Chapter 11
Of the opening of some other texts about the Human Nature of Christ by what has been laid down; and what has been laid down, further confirmed by these other texts.
Thus, we have seen that God’s Everlasting Love is built upon his Eternal Council, as this Council is built upon his Person. I might observe, that as his Typical Foundations were in the Holy Mountains, Psal.87:1; that is, as the three typical mountain-foundations of the Temple-Church, were, in the Land of Canaan, Mount-Moriah, Mount-Zion and Mount-Acra, standing in the solid globe of the Earth, near the center {for the Psalmist speaking of that Salvation which God had wrought for the elect at Jerusalem, calls it a Salvation wrought in the midst of the earth, Psal.74:12, in the center, for the most part, geographically; as Jerusalem is reckoned by some to stand; or centrally in the Land of Promise, Heb.11:9; or so, as that the other tribes were situated round about it. Take it in any of these ways, or all of them, as the Holy Ghost in Ezekiel 38:12, calls it, in the original, the NAVEL of the earth, or land;} so likewise God hath laid this Salvation of Christ-Man standing in God between the Father and the Holy Ghost, and the Salvation of the Church standing in God-Man, upon the Everlasting Mountains of Settlement within Himself, who is the Glorious Three-One God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
Again, we have seen that it has been an Everlasting Love. That it hath been so, it is ‘hath’ and ‘have’ loved, Jn.15:9; “as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you;” whereby it’s plainly meant of the Glory-love Anciently towards Christ-Man, and Anciently towards his spouse, together with him. For as to other present Love dispensed, it had been incongruous to express it by a ‘have’ and ‘hath,’ as it must have been spoken by a ‘doth.’ Neither can any man tell me the secret fixed rise or bounds of that Love, as to say, when it began, or where the Beginning of that Everlasting in God’s Way within himself commenced. It is incongruous to fix it anywhere for a beginning, but, or except, before the Open Beginning of Time. And then it must be only in the Beginning of God’s way, and so the ‘hath’ and the ‘have loved’ will match with the Everlasting Settlements, and with the Covenant of his Love and Peace towards us, Isa.54:10, in and with Christ from Everlasting. The present Love of Christ at that time exercised was consistent with his Humiliation in the lowest Dispensation; for having a Baptism of Death to be baptized with, he breaks out with an “how am I straitened till it be accomplished?” Lk.12:50. Whereas, the former Everlasting Love, and the latter Everlasting Love, meeting, after all intermediate cloudings, is a Glorious Settlement, and shall be a Glorious Scene forever!
Besides, if Christ had not stood thus in the love of God, as the Man from Everlasting, and the Church from Everlasting with him, to what purpose had the Old Testament styled him actually the Man? “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the Man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts; smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.” {Zech.13:7} And relatively, as the Husband and Bridegroom to his spouse, described him so long before he was manifested in the Flesh? “For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called.” {Isa.54:5} If he was not actually with God, the secret Man, the covenant Man, in these times of the Old Testament, why was it spoken, and so spoken in the Old Testament? Why sure, because the thing had been settled thus from Everlasting. The other notion of looking upon Christ to be but intentionally Christ, a Christ only in regards to the Divine Purpose, and not actually the Christ with God, doth vacate and empty all the style of the Song of Solomon; and readily gives an occasion to the scoffers. Psal.2:1. “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” {Jude 4} Theodore of Mopsuestia, Castalio and Grotius, to fix it {Song of Solomon} only in the letter upon an Epithalamium, or Marriage-song, between King Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter; I Kings 3:1, and not upon the Marriage-song between Christ and the Church; whereas the former was no more than in some things a shadow of the latter.
What can we make of those texts which call him the Man, if we shut out his Hidden Being with God, before the open ways and means of his Open Being with men? Was he a Man at all in their sense, who deny he was a Man otherwise than intentionally to be a Man, till he existed by Incarnation in the virgin’s womb? They think it enough, because it is Orthodox, to own that he was God without Beginning, and Man in and from the virgin’s womb. But though this is Truth and Orthodox, it is not all the truth; for merely to hold the Two Natures, distinct, against Eutyches, who confounded them, and made the Person of Christ {of his Two Natures} but one Nature, as well as One Person; even as Nestorius before him had contrarily multiplied them, and made the Two Natures of Christ, Two Persons. It is sound to hold the Person of the Mediator, God-Man, to be One Person and Two Distinct Natures; but it is not sufficient, if we do not begin the Human Nature, as the Secret Glory-Man with the Father in the Son from Everlasting.
He was actually Man, to God, before his Incarnation in the womb, of the Substance of the Virgin. He was as Man with God by a Beginning from Everlasting, as well as he was actually God before, without Beginning from Everlasting. He was Man secretly in the Covenant, before he was Incarnate secretly in his mother’s womb. This was the condition of the Mediator to and with God in the Everlasting Covenant. The intermediate successions of things, and all the changes in the ways and means, were future, or to be, and in respect of the Man, and in respect of the Church, not in respect of God. For it was done in God, to God, and with God before; and yet the Divine Settlements and Laws of Heaven made it as necessary that it should be done in the Man, and to the Man successively, through time, as it was certainly done in God, to God, as with God upon the Man by Infallible Settlements, Constitution and Structure in his Secret Covenant, among the Persons of God before all time.
Accordingly, the Old Testament brings the first news of it out of the Secret Originals, from the Everlasting, before the copies of it could be disbursed in the new prints, Heb.1:2, of the Gospel. The Old Testament Discoveries are called “shadows of good things to come” to us, Heb.10:1; but could the shadow have a Being to men, before the body that cast it have a Being to God? Could the one be open under the Old Testament, and not the other secret before the Revelation? Suppose the sun be veiled all night by the body of the earth from this surface of the globe where we stand, yet when it rises the next morning in a clear sky, it figures the shadows according to the antecedent, intervening bodies from whence the shadows fall. As, if from the Body of a man, the Shadow is of a man; if from a house, tree, or mountain, then the shadow is proportional to that house, tree or mountain. And it is by analogy the same in the Sun of Righteousness. {“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” Mal.4:2} For, look as the Man was before the shadow of the man, either before the Sun was risen, or, while the Sun was clouded or eclipsed; and so the mountain before the shadow of the mountain; the tree, the house before the shadow of the tree, or house; and so it is in the Secret Existence of Christ before the shadows of the Law; or, more properly, before the shadows of Christ were revealed in the Law-economy; he being the Body or Substance by which they are figured and proportioned consequently, though this is not to be directly seen, but as the Sun of Righteousness rises over them in the Gospel. The Human Nature of Christ, or, the Glory-Covenant-Man subsisting in the Second Person, the Son of God, is the body, and the things of the Old Testament, the Tabernacle, Temple, Ark in both, and the Holy Oracle, &c., were the shadows. These never had had a being in and of themselves, nor could have had, if there had not been a body of those shadows some way existing, and that was, the Body was secretly existing with God, and therefore the Shadows were openly existing with men.
See how his name runs in Zechariah, as I will quote one or two places. The first is Zechariah 6:11,12, “then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest; and speak unto him, saying, thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the Man whose name is The BRANCH.” This was just after the Captivity, and was ordered to the first Jewish high priest Joshua son of Josedech, after the Revolution, or that Gracious Restoration from Babylon. God orders therewith several persons of the Captivity which were come from Babylon, Zech.6:10, to be taken by name; and when the prophet accordingly had gathered and assembled these men to see what he would further do, that they might be made spectators of the Mystery of our High Priest, the Man, whom God had secretly by him in Heaven already, to serve all the ends of Mediation and Ministration between God and the elect fallen in Adam, the prophet Zechariah is ordered to take the most costly materials he could procure, silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua, by name. And then speak, saying, thus saith the Lord, “behold the Man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. Even he, vs.13, shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”
Here is plain proof of the Matter; and a Comparison of what was already Secretly done, with God, in the Human Nature of Christ, as the Body and Substance, from whence this shadow in the Prophet’s time could only fall, and this Figure be taken; with what was to be openly done with and upon the Man, in the Future Order of Ways and Means. Behold THE MAN! What man? The Man Christ Jesus in his type Joshua; that high priest being the open shadow of the then Secret Body and Substance {to be the open Body and Substance} and open Anti-type to come of that shadow. For in the Hebrew, it is well known that Joshua is Jesus, the same Name; and both words coming from the same root. Heb.4:8. Here was the Body, the Substance, even the Man Jesus in Heaven, which cast that open shadow of the Law by this light of Revelation then shining on the Jews. Joshua the type, {as things were running on thus forwards,} could not have openly beheld the Man, if Jesus, the Anti-type set behind, had not with the Father secretly existed at the same time. {“Let us go down;” that is, Gen.11:7, I the Glory-Man and you two Angels, as a couple of my Servants to attend me; for so chapter 18, plainly expounds it.} As if I see a shadow at a distance, the body from whence it falls is certainly behind it, or between the place where it falls and the Sun, and open on the backside of that body to the sun that presents the whole scheme, as he shines behind it; and thus, so Christ the Anti-type, then at that time existed secretly, and stood behind, who in the Revolution should rise, as the Sun of Righteousness, Mal.4:2, and stand against it afterwards, the Anti-type on the other side.
