ORIGINAL ESSAYS.

LIV.

THE SINLESS HUMANITY OF THE SON OF GOD.

THE mystery of godliness is truly great, and it is beyond the power of any created intellect fully to conceive of it: yet the knowledge of this strange design to save rebellious worms,' may be derived from the scriptures of truth, so far as it is necessary for it to be known for the glory of God and the good of the church. In the present day, the subject mentioned at the head of this paper, is agitating the minds of many men of acknowledged repute in the church of the living God. We are accustomed to attach very great importance to " every word of God," and we cannot perceive a vestige of evidence in the volume of revelation which will encourage to embrace the notion, ⚫ that Jesus Christ took his body out of the fallen state of man.' Our reasons for rejecting such an idea are numerous, but we intend with humility, modesty, and firmness, to state some of them in this essay. We have not to inquire into the divinity of his person, that is most cheerfully acknowledged by us to be the foundation of the christian dispensation; nor is it expressly necessary for us to tarry to prove that he has a body, yet we do think it incumbent that we should know what was the quality of the body which he took.

Before we proceed any further, we will at once declare our opinion, that the complex person of our Saviour is the result of divine election and infinite power. That God should fix upon that individual

We

nature to stand in union with the eternal Person of the word, we conceive to be an expression of his grace aud love to his adopted, family; and that " in the fulness of time God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." consider, to put the question at rest for ever, the body then, which our Saviour took, was ordained for him, and in it he appeared in our world as the Surety of the church, but not corrupted as taken out of the lapsed mass of the creatures.

When the angel appeared to the virgin, and announced the will of God, he said, "that HOLY THING which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." The body of our Lord was not derived by natural generation, for if he had obtained it in that way, it is certain that the generator would by that act have conveyed to the body begotten by him the sin of his state. The Holy Ghost, in a way mysterious to us, took a portion of the blood of the virgin mother, and formed the foetus in her womb, which miraculous manner of procreation should end all human agency in the formation of the body

of Jesus. As it had been the object chosen to union with the Son of God, the power then employed was used in a wise and just way, to give subsistence to what became necessary, as the result of the divine will for the redemption of Zion. The blood of our Lord's person was precious in the moment of his taking it in the womb of his mother, for had it not been pure at that time, it would not afterwards by any physical act done by him, attained such a quality. Where moral uncleanness exists, the person polluted by it can never alter the state of his being. Whatever may be said in favour of the human powers, or of the dignity of human nature, we never can suppose, without admitting an absurdity, that any being which is wholly corrupt can renovate itself. Such a notion carries with it its own refutation, and includes within it irreconcileable suppositions which we cannot possibly admit. For if any given being that is wholly polluted, can be presumed to renovate itself, renovation must begin in some polluted part, because that which is wholly corrupted in a natural sense, or polluted in one that is moral, can include nothing but corruption and pollution in its nature; and to suppose that a nature which is wholly corrupted or polluted can produce a renovation in itself, is to suppose that corruption can beget incorruption, and that pollution can beget purity. We must suppose it to act in opposition to itself, and to produce an effect which cannot be included within its nature, which is a palpable contradiction. For as no cause can produce an effect which is the reverse of itself, and which it has not the power of producing, so nothing can result from any given principle which is not virtually included in its nature.

If the human body of our Lord had been taken out of the corrupt mass, without doubt it must have been, by the common law which governs all human creatures, originally and seminally in Adam as the root of man. But Adam was not the root of Christ's humanity; he was never in him, nor was he a head to him. When God gave the first gracious promise to man, that he would destroy the power and policy of Satan, it was after the fall of man, and the promised Saviour was predicted to be the seed of the woman. Jehovah understood perfectly every thing comprehended in the plan of his wisdom, and as the incarnation of Christ was in order to destroy the works of the devil, we are to keep in mind holiness and justice more essentially requisite for that person to possess who shall undertake to perform a work of such magnitude. For it was not power in the abstract which redeemed the church, but the native perfection of the Son of God was employed in an equitable manner, and according to the will of his Father, to redeem her from all iniquity. We admit that the whole world is corrupt before God, and that no man would require a Saviour if he were not a sinner; yet we honestly confess that we should despair of seeing the face of God with acceptance, if our Lord had been" of the sinful substance of mankind." The law of God would have pronounced him accursed had it found any thing in him contrary to its just requirement. Our Saviour was a holy inno

cent man. Innocency was a necessary qualification in the Redeemer; for no offender is able to satisfy for his own offences, much less can he satisfy for the sins of others. Christ is an high priest that became us, as he is holy, harmless, and undefiled. The first Adam was not an head to him, and therefore, though he was to be man, and the son of man, yet he was not to be conceived in a natural way as all those are to whom Adam was a representative: if he had so been, he would not have escaped that pollution which attends all his natural descendants. His being separate from sinners in his conception, is the true reason of the holiness of his nature.

