son of God became man, that is, took human nature into a personal union with himself; was not a human perfon, nor united to any particular man, but God incarnate, the Son of God living and acting in human nature, as the foul lives and acts in the body. This is the Catholic faith of the incarnation, and the visible beginning of our falvation.

For, 1. This is a vifible reconciliation of human nature to God in the perfon of Chrift. The proof of this wholly depends upon our Saviour's being perfect God and perfect man in one perfon; and whoever denies either of thefe deftroys this great evidence we have of God's reconciliation to finners, Can there be a nearer and clofer union between God and man than for the Son of God to take human nature into a perfonal union with himself? And can there be fuch an union as this without a reconciliation? When God becomes man, I think there needs no other proof, nor can there any greater be given of his kindness for human nature. For certainly God hath

a great good will for man, when his own eternal Son becomes man himfelf.

This is not fo well confidered by the generality of Christians; and yet it is one of the most comfortable and transporting thoughts in the world. All catholic Chriftians acknowledge the great love, and humility, and condefcenfion, of our Saviour in becoming man; but all that most men confider in his becoming man is only this, that it made him a proper facrifice and expiation for the fins of men. And certainly this was one great end of it; because without fhedding of "blood there is no remiflion:" And none but he who is truly man can be a facrifice and make an atonement for the fins of men, as the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us; "For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of "the fame; that through death he might deftroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through "fear of death were all their lifetime fubject to bondage," Heb. ii. 14, 15. But human nature was reconciled to God in the incarnation of his Son before the fins of mankind were expiated by his death.

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The Son of God incarnate, God-man, is by nature a middle perfon between God and man; he is one with his Father, and he is one with mankind; God and man meet in him. And can we doubt whether he, who has united God and man in one perfon, will reconcile God to mankind? He himself is the medium of this union; he unites all his fincere difciples to himfelf in his myftical body, as belonging to his human nature, to which all mankind have a natural relation; and this unites them to God the Father, with whom he is infeparably one, according to our Saviour's prayer for his difciples; "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which "thou haft given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, "and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them,” John xvii. 9, 10. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them alfo which fhall be"lieve on me through their word; that they all may be one, as thou, "Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us," ver. 20, 21. Nothing can be plainer than this, that we are united to God by our union to Chrift, who is in the Father, and the Father in him; and the medium of our union to Christ is his personal union to human nature, which gives him a natural relation to all mankind, and is the foundation of a covenant-relation and union to all believers. This is a vifible reconciliation and kind of natural union of human nature to God, which entitles all mankind, according to the terms of the gofpel-covenant, to all the benefits and advantages of it.

For, 2. The incarnation of the Son of God intitles mankind, according to the terms of the gofpel-covenant, to the merits of all that

he did and fuffered in human nature. For fo the Scripture declares, that he took human nature on him for no other reafon but to fave and redeem mankind. For why should the Son of God become man, but to advance men to the glory and happiness of being the fons of God? as the Apostle tells us, " Verily he took not on him the nature "of angels, but the feed of Abraham," Heb. ii. 16.; by which he proves that he is the Saviour of mankind, not of angels. For he could take no created nature upon him with any other defign than to fave it, nor fave any other nature than what he took; he first faves ・human nature in his own perfon, and when human nature is faved, mankind may have a covenant-title to the falvation of human nature. Thus he is in his own perfon a visible pattern of the redemption of mankind; as he united human nature in a perfonal union to himself, fo he unites all his difciples to God in his own mystical body, takes away the distance and enmity, and makes them his adopted fons. As he died and rofe again from the dead in human nature, fo he has conquered death for all his difciples, and will raise them into immortal life as he hath afcended up into heaven into the immediate prefence of God in human nature, fo he is gone before" to prepare a place for us, and will come again and receive us to himself, that "where he is there we may be alfo;" as he prayed his Father, that his difciples might be where he is, to behold his glory. Of which more hereafter.

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3. The incarnation of the Son of God makes human nature im- . mortal. Though the human nature of Christ was by God's appointment to die upon the crofs, yet being perfonally united to the Fountain of Life, it could not perish in the grave. Eternal Life can never

die, and it is a contradiction to fay that what is perfonally united to Eternal Life can finally die and perifh. In which fenfe St. Peter tells us of Chrift, "whom God hath raised up, having loofed the pains of "death, because it was not poffible he fhould be holden of them," Acts ii. 24. So that, whatever human nature was before, here we have a vifible proof of its immortality. For the human nature of Chrift is immortal, and this new immortality of human nature gives mankind, who were condemned to die, a new right to immortal life. Eternal Life would never have united human nature to himself, which neceffarily makes it immortal, had he not intended to bestow a new life and immortality upon men; for why fhould human nature be immortal and all mankind die? Thus the incarnation of our Saviour gives us a vifible proof of the reconciliation of human nature, which is all-loft by denying the eternal Godhead of our Saviour. For if Christ be no more than a mere man, here is no union of God and man

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