Behold the Man! The Man to be beheld answerably to the Day in which he is revealed. The Man the Branch; because the Human Nature in its opening by Incarnation of the tribe of Judah was abstractly to be a Human Branch, but not a Human Person, and so is a text directly against the error of Nestorius1, and against the error of Eutyches2 too, before noted, about 16 or 20 years after, who yet was favored by a plundering Synod that robbed the Mediator of one of his Natures; at least, that favored that thief and robber Eutyches, and so the receiver is {as we say} as bad as the thief.
Behold the Man, the Branch! Openly to be Incarnate, and openly to begin as God’s David, the Man after God’s own heart, I Sam.13:14, as was said of the other David, his type regal, in opposition to rejected Saul, I Sam.16:1, who was not so; and so was to be an open BRANCH out of the roots of Jesse, as the promises had already assured touching this Mediator’s Human Nature, “and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD, &c.” Isa.11:1-2. “A Rod out of the stem,” or body of Jesse, and a BRANCH; this was the Man-branch, the Human Nature of Christ, “shall grow out of his {Jesse’s} roots;” or ancestors in the line of genealogy from Obed who begat Jesse, and Jesse who begat David; from Boaz, and so up from Judah, in the regal tribe, and thus the proper roots of Jesse in the royal line, from whence this Promised Branch, the Man, was openly to spring and grow out. Promised again before in Jeremiah, “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, &c.” Jer.23:5-6. The Righteous Branch was the Human Nature of Christ, and the King was the whole Person of the Mediator, God and Man in the Two Natures, and the One Person forever. And therefore in the Promise, a Righteous Branch, or the Human Nature is expressly distinguished from the King, or the whole Person considered in both Natures, and the Human Nature exalted in the Personal Union, when the Mediator opens his Mediatorial Reign. A Righteous Branch, and a King; I will raise unto David a Righteous Branch, and a King shall reign. Thus God had promised distinctly.
But see now in Zechariah how all this was then done in respect of God. For he saith to the prophet, “then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest; and speak unto him, saying, thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the Man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD; even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both, &c.” Zech.6:11-13. “Behold the Man whose name is the BRANCH;” see him already crowned, and take notice that I have him in his Glory, in his Man-Glory by me! I but give thee, Joshua, that art bid to look, and to you, his fellows, whom I have called in to behold it, a Pattern of the Glory which this Man, the Branch, hath in Glory by me. And this before it was openly done in the letter. Here is the very Kingly Glory brought in that was to arise out of the Priestly Office, all done to God, in the Glorious, Kingly way before the throne! And yet the first open stroke of it, neither in the Priestly Office yet done, nor in the liberal Birth of the High-Priest yet openly brought about to men.
He makes crowns in the plural number, and sets them on the head of Joshua, and says, “behold the Man, the Branch!” The High-Priest ordinarily, or the High-Priest merely of the Jews, was to have but one Crown, and that was his priestly miter; but this High-Priest, the Man, the Branch, had crowns, and is presented, though as a Priest, yet above a Priest, upon his Throne; and all to show, how his secret present Glory, and the same Glory before the Foundation of the World too, of the Man with God, Jn.17:5, was the Pattern of his Future Glory, with the many open crowns upon his Head. This is just as he was afterwards represented in the vision to his beloved Apostle John, when he had gone into his open Glory in Heaven; and so you have it, as “his eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself;” Rev.19:12, “as a flame of fire,” clear Omniscience, being radically God in whom the Man stands; eyes that look every way around them, as a flame of fire that casts forth the rays of light upon every side; whereas eyes of mere flesh, such as we have, can discern the object only before us, not behind us, without turning round; nor before us, as a flame of fire that enlightens all before it alike, and an eye like it must see all before it alike; but we see contractedly in a point, because all the visible objects that flow in upon the eye are depicted in one point in the bottom of the retina, or curious coat of network belonging to the inner part of the eye; hence we see distinctly but just in one point before us. An eye like a flame of fire sees things in another manner. Christ’s eyes here are represented as such, and what follows? That which I look for, “and on his head were many crowns;” Christ was not only a High-Priest over the house of God, but a Priest upon his throne, as also here in Zechariah, and so a King, an extraordinary Potentate, who has many crowns upon his Head.
Now the Consummation of all this is brought into the ancient Vision of Zechariah, before the Second Temple, or that done by Zerubbabel was finished. Yet, before it all, the Lord of Hosts, Zech.6:12, will lay down the draught, the scheme of it, and show unto his people how it had been already done to and with God. Hence it is plain that if we would run it up, and fix upon a ‘when’ it was so done secretly, we must take in, as I have done before, the Dates from Everlasting. His glory was to God before his Incarnation was to men; that is his Glory secret before his open birth. His Exaltation secretly before his open Life and Sufferings; and that not only to God Decreed, but acted, as the true Foundation of its open and consummate action after. And though the opening of the vision is orderly, the Incarnation of the Man-Branch by Humiliation openly, in order to open Exaltation; yet all is so compact, and uniformly represented together, that the secret being of all was already with God before the open being of any of it had been to men. There’s the order of the vision, the Man, the Branch, and the Glory that should openly follow to the Man, even then existing with God to God. His crowns, his many crowns, to show he was some ways actually at that time the Glory-Man already.
And because the Priestly Office, in Expiation by Sacrifice for Sin and for Transgression, might not seem to be represented enough in the heavenly vision, Psal.89:19, or sight of plain matters of fact, as to the Transactions of it thus laid open in a shadow, it is put in afterwards in another part of the same prophecy. For what saith the style of the Holy Ghost elsewhere, “Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the Man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts; smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, &c.” Zech.13:7. Here’s the Priestly Office of the Lamb, Rev.5:6, described by Sacrifice. Christ is represented as slain, and laid open as a Victim. Here are the Sub-lapsarian, or under-fall ways and means {that which follows upon the ‘Fall’ of Man in Dispensations of fixed and pre-determined Displays of God’s Purposes throughout Time} fixed with God, to effect the Supra-lapsarian, or upper over-fall {that which was fixed and pre-determined before the ‘Fall’ of Man, the ‘Fall’ – so-called, though more correctly, Sin being introduced into the world, which introduction of Sin itself being a Dispensation of God’s Purpose before Time, to ultimately magnify his Grace in the complete Salvation of a people in Christ, by Christ and unto Christ’s ultimate Glory} Glory, both of Christ and they that are Christ’s; and all these things done secretly and to God, before they openly appear.
God’s Shepherd; “awake O sword against my Shepherd.” This is plainly as God’s own Son stooped down to be in office for the sheep by mere grace and condescension. Now did he not begin to be in office, before he appeared to be in office? Did he not begin to condescend, before he was seen to stoop? Did he not condescend, before he descended into the lowest part of the earth? Did he not begin to be God’s Shepherd, before the sheep saw him, and before he came into the world, or had footed it in this low wilderness to seek them? He had sheep before; and are the sheep older than the Shepherd? A shepherd and his flock do begin together. A shepherd is not a shepherd before he has his flock. He and they, as relate and correlate, do begin at once an instantaneous couple. So then all these things must have begun with God in the supra-lapsarian decrees, settlements, measures, ways and means, before anything of them could openly exist, or break out before men. My Shepherd; says God; mine by Constitution, before he is theirs in conversion. And mine again to found and secure their present interest in him to me, before he is theirs to come and claim their interest in him for themselves. He is mine, says God; and in being mine he’s there’s before the sheep see him, know him or can so distinguish him to be theirs, as that any poor sheep can bleat it out in a sight of deep corruption, and say of the Lord, he is my Shepherd, I shall not want; I say, before he can see this by propriety in the open evidence of believing.