Supposing that the human nature of our Lord had been 'sinful,' there would have been two opposites in his Divine Person, such as can never meet at the same time in any being in existence, viz. the essential holiness and rectitude of his eternal Deity, and the impurity and unrighteousness of his sinful humanity. But the scriptures speak very differently upon this subject. When Jesus, in the days of his flesh, was about to work a miracle, the devil, in the poor demoniac, said to him, “I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." Moreover, as God by necessity of nature is infinitely removed from all iniquity, when according to the counsel of his will the Word became incarnate to redeem the church, it was essentially requisite that he should be personally exempt from all sin; for, as we have said above, if he had been corrupted by it he could neither make atonement to justice for his own offences, nor for those of others, because sin would have rendered him obnoxious to the curse of the law. We also conceive that the person appointed by God to redeem the fallen church from iniquity, must not only inherit a supernatural fitness for that work, but that he must be for himself personally above the commanding authority of the law, in order that by his services he may magnify it, and by his sufferings endure the penalty which we as sinners had incurred by transgression against God. To say that the temptations which our Lord endured in the days of his flesh are proof that he was liable to sin,' is any thing else but fair argument. For when he entered this world, he came into it as a public person, and all his toils, sufferings, griefs, and temptations, were endured by him in subjection to the will of his Father, whose holy government he came to maintain and glorify, in order that he might legally procure for his brethren salvation from guilt and perdition. We have been accustomed to think, that all these things came upon him not because he was a sinner, but he was subject to them as an innocent man, according to the covenant which he had made with his Father before the foundation of the world. Want, sorrow, and grief were never known in Eden while Adam remained innocent. When, therefore, we see our Redeemer enduring of these things, we remember that they are the fruit of sin committed; but we rejoice to say, the accursed thing never infected his Divine Person.

The more attentively we look into this question, the more decidedly are we under obligation to dissent from the opinion of its advocates.

"Sin is the transgression of the law." That establishment of equity requires "truth in the inward parts," and it can never relinquish its claims, nor cease to be a standard of immutable righteousness. Since, therefore, Jesus Christ "came to seek and to save that which was lost," we are again reminded that he was duly qualified to accomplish the work which he had engaged to do. Now qualification in the abstract is not all that was necessary, as we conceive; for the Father's right as a Legislator must be regarded by us with reverence; and he therefore called Christ to perform the work of redemption, and he has designated him "his righteous servant." The judgment of God is according to truth. Are we, therefore, to indulge our licentious imaginations, and to please our vicious fancies, by contradicting of God? He will not now pronounce any of his sinful creatures just, but those who are honoured by him to wear the robe of righteousness wrought for them, under the commanding authority of the law, by the great Emanuel; and we ask how it was possible for him to work that robe, if he had not had in his own Person suitable dispositions to the claims of unalterable justice, and a commandment given to him by his Father thus to make the law honourable. To suppose there was in the person of Christ any sinful qualities, is at once to conclude that God had formed an erroneous judgment of the state of his Son, and if an error can take place in his mind in one instance, it follows that it may, ad infinitum.

Jehovah had determined to accomplish an important end through the incarnation of his Son, and as he can do every thing but deny himself, or act contrarily to the purity and perfection of his nature, whatever adversary may oppose his design, it is certain that he will duly execute his purpose. It had been predicted long before the advent of Christ," that he should make an end of sin ;" and since he has returned to heaven the Spirit inspired the beloved John to write, "ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin." It has been asked, how is the enmity of fallen man to be taken away?' and the same person informs us, that a fallen creature can be reconciled to God, for it hath been done, it was done in the person of Christ.' To this we reply, no; for Christ did not take our substance in its fallen state, but he took it in an unfallen state, and connected a real human nature in his Divine Person to the eternal Godhead, and in his complex person he has reconciled us to God. "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." To us this appears a very novel doctrine, viz. Christ being reconciled to God.' In the whole course of our reading we do not remember to have met with any thing like it, and we do not approve it now we have met with it. We have often rejoiced in the death of Christ, as the Reconciler of the church and God; and we rejoice that we are like-minded with the apostle Paul, “And you that were some time alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh, through

death, to present you holy and unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight." Thanks we give to God from the bottom of our heart that we have such a Saviour as Jesus Christ, and that we have in him perfect and everlasting deliverance from the condemnation of the broken law. He who was born not of father and mother, but of a virgin, was not under guilt and condemnation. For he only received from his mother what was prepared by God; that thence the Son of God might take to himself the materials for building a temple. For though what belongs to the sinner is, on account of the sinner to whom it belongs, under the same condemnation with the sinner himself, yet that which is so contained in the substance of the sinner as that it cannot be a part of his substance, but prepared by God for an extraordinary generation, is not under condemnation solely because the Redeemer and the redeemed partake of flesh in common. And therefore it is rightly said to be sanctified, that is, preserved from the common condemnation of the sons of Adam. For the word sanctified cannot in that case signify purified, or delivered from impurity, as it signifies when applied to the sons of Adam.'

When we read in the scriptures of Christ taking "the likeness of sinful flesh," we consider that it never refers to the evil quality of 'our fallen substance,' but that he has taken our entire nature into union with his divine person, for he was to be one with his brethren in this sense, and they are in consequence of it, "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh." This was necessary according to the appointment of the Father; "forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage."

We will conclude this essay in the language of the truly learned Witsius: These are the tremendous mysteries of our religion, "which were kept secret since the world began, but are now made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." From hence the divinity of the christian religion appears with evidences. What penetration of men or angels was capable of devising things so mysterious, so sublime, and so far surpassing the capacity of all created beings! How adorable do the wisdom and justice, the holiness, the truth, the goodness, and the philanthropy of God display themselves, in contriving, giving, and perfecting the means of our salvation! How calmly does conscience, overwhelmed with the burden of its sins, acquiesce in such a surety, and in such a suretyship, when having at length been apprised of a method of reconciliation, both worthy of God and safe for man! Who on contemplating these things in the light of the Spirit, would not break out into the praises of the most holy, the most righteous, the most true, the most gracious, and the most high God! O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God!'