Again, the awakening of God’s Justice-sword against the Shepherd was not openly to be till after-time. Justice deals with him for our offenses when he came into the world; whereas, the Object of this awoken-sword of Justice, God’s Shepherd, was long antecedent, and fixed in the Eternal Settlement of Grace, to its waking up and open smiting of the Shepherd. And this Shepherd was the Man pre-existing to his Incarnation; and this sword must awake too, says God, against the Man, my Fellow. Whence note that the Human Nature of Christ is an elder Man than Adam; for if Adam had been an elder man than Christ, Christ had not been fit to be God’s Fellow; but Adam, if the elder of the two, had been more fit upon the merits of his Antiquity than he. But the Man, God’s Fellow, is indeed elder than the whole Creation; and if all fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in him, Col.1:19, then all the fullness of every creature’s age, and so the Man, is before every other man. Besides, how incongruous had it been, that the Human Nature should be elder in the Mystical Body, the Church, than in the Mystical Head of the Church, when yet it is upon the account of Christ’s Human Nature that he became the Head thereof! The order therefore is that he is ordained first into the Human Nature, then the Church is Ordained to be like him, from him; then he is given to be the Head over all unto the Church, that in all things he might have the Preeminence, Col.1:18, as the Apostle saith, and as has been before observed out of the Colossians.
It is for this reason he was with the Ancient of Days. “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool;” Dan.7:9, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him;” vs.13, “and there was given him Dominion, and Glory, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him; his dominion is an Everlasting Dominion, which shall not pass away, and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed;” vs.14, “I beheld, and the same horn {the other little horn he had spoken of, verse 8, Anti-Christ, coming up among the 10 Horns or Governing Powers, which the Roman Empire, or the fourth beast in Daniel’s vision, was divided in process of time into; I beheld, and the same horn, as little as it was in the very rise of the Roman Popes} made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” Dan.7:21-22.
I must not stay to make so long a digression as to open all this depth of the Sacred Oracle in a particular and demonstrative state of the several matters. It will be enough to the matter in hand, to touch herein what concerns the Antiquity of the Human Nature of Christ, with God, in the current of Exposition, upon texts about that Antiquity, undertaken to be shown and opened in this chapter. Only I have transcribed the text at large, that we might have the more strength and cogency of proof, in relying on the coherence.
The ninth verse sums up the matters of these thrones, and the state of worldly powers to the end of time, and lays down the Ultimate Consummation of things first of all, as the manner of the Holy Ghost often is to pitch on some Ultimate Purposes of God, or matters God hath most remotely in his eye to be accomplished, and lay them down as a Foundation of the rest in the Beginning of his Work. And then next in this Oracle at large, he comes in with the various ways and means, or intermediate matters in the scene to bring up all things to that ultimate and full pitch of delivering up all things even by the Mediator into God’s hands, when God shall be all in all, I Cor.15:24, and this I take to be the sum of the ninth verse.
The Thrones are the Empires and Governments of this world that will have a violent, and not a voluntary conclusion, when they cease to be. They are cast down, as things that are good for nothing; and as things too that have been very harmful in their day; whereas, if God had seen they had been good for anything afterwards, they should have been taken down, as other things are to be which must still be changed for better; when the Fiery Throne comes every other throne will be burnt up besides. Crowns, thrones, robes and diamonds must be consumed and melt away in the Universal Conflagration. None then will be able to stand but the Lamb and his Throne, the Lamb and his company presented white and faultless, and without spot, Jude 24, to God.
The Ancient of Days is the Father, who gives his Son in the Human Nature all the Power of God, all the Power of Judgment or Government; Jn.5:22, and therefore he hath an Intermediate Spiritual Kingdom, Dan.7:14, by Laws, Ordinances, and People among the Gentiles, even to the utmost of the Elect in all nations, and in all ages; and he hath his Ultimate Glory-Kingdom of the Man in the thousand years, Rev.20:6, while he shall be seen by the raised saints sitting upon his Throne in Heaven, and they filling up his Place in their Glory-State in the New Earth, II Pet.3:13, in a distinct apartment by themselves; and teaching all the Churches on earth his own laws; Isa.2:2, the risen saints alone beholding the Lamb’s Face in that New and Glorious Kingdom; Rev.22:3-4, and yet still this ultimate Kingdom of the Lamb is to be but an Intermediate Revolution, to the Eternal Kingdom of Pure and Unmixed Glory in the third heaven, after the last judgment of all, I Cor.15:28, when God shall be all in all.
Now, as the Father is called the Ancient of Days, verse 9; and again, verse 13, so it is plain that the Mediator is called the Ancient of Days, further below, at verse 22, “I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” It must be the Father who is spoken of at first; because “one like the Son of Man” is brought to him, verse 13, “one like the Son of Man,” for now coming in his open Glory, he is like him that was secretly so before. Here Christ is evidently distinguished from himself, as the Human Nature is considered both before the open Incarnation, and now after the open Exaltation, in this Gospel-Vision of the prophet. He is also distinguished from the Ancient of Days, as being one brought near before, and coming to the Ancient of Days. He therefore that came to the Ancient of Days, and that was brought before the Ancient of Days could not be in this verse the Ancient of Days himself; but another. Who was that? Christ, in the Human Nature Glorified, after his Sufferings, and now entering Gloriously into his open, personal rewards.
The Son of Man came, and they brought him. He came in the fullness of Mediatorial Obedience; there was nothing to stop his way to God, Jn.16:10; he ascends to his Father and to our Father, to his God, and our God, Jn.20:17; and he goes his way of himself, without any precarious help of men or angels. He came; and yet they, the angels brought him near before the Ancient of Days. How can that be? Very consistently; they brought him near before the Father in triumph, to attend his Glory; they did not bring him by assistance, as we need the assistance of the glorious angels to carry away our souls, and bring them near before the Lamb, when we depart, Lk.16:22; but they did bring him near before the Ancient of Days, as a mighty Entourage belonging to his Heavenly State, as he is the Lord of Hosts. Psal.24:10.
They brought him near before the Ancient of Days. The angels did it, as his Human Ascension into the Open Glory of his Reign, among them and above them, I Pet.3:22; and then it was that the other Glorious Seraphims within, the rest of the angels appointed to stay at home, and tarry for their Lord’s Return and entrance into that Magnificent Palace of the third Heaven, II Cor.12:2; it is then I say, they joined in acclamations, and opened the Everlasting Gates, Psal.24:7; for the swift Cherubims in that entourage of our Lord’s Ascension, like harbingers of the Mighty Prince, Psal.89:19, demand the vigilant attendance of the rest, that all the bright, Psal.104:4, and heavenly host, Lk.2:13, be ready to receive him; who now comes up as the Prince of Peace, Isa.9:6, having completed his Conquests, and begun his Triumphs, over the world, death and hell! The voice cries, “lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.” Psal.24:9-10. Here now he is brought to the Ancient of Days, and here he bears the Glory! Consequently, this must needs distinguish the Son of Man Subsisting in the Second Person of God from the Ancient of Days, who in these 9th & 13th verses is the Father.
Nevertheless, we see {however he is distinguished} that he is described but as “like the Son of Man,” and not declared to be the Son of Man. Dan.7:13. Now, as the saying goes, no like is the same; and ‘tis true, as no like is the same in the same respect, but yet some like maybe the same in a different respect. It cannot be only the same likeness, yet it may be only the same Subject in which the likeness was. That is, one in open Vision resembling the Son of Man in his secret likeness, secret form, or impression. An Open Glory-Man, like the secret Glory-Man, whom the angels of God knew as their Lord and Master in the Covenant. {Gen.18:1-2 & vs.22, with Heb.13:2} He comes now to Daniel in the Vision of all this, and comes openly the Son of Man, to answer the impression of his secret Likeness, and come up fully to the secret Glory-Pattern; for you must remember that it was the Holy Ghost, who knew all this, and guided Daniel in the utterance, as well as revealed it to him in the Vision. And hence the style and language of his open Glory, answered to the original of it in Heaven, where he bore the Name and Dignity of Mediator, and had the glory of the Human Nature secretly, as now he hath openly. And then he could not be more fitly expressed than the Holy Ghost hath done it, and calling him the “like,” like, Dan.7:13, the Son of Man. {Rev.1:13, 14:14}
Besides, the Mediator did sometimes appear in the Human Nature very distinctly as to the form of it to some of the Old Testament saints, under the similitude of one of the sons of men, Dan.10:16, and therein looked, in the Human Form, as the Son of Man. Thus, when he appeared in the company of two angels to Abraham, it was in the Human form, like a Master that had two servants to attend him; for the two angels wore their Master’s livery, and appeared in the human form too; whence they are all put together, and called “three men” in Genesis 18:2; though the chapter doth most notably distinguish them in their several characters; him, in the Glory of his Divinity, the LORD; Gen.18:1, and them, in an Angelical Capacity of Ministration; so that one of those three was our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of God in the Human Nature. So when God passed before Moses, and showed him his back-parts, Exod.33:23, they were the human parts of the Mediator, as I have shown before; and likewise in other instances of the Old Testament. Now this was {as some call it} a prelude {or the first displays} of his Incarnation, and being manifested, I Jn.3:8, afterwards in the Human Nature, he was openly and durably, even to some fixed abode, Jn.1:14, among men. This form of Man, under which he was wont to appear in those ancient times, was much spoken of, no doubt, by the old Church, and it might commonly go up and down among them, that he was wont to appear in the Human Form and Shape. Thus, Daniel recollecting what was usually known to pass current among the Jews, touching this Human Form of the Son of God’s appearance, so he might very well describe him like the Son of Man; and therein conforming his language to the common idea every spiritual man had, and that ordinarily passed among them, of the Son of Man. And this clears off the objection started.
See an example of this from the Judges. “And the woman made haste, and ran, and showed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the Man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day. And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the Man, and said unto him, Art thou the Man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am. And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread; and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD. And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, what is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour? And the angel of the LORD said unto him, why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD; and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar; and Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD. And Manoah said unto his wife, we shall surely die, because we have seen God. But his wife said unto him, if the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have showed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these.” {Judges 13:10-11; 15-23}
Now, as Christ’s Human Ascension into Heaven is very gloriously described in this vision, so he is further laid open in the Absolute Glory of his Divinity, notwithstanding this open existence of the Mediator in the visibility of the Glory-Man. And herein he is considered as one co-equal with God the Father of Glory. Accordingly, in Daniel 7:22, {where I am opening} he himself is called the Ancient of Days. “Until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the Kingdom.” This is evidently spoken of the Mediator, for it is he who COMES, and gives the judgment to the saints. It is not the Father! But why is he so described like the Father in his Glory and Title? The reason is, he is God, as the Father is God. He is God in whom the Man stands; and therefore he is called by the same title, the Ancient of Days; that is, the Days {days, not day} of Eternity. Eternity in Scripture is never called a day, as I have proved.
And whereas before in that last verse, which calls the Father the Ancient of Days, Dan.7:9, it is said of the Father, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool. It is not spoken of the Father identically, as if this belongs to the Person of the Father, or was a Description of his Person. No such matter; but it is spoken of the Father diversely and possessively, as I have before distinguished about the Father’s shape, Jn.5:37; because the Father possessed Christ in the Beginning of his way; and because the Father is in Christ, Jn.14:11, and Christ is in the Father. Now as the Father possesses the Glory-Man, so he possesses all that is the Glory-Man’s; he possesses the Human Nature of Christ, because it stands in God the Son, and therein possesses this Garment of Glory, Dan.7:9, and White Ancient Hair of the Lord Christ, because of the Human Nature to which they properly belong; as he possesses what the Glory-Man is, so he likewise possesses all which the Glory-Man properly hath; and thus it is all God’s and the Father’s by procession. That is to say, {for I would clear it in a word} as God the Son possesses the Man personally, which is the reason why the Fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily, Col.2:9, as the Apostle saith; so God the Father possesses the Man Christ Jesus relatively, that herein they are the Father’s Garment, Head and Hair by relative possession, as they are the Son’s by Personal Propriety, because of the Human Nature of the Son in the Personal Union. And this takes off that difficulty. I shall now soon close the place in Daniel.
Well then, this likeness of the Son of Man that describes the Human Nature according to appearance, or, as seen by the prophet, is brought in towards the close of the vision with his full and open Glory, as the Glory-Man; and at verse 22 is styled the Ancient of Days, even as the Father had been twice styled so, verses 9, 13. And why so? But because when this part of the vision openly falls in its order, then shall the Son of Man come, not only in his own Glory, but also in his Father’s Glory. Lk.9:26, Mt.16:27. No wonder therefore, that as he is to come in the Day of Judgment to set up his Glorious Kingdom, he doth appear accordingly in his Father’s Glory, and doth here in the vision wear his Father’s Title, being already set down in his Father’s throne. Rev.3:21. Thus, the matters are laid together.
To conclude this place; we see how certainly, though secretly, the matters of the Ultimate Glory of Christ and his Church must always have lain in their Unchangeable Settlement with God. Nay, their secrecy has been only in respect of ourselves; otherwise, the matters have been always open unto him, whilst secret and unknown to us. We see, here is a scene of introduction of the Man to his throne by hosts of angels; even before He, the Father, bringeth in the first begotten into the world, or saith, “let all the angels of God worship him.” Heb.1:6. That is, before he had done this openly to men, he had done the other secretly to men, and openly with Himself. What doth all this signify towards the point in hand, than that the things were actually done with and to God? It is not said, it shall be so; but it was so in the Vision, which secures the utmost of all that shall be. It was so, and therefore had been so from Everlasting; out of which Everlasting Pattern the vision came to Daniel, a man greatly beloved. Dan.10:11.19. It was so to Daniel before the New Testament; how much more to God from Everlasting before the time of Daniel; and so much for the text in Daniel opened as briefly as I could.
This Antiquity of the Glory-Man standing in God for the Salvation of the Church, doth help us to explain those texts of Scripture, in the proper intendment of them, which speak of the Father sending his Son, as in many places of John; and that of the Apostle, “when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,” Gal.4:4, where it is restrained to his being made of a woman, which was done upon earth in respect of the Mystery of God’s sending his Son; and sending his own Son in the likeness too of sinful flesh, as in Romans 8:3. It far better helps us to expound and solve the difficulties of God’s Mission of Christ, than by going the other way of interpreting that mission; or by making that sending of Christ to be meant in a figurative and improper, not a literal and naked sense. I know how they go about commonly to solve the difficulty, but the Mystery of God’s sending his Son is doubtless another thing; nor can that way, which those expositors go, reach it; because it does not bring it up to the Mystery of the Sent; and yet this ought to correspond and agree with the act, or the mystery of sending; and for want of this expositors do fall short.
For indeed, the Acts of the Father in Authorizing and Commissioning of Christ, as to what he was to be in the world, and to do there, {as for instance, authoritatively to will him to take man’s nature, to do and suffer in it, and trust him with God’s Great Designs, as Dr. Jacomb3 opens the whole propriety of this mission in those acts only} are but part of what is sufficient for us to understand in this Mystery; because here is not his complete fitness to be sent, but only his complete fitness late-wards, to act when he is sent. Now so long as the complete fitness of the Son of God to be sent, by the Pattern of that completeness in an antecedent constituting him the Glory-Man in heaven, is neglected and shut out, the Mystery is never fully in its parts opened {for I am not speaking of the measure of the parts.} It is the antecedent constituting of him as the Glory-Man, which is the only fit and full qualifying him to be sent, because it qualifies him to be sent of the Father, even from place to place, from heaven as the Glory-Man {the result of his being the Covenant-Man} to earth, as the Man of Sorrows, Isa.53:3, in the world. He was fitted to be sent, as well as fitted to serve when sent. And this now is further, and I am sure clearer, than they go in the other manner of solution. And I am certain that after their manner of solution {though they are great and learned, and very gracious men, I am persuaded, who go to work the same way, denying the Mission of Christ to be attended with any local secession or mutation of place, as Dr. Jacomb’s phrases are out of Augustine upon the Trinity, yet that way} it is a knot still, and ever will be; because it is a violent interpretation forced upon the plain words of Christ.
“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world.” Jn.16:28. If Christ had not been with the Father of glory, in glory, to wit, in the glory of his Heavenly State, and that in some capacity of going from that place of Heavenly Glory into another place, he could not have come into the world from the Father. Besides, the text is cogent itself; for, to proceed and come forth from the Father are plain locomotive {coming/going} phrases; and why must interpreters force the text by a violent interpretation to avoid the obvious one, Jn.6:38, that comes of its own accord from the Human Nature; for thus it is literally true, as it is literally spoken, that the Son of God in his Human Nature came forth from the Father into the world. Now it will remain forever a knot, if the Mystery of he that was sent, and that is God manifest in the Flesh, I Tim.3:16, be not as fairly expounded as the Mysterious Act of sending God so manifested in the Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But now, let us go on here to distinguish, as we have all along done about the Human Nature of Christ; between the Covenant-Man, and the Created Man; or, between the Human Nature of Christ, as it was above in the Covenant, before it was sent to be beneath in the creature, or formed in the virgin’s womb; God then reputing Christ as he reputes him now, the Man with him in Glory before the Foundation of the World; and the difficulty of everything in it vanishes, except bringing men off from expounding the texts by human authorities, as the key of the Divine Oracles. And without doubt there the difficulty will crumble when all is said. However it be, the Mediator {I have no doubt} was properly sent from one place to another; from one place where the Human Nature subsisted in the Son of God by Covenant {and that place was in the Heavenly Glory above} to another place below, where it subsisted in the Son of God still by its open Creation from the womb. Now in no other strict sense can it be said that God sent his Son, with respect to the object sent distinct from the act of sending. The Scriptures have likewise given us the necessary latitude to take in both. I say, he could be sent in no other strict sense but thus; and unquestionably the Holy Ghost hath meant some strict sense in it, as he oftener does in abundance of cases than I can find men are willing to believe him. For, on the other hand, it is certain that an Infinite One, who fills all the limits of habitable place in Heaven and Earth, Jer.23:24, and is beyond the bounds of his own Creation {and such a One is the Son of God abstractly in his Essence and Godhead, as he is in the Father} can in no sense at all be sent, because of his Co-Equality and Co-Infinity. Yet still, if we believe the Scriptures, we are taught a way by them how the Son of God was properly sent, namely, in his Mediatorial Relation.
For, take the Human Nature subsisting in the Son of God by Covenant, before it subsisted in the Son of God by Creation, or proper formation in the womb, and so raise the Covenant-Man not only higher than the Virgin Mary, but above Adam, and before his Creation, and all seminal creation in Adam; then it is plain, how the Son of God and Son of Man in One Mediator, may be properly sent and properly come, in respect of the Human Nature, even from one extreme or place unto another; or, from the Heavens where he had been, to the earth wither he came, and pitched his Tabernacle in open flesh. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt {tabernacled} among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jn.1:14. The Son of God in his Man-Covenant is sent, as he is manifest in the flesh, I Tim.3:16; and as the Man now subsists by open creation in the Son of God, having subsisted or stood by secret Covenant in the same Son of God from Everlasting. It is not that the Son of God went from place to place when he was sent, but the Son of Man that stood in him; and then, by a Communication of Properties, it was the whole Person was sent; though strictly, it was only the Human Nature that went from place to place.
Even as the Person of the Holy Ghost, when he is sent from Heaven, and comes, it is as the Comforter, by Office, from the Father and the Mediator, the Father and Christ, who thus send him. Namely, when the Holy Ghost distinguishingly undertakes to be in us, and dwell in us forever. “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” Jn.14:17. How is it that when his Person will graciously work in us, and upon us, Phil.2:13; in us, as the distinguishing Worker, and that is his Person, as the Comforter; or the Holy Ghost by Covenant with the Father, and the Son; and upon us, as to the effects of his work, which he makes appear, graciously working over what the Father hath distinguishingly given, and what the Son, as Mediator, has distinguishingly purchased for one, and not another; for me, for thee, by Discrimination of Grace, and not for all the world, except it be within the use of the creatures, and bounds of nature, reason and humanity. “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Tit.3:5-7. The Spirit’s mission is not as the Spirit is God, ‘tis not abstractly God the Spirit; for, the Holy Ghost could not be sent or come from the Father thus, because as an Infinite Person, he doth, together with the Father and the Son, fill all places at once, and so as the Spirit is God, must not be said to go from one place to another, but it is as Comforter that he does so. He does not fill the entire world as a Comforter, but ‘tis as God the Spirit he fills all the world; and ‘tis upon the Essential Foundation, his Godhead, or, because he is God everywhere, that he can and does graciously comfort anywhere. And this clearly answers the cavil, how the Person of the Spirit can be given to be in one, and not in another, whereas he fills Heaven and Earth, and all persons and things in them at the same time. “Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the LORD.” Jer.23:24. The solution to this doubt is clear, he is not given in his Person as God, or, as the Third Subsistence in the Godhead, but he is given in his Person, as the Comforter. He is not given in his Essence, but in his Office, as the immediate cause of our obtaining the Graces of the Spirit. “And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” I Jn.3:24. Here is his Person, in the Office of the Comforter. “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” I Jn.4:13. There are the Graces of the Spirit; and both put together do make up the full distinction in the two branches thereof, as afore laid down. Now the Spirit is everywhere in his Person, but not everywhere in his Grace. Psal.139:7-8. He is everywhere the Spirit, but not everywhere the Comforter. He is with the wicked in his Omnipresence, but he is not with the wicked in his Office. His Comforting Presence, wheresoever and to whomsoever it is extended, is extended by Distinguishing Grace and Good Pleasure; and is denied to strangers, and restrained by the Sovereignty of God’s will and the methods of application, whilst he is bringing home his own grace unto the elect.
Thus, Christ was sent, because of the Distinguishing Grace in the Covenant of the Human Nature with the Son of God in whom it stood; and so it is because of that Grace bestowed in the Personal Union, or the two Natures in One Person, that sending can be properly spoken of the Son of God; because of the Covenant-Man that stood in him, Christ having stood thus in his Mediatorial Relation from Everlasting. And thus, because of the Personal Union, the whole Person of Christ by a Communication of Properties is often meant in Scripture, even whilst strictly the thing spoken of the Person do more separately belong to one of the Natures. As Luke in the Acts of the Apostles calls the blood of Christ the blood of God, Acts 20:28; and as Luke here in his Gospel tells us how the Messenger, or Angel, foretold his whole Person, as the Mediator, God and the Man, should be called from the human nature only, the Son of God. “And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Lk.1:35. And thus properly the Son of God was sent into the world. The Man of the Covenant in local heaven, subsisting federally in the Son of God, was sent into the world the Man of the open Incarnation, still subsisting in the Son of God locally in the world. Thus the Son of God was sent, and went from a place to a place by true motion, but according to his Man-Nature first above secretly in the Covenant, and next below openly in his Flesh on earth.
More particularly, this helps us to understand that text in Romans, “but the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven; that is, to bring Christ down from above,” 10:16, Paul meant Christ was there in Heaven, in some sense locally in his own realm, before he came down locally hither to the Earth to be seen in our earthly realm; and this he proves by the language of the Righteousness of Faith in Deuteronomy in the times long before the New Testament; for, the Apostle speaks of it as of a language spoken a great while ago in that piece of Moses’ Pentateuch, which makes out things by a comparison of Paul with Moses, and proves that our Incarnate Wonder, the Glory-Man secretly existed in the time of Moses; the place of the Scripture been fetched out of the last of the five books of Moses. I will give you the place in Deuteronomy, and show you the plain connection and sense by the light that shines over it from this place in Paul. In Deuteronomy, 30:11-12, says the LORD, there by Moses of Mount Sinai’s Law, “this Commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off, it is not in Heaven, that thou shouldest say, who shall go up for us to Heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?” But, verse 14, “the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.” It is not in heaven. What is that? It is as if he should have said, Christ is yet there, who must fulfill this Commandment for eternal life, in the room and place of the elect, when he comes down from Heaven; but this Commandment itself, so far as concerns you to do the letter of it for temporal life and liberty in the land of Canaan, whither you are going, is not in Heaven, but here; ‘tis come down already before Christ the WORD, Jn.1:1, is come down for the elect, who is to come down from Heaven hereafter, and undertake for them when the fullness of time, Gal.4:4, is come. It plainly therefore implies that he was through the Dispensation of the Law in Heaven as the Covenant-Man, and was to come down at opening of the Gospel-Time, as the created, and formed Man. Accordingly, in that place of the Romans, the Righteousness which is of faith speaketh, &c., as much as to say to the professors of Gospel-times, keep you unto the Doctrine of the Righteousness of Faith, now Christ, or since Christ is ascended as the created Man, and don’t say, who shall bring him down in his Glory, that we may see him as he is, at the right hand, and then we will believe him; for he is as nigh you by the Gospel; he is as much among you by the Holy Ghost, as the Commandment he came to fulfill, was nigh and among the old Israelites in the Wilderness, in the days of Moses. Thus it shows in the very allusion of Paul to Moses, and his application of it to Christ, how Christ was in Heaven by secret Covenant-Glory, whilst the Commandment to the Israelites was come down from Heaven on the earth; as he was now in Heaven by open Covenant-Glory, when the unbelievers of the Gospel would be ready to put off his Revelation in the Gospel, and vainly ask thus to see him {with their eyes} brought down again. This is the sense of those two places upon the comparison.
This distinction of the Covenant-Man in secret and open existence doth help us to understand that other text in John, which {for ought I know} has puzzled thousands of the Calvinists one way, as it hath bewildered as many of the Lutherans another way. The former undoubtedly are mistaken, in expounding the place of both the Natures of Christ, when but one is asserted by the Holy Ghost; and that is the Man. The latter are mistaken woefully, in stretching out the properties of the Incarnation to a fleshly ubiquity, and immensity parallel to the Godhead itself; to prove their consubstantiation, or flesh and blood of Christ together with the Bread and Wine under the elements in the Lord’s Supper; but to the text.
The place is John 3:13, “and no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.” I am sure that the Socinians, those great masters of reason {I mean corrupt and natural reason, for they have known nothing of the evangelical reason of things} have wrong conceptions of it. Socinus4 in his comments, tells us, that by the Son of Man’s ascending into heaven we must understand his tracing out the truth of heavenly things; and by his descending from heaven his being perfectly taught in all those heavenly things; and by his being in heaven, he expounds to us in his controversies, {the third part of his works and answers to Vujekus, a Jesuit, of Poland,} that he was in Heaven mentally by his cogitations, being always taken up in his mind and fixed in his soul there. But indeed, all this is no more than may be said of any of the eminent saints, who are taught of God in the same kind of things with this interpretation, that their conversation is in heaven. Some of the modern Papists are almost at a loss, whether to interpret as the Calvinists, or as the Socinians. Estius {Estius Gulielmus, Papist theologian, 1542-1613} divides it, and goes both ways. And some of these do closely follow the ancients.
We are commonly taught to follow the tract of our Calvinistical writers, who expound this text by distinguishing the Divine and Human Nature, in the Person of the Mediator, that is to say, the Divine Nature of the Mediator, or the Son of God come down from Heaven, and taking our nature upon himself. Whereas, alas! The Divine Nature neither comes nor goes; the Divine Nature is Omnipresent, or is always of necessity everywhere. The Son of God, be sure, did not come down in this sense. “For do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord?” Jer.23:24. And it is farther written of the Divine Omnipresence, and being more perfect than either to ascend or to descend, that God is universally everywhere by this Perfection. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there, &c. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; {which is extended farther than the land, the earth being as so many islands scattered up and down within the vast circuit and outer compass of the waters; which makes the utmost parts of the sea to be beyond the utmost part of the land to all people on earth; yet} even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” Psal.139:7-10.
So that the Divine Nature of Christ, being of the same Substance with the Father and the Holy Ghost, is co-equally Universal, and so absolutely perfect in the Divine Essence, that the Godhead neither comes nor goes, ascends nor descends, but is essentially everywhere alike, and at all times without any alteration or change. It is the Mediator and Comforter who come, and the Father comes no otherwise than by these, when he comes and makes his abode with us. “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Jn.14:23.
This therefore will not help us, being remote from the words as the Holy Ghost has placed them in the text, to expound how the Son of Man had ascended into Heaven before he conversed with the Jews; how he had also come down from Heaven; and how he was nevertheless in Heaven too, in some sense at the same time of that conversing with the Jews; and all {as it is expressed in the words} as the Son of Man; and yet the Human Nature of Christ still freed from the gross conceits of the Lutheran ubiquity. {He could not be in his Human Nature Jacob’s ladder, upon which the angels of God ascended and descended upon the Son of Man, if he had not had a Glory-existence with the Father in his Man-Covenant before the openings of his Incarnation. “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” Gen.28:12. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Jn.1:51.} The distinction of Natures, by which we are usually taught to solve the difficulties in this text, will not here help us out. For in the text it is expressed that the Son of Man was in heaven then, when the Son of Man seemed to be only upon the earth. Nor will it help us, to say by distinguishing the Natures, the Son of Man was then in Heaven as God, and upon earth as Man. Indeed, that he was so in its self by a distinction of Natures is evident from the Two Natures of his Person; but that he was in Heaven, so at that time cannot be the meaning of this text. The reason is, because he must be then at that time in Heaven in the same sense, in which he had ascended into Heaven before that time. “What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?” Jn.6:62. “The Son of Man, says he, came down from Heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven;” and again, “no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.” Jn.3:13. Consequently, the Son of Man as Son of Man had ascended; and afterwards locally descended, and was come down; but was yet still in Heaven too, and all as Son of Man.
Now this can be made out no other way, than by distinguishing between the Man, and the same Man in the Second Person, or Son of God. You must distinguish between the Man in secret Life-Existence still with the Father by the Man-Covenant {and so the Man was in Heaven by Covenant-Subsistence in the Son of God there;} and the same Man in open Existence with men on earth by Creation-Subsistence in the Son of God there too. As to his secret Existence with the Father by Covenant, he had ascended up to Heaven in the Supra-lapsarian, or over-fall way, when he was set up by the Father from Everlasting, above all the Consideration of Man’s Fall, and above all the Ways and Means of Restoration. This was his ascending up, and his first ascending up into Heaven. Then, as to his open Existence with men on earth by Creation and Formation in the virgin’s womb, this was his coming down; this secret Man with God was now locally descended, and further descending into the lower parts of the earth, Eph.4:9, in the Sub-lapsarian, or under-fall way, into open Flesh, and was the open Man among men, in the under-fall ways and means of the Church’s Restoration. Again, as to his secret Existence by Covenant, this Son of Man was still in Heaven with his Father by the same Covenant. He was in Heaven secretly by that Covenant, when he was openly in the earth by Creation, as he should soon be in Heaven again every way openly. The local motion from Heaven to Earth from the place of secret to the place of open Manifestation was but shifting the place in respect of us men, not in respect of God to whom the motions of the Man made not any alteration. For as the darkness and the light are both alike to him, Psal.139:12, so the secret and the manifested places of Christ are both alike to him, and the Nature of his presence is to be always here, as well as in Heaven. All the difference is to creatures from the open Manifestations of Himself that are evermore restrained by his own Supreme Pleasure. He is to himself every where alike. Well, by distinguishing of the Man, to men, we solve it.
But alas! The common Exposition will not do, for it does not reach the Mystery. And for my own part, I believe Christ’s own words as they stand, and dare not adhere to that interpretation which alters the form of sound words in the text, and so comes off with a perverting and straining them to mean what they do not say; and especially to a meaning which is against what they do say. Suppose, you admit their way, who admit nothing of his secret Covenant-Ascension, Psal.25:14, in being set up by and with the Father from Everlasting, as the Wisdom-Image of God in that secrecy, and now openly becoming the Son of Man. It is impossible then you should fairly see how he ever ascended in the kind already, as the Son of Man; or be then in Heaven as the Son of Man, when he spake unto the Jews. The bodily Ascension {to succeed after his Resurrection} was not yet come, and the Covenant-Ascension from Everlasting which was long past, men of the common persuasion on this text admit not, and therein both entangle themselves, and plainly overthrow the Doctrine which Christ hath declared in it. This Ascension cannot be said to be of the Divine Nature; for that ascends not at all, it is above it in Perfection. It can’t be the bodily Ascension of the Humanity neither, for that was not yet come. What was it? For no man hath ascended up to Heaven, Jn.3:13, neither Enoch that was translated, that he should not see death, Heb.11:5, nor Elijah, that went up by a whirlwind into Heaven, II Kings 2:11; neither of these hath ascended up to Heaven, by setting them up from Everlasting in the Personal Union of the Natures God and Man. No man hath so ascended in the Supra-lapsarian, over-fall way, but he that came down from Heaven, after that Supra-lapsarian Glory, by Sub-lapsarian, or under-fall descending, in the ways and means; even the Son of Man who is in Heaven, to God, both in his Supra-lapsarian and Sub-lapsarian, or upper-fall and under-fall glories too. Thus, in all things he has the Preeminence, Col.1:18, to the very Ascensions of Enoch and Elijah.
The common Exposition I say will not do; but now take and apply these distinctions; the Son of Man had by the Settlements and Covenant of God ascended in the entire Human Nature; again, the Son of Man according to the Law of these Settlements, and that Covenant, was by Creation and Forming in the womb, come down from the Father out of Heaven, from God’s Covenant. And lastly, the Son of Man whilst by Creation he was on earth, was yet still as the Son of Man in Heaven by the same Covenant; and all is reconciled, that you put no force upon the Holy Ghost’s words; and yet thus you may speak them of the Mediator in this reconciling sense. For, and I have shown, the Son of God was properly in the Mediatorial sense sent, because the Human Nature in the very Conception and Nativity thereof subsisted by a Personal Union in the Son of God. Thus, after the same manner it must be understood of Christ in the Mediatorial Relation, that he had then in some sense already Mediatorially Ascended, even while the Son of Man was on earth. Take the sense together, of the Son of Man’s been first in Heaven in order to come down on Earth, thus; as the Man Christ was taken up into God’s Thoughts and possessed in the Beginning of all God’s ways, Prov.8:22, so he was then set up from Everlasting, vs.23, from that Everlasting in secret Covenant-Union, not in declared Covenant-Union, it being before the Foundation of the world; he was then set up in secret Covenant-Subsistence, not a Christ Manifested, I Jn.3:5,8; and in that Exaltation the Man stood in the Person of the Son of God, to God, and with God, and according to the will of God. And so might then be properly said upon this taking up into God’s Thoughts, and setting up by God’s will to have had a secret and Covenant-Ascension. Therein it lay; and therein he had ascended of Old, even as the Son of Man into Heaven; the Father having loved and exalted the Man of his Covenant in his own Son. And accordingly it was that he came down from Heaven; or, he came down according to that Covenant-likeness in which he had ascended by God’s setting him up with him in the Son from Everlasting. Wherefore it follows, that in some human sense he must first be in the place from whence he came, Psal.40:7, when God sent his Son into the world.
The Holy Ghost hath given us a further proof of this in that noble Place, Psalms 80:17, where he calls him Son of Man and Son of God’s right hand, because he had been set up for the Church before, and so served in God’s Account, Purposes and Use of him for Old Testament Times, as well as ours. “Let thy hand be upon the Man of thy right hand, upon the Son of Man whom thou madest strong for thyself.” The Man of thy right hand in first and absolute, in secondary and sub-servient Purposes, in Supra-lapsarian, or over-fall Counsels; before the Son of Man. Aye, the Man first, and the Son of Man next. His upper-fall Absolute, Human Nature that could have served to great evidences of Love, if elect-man had never fallen; and then his Sub-lapsarian, or under-fall Human Nature, in the Counsels concerning him as Son of Man, born of Adam, descended of Abraham, came of David, and brought forth from Mary in Sub-lapsarian thoughts or under-fall Counsels in ways and means. A Man of Glory with God before a Man of Condescension to men. Take all together; and it will set this matter still in the due light.
“Son of Man;” and herein is the Human Nature in the Sub-lapsarian way, the Incarnation, as the state of the matters lay to God, and as revealed they should open one day to men. “Man of the right hand,” before he is the Son of Man. There is the Supra-lapsarian Exaltation, or his upper-fall Ascension, the Ascension of Christ-Man to God, before the Incarnation-settlement of Christ-Man to break out unto the Church. And according to this Order of the Settlements, as well as Purposes of Settlement, {“who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,” I Pet.1:20,} and Execution of the Settlements, as well as Purposes of Execution, {“for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done,” Acts 4:28,} the Holy Ghost lays things down; and the Revelation as orderly as the Institution. For the breaking of it out depended upon the setting it up in God’s Eternal Councils and Pre-Determinations. And the discovery of it here was as early as that Old Testament Day in the Psalmist’s time; which proves unto us, that the things are not only framed, but finished with God before they are begun with men. “The works were finished from the foundation of the world.” Heb.4:3. “Madest strong for thyself,” not will make strong; and yet outwardly it was all to be. It was not as if God should have said upon the making all other things, I will take more time for the Settlement and Ordering of this about Christ; I will do it hereafter, only I purpose it now, for I have decreed the matter already.
No, no, it is not thus, as her anti-Everlasting Union men would Fain make it, but a Decree of God, not any further act than the naked purpose it should be. Alas! Poor men, they must go and be emptied! They must undo all they have ever done, they know, if they admit {though the ground why they should is the clearest evidence} beyond Purposes and Proposals; and so rather than come down into the dust, they preach the very Grace of God at this day, as if none of them had seen the Grace-Part of the Bible. They lay it all down upon a Suspension and Uncertainty, in Offers of spiritual things {conditioned upon man’s willingness,} because the temporal things of the Land of Canaan were all proposed thus, Isa.1:19; so likewise in Conditions {while they show us very wicked conditions of their own, in thus handling the Word of God deceitfully;} and suspend the Grace of God till there be such and such Gospel-Performances, and I know not what other absurdities.
Well, the Holy Ghost will have none of this tarry-for-your-wills philosophy. No, it is finished, saith the LORD; and blessed be God this has been zealously preached by some since the opening of our liberties before the present Revolution.5 {Opening our Liberty by King James II in 1687, a notable epoch of our Revelation Time.} And yet for the sake of this great voice out of the Temple of Heaven, from the throne, saying, “it is done,” Rev.16:17, what voices have we had in the common prattle of the age? What thunders of Hell and Damnation have rattled from Dissenting Pulpits against Dr. Crisp’s Works6 reprinted? Wherein is substantially proved, that it is done; iniquity is laid upon Christ; and pardon fully settled and done in Christ; for thus he goes on from Isaiah 53:6, &c. What thunderings have there been these last 14 years to beat down this truth, ever since the first thunder-clap of this nature in Pinner’s-Hall?7 What lightnings in the Church? What discoveries after all these noises, which still increase as the voices and the thunders wear off? For, here in the Vial-Reformation it is quite otherwise than was before in the Trumpet-Reformation, Rev.11, there the lightnings were first, the voices next, and the thunderings last. Here it is almost in the opposite order; the voices are first, the thunderings next, and the lightnings last of all. In the Trumpet-Reformation, Rev.11, there it began with flashes, and an end was soon put to all the light; for it wore off, Hos.6:4, extinguished in the air of the voices, and vanished with the breath of a carnal controversy; and this helped on by the thunderings of the trumpet that closed all, and in those thunders the light and beauty of Religion altered. Whereas, here in the Vial-Reformation, principally designed for the effusions of the Spirit of God, and not mere noise preaching to awaken and jog men, it begins with losses, rises to thunderings, and completes the temple-part of the vial in lightnings, or daily discoveries of the Everlasting, despised Gospel; not stinting men’s faith and preachings to the Confessions and Subscriptions, when lightnings follow and do not go before the thunderings.
And it is in a day to when Analogous Synchronisms fall on Great Babylon, in this 16th of the Revelation. I’ll insist only upon one, though it is very obvious to make out a great many from the 18th, 19th, 20th & 21st verses of this chapter. I shall confine in this to the first words of the 19th verse, “and the great city was divided into three parts;” that is, was divided so now when the Voice of the Gospel ran with this message, “it is done,” done in Christ, as the Pattern of doing it all over by Christ, and through him. Whereas, we always took it, that it was still to do, Salvation suspended absolutely until we conditionally believed. But here comes out a brave Antinomian Gospel, I Cor.1:21, which trumpets forth that the work is accomplished. Done! And what is happening in Babylon at this day, when Zion is thus divided about the main, the lots, the partition of the Blessings settled in the Everlasting will of the Most High? For the Lord hath not given out unto his people one lip and one language at this day. Why, they are all to pieces at Rome about Cardinal Portocarrero’s8 will; for it is God’s will it should be thus at this notable conjecture. He having put it into the hearts of the Powers of Europe to fulfill his will; and to agree in religion, while they differ upon civil interest, which though it was begun in the Treaty of the Grand Alliance concluded at the Hague the 7th of September, 1701,9 yet the Popish Princes have entered into it since that time.
“And the great city was divided into three parts,” Rev.16:19, I do not with Interpreters take these three parts to be the three religions, Popish, Lutheran and Calvinist, for three reasons. 1. Because this interpretation does not make the parts to agree with the whole, neither before, nor after the Reformation. For Lutherans and Calvinists becoming such by breaking off from Rome, ceased to be parts of the Great City, in that divided state; and before they broke off they were all united, and so could not be three. 2. Great Babylon at this time comes up in “remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath,” 16:19; but at that time of the Reformation, Babylon did not come up in remembrance before God to give under her this cup. For, she was then in her ease and pomp in a manner as before; and the poor Reformers rather, in their sufferings and blood, had a cup given them into their hands by the Babylonian, I say, the cup of blood and martyrdom. 3. Because a better interpretation falls at this day; and therefore I rather take the Exposition to be as God himself hath now decided it. The city is divided into three parts; that is, one part of Rome is for the house of Austria; the second part for the house of Bourbon; and the third part are Neuters, and all one city of Roman Catholics, and all to be found at this day in the one city of Rome. This interpretation now makes the three divided parts to be identical, all of one persuasion in Babylonian Religion, and so one great city; and yet carried into three factions in their civil contentions, and so three divided parts of one and the same great city. And it does not make it diverse, foreign, nor forced, as other way doth.
Well, I only bring in this, to show you what is contemporary in our Seventh Vial-Reformation, whilst that great Voice comes out of the Temple of Heaven, from the throne, the Lamb’s throne, in his Church, saying it is done; and that whilst we have been quarreled at for maintaining it {as we shall through Grace more and more} as if we held damnable Antinomian Doctrines in this vial and spirit of doctrine that has been poured into the air, in these voices, saying, it is done, it is done! Well, let issues still be as the Lord pleases, for ‘tis made strong; not will make strong, not is to be made strong; and this under the Old Testament; and now under the present Dispensation of time belonging to the New Testament, we see it more than ordinarily in the Temple of Heaven, and from the Throne, where we have had the greatest views of Him that sits upon it, as we have cried out in self-abhorrency and admirations of Grace, under all the opposition to what Christ hath accomplished, when he said, in regards to the redemption of all his elect, “it is finished.” Jn.19:30. It is finished! The Son of man whom thou madest strong! Strong; that is, the Man hath stood in God; the Person subsisted in the Creator; and there lies the Wonder of Wonders in the Everlasting Love of God to a people in Christ! It is the mighty strength of Jehovah to save us when his thoughts and ways of old, even from Everlasting met in the Union-Settlements.
Let us view the next words, “let thy hand be upon the Man of thy right hand, upon the Son of Man whom thou madest strong for thyself.” Psal.80:17. The Church in that Psalm is under troubles, and she cries out in her affliction with an eye to Christ. Oh; says she, Lord; if thou dost thus and thus with such worms as we, thou will soon bring us to nothing; if thou bringest these judgments upon us, and layest such sad strokes on our backs; {for the Psalm had been filled up with grievous complaints.} Alas; say the people there, if thou exactest payment to Divine Justice out of our insolvent stock, we must go to perpetual prisons, we must lie down irrecoverably under punishment! We can never answer this demand of thine. Oh! No. God’s remedy must be our remedy, and his provision our payment. “Let thy hand be upon the Man of thy right hand.” Let thine hand be upon the Man in secret glory, upon the Man exalted as responsible, and set up by Covenant to be at thy right hand already; as he is by open creation to be exalted to thy right hand forever! And what follows? Upon the Son of Man, says the Church, thou madest strong for thyself. Madest strong, but how so? Madest strong; it is thus, by giving him the Covenant-Subsistence and Covenant-Union in the Second Glorious Person. This made him strong; and this was God’s making him strong for himself, for himself to issue in his own Glory through all the Sub-lapsarian or under-fall Accomplishments in Ways and Means. It is done by Exalting Christ in these Union-Settlements before his works of old. It was done before the Foundation of the World. And to believe on Christ thus, as he stands in God, is to take hold, Isa.27:5, of God’s strength.
And now, I pray, let any man tell me, why Christ could not come forth into the world out of the Everlasting Duration before measured time, and as a Christ, the Christ of God, Lk.9:20, from the Everlasting Beginning of God’s Way, as well as come a Christ, the Messiah, Dan.9:25, out of the Old Testament into the New? He was Jesus Christ revealed under the Old Testament, before he was manifested under the New. Why not Jesus Christ prepared under a Duration known to God before the Old Testament, that would have measured a longer space than Old and New Testament together? I see far greater absurdities in not believing this, than I can fore-lay together for the unbeliever against me in my admitting it. “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” {Acts 15:18} “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” {Isa.46:16}
Well, according to the place before opened in the Psalms, we may further plainly see how this Son of Man had ascended into Heaven {as I have brought texts to open it coincidentally upon this argument} of which Doctrine Christ is speaking to Nicodemus in John 3, that he had ascended; {“and no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven,” vs.13,} and no doubt, but this was a stranger doctrine to Nicodemus, as Christ’s other doctrine had been to him just before, of a man’s been born again. {“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” vs.3} And I am afraid the Doctrine of the Father’s loving of Christ, as Man, before the Foundation of the World, {“for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world,” Jn.17:24,} is as strange a Doctrine to many a man and teacher amongst ourselves, who are yet Masters in Israel. {“Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?” Jn.3:10.} However it be, the Son of Man, when he was first of all the Image of the invisible God, Col.1:15, and became the first draught and noble pattern of all his works, was the Covenant-man ascended. He was gone up to God’s right hand in God’s Settlements by Super-Creation-Grace! Yea, the Ascension of Christ in the very under-fall or Sub-lapsarian Way, Psal.20:42, is set out in the book of Psalms, Lk.20:42, as a thing done to God in the very times of the Old Testament. And lo; then {to speak of his time} the same Covenant-Man, as subsisting by Covenant from Everlasting, comes down by Creation-Grace from Heaven into Creation-Union in the Son of God, Jn.1:14; and so the Man in the Son of God comes forth into the world for all Creation-Accomplishments. And thus it was true of the Son of Man in Christ’s Day, that he was then as Son of Man in Heaven. For, take him in the other branch as a Covenant-Man, and he was still in heaven federally, whilst as the Created Man he was at the time of this discourse on earth locally. He was always in Heaven with his Father, as the Covenant-Man, and that in his Covenant-Glory and Exaltation, according to the Everlasting Settlements. And so the Son of Man, says he, is in Heaven. But now {it is true} these could not have been in such a Covenant-Capacity, if the Foundation of it had not lain in the Son of God, thereby to effect such a personal Union; that wheresoever the Son of God is, as to his Essence, there the Son of Man subsisting, or standing in him, is likewise present as to his Covenant-Relation; because all power is given unto him of the Father in heaven and earth, Mt.28:18; the Man Jesus consequently is everywhere by a Covenant Right, and by a Lawful Authority; the reason is, the Authority, as devolved, is lodged in the whole Person, and so can never be separated from the Two Natures. Upon this account he is Authoritatively everywhere Mediator, and is graciously among his people in all places, with his Presence by the Comforter, Jn.14:18, as himself is Mediator, and the Spirit their Guardian, and they not left comfortless, or orphans; and all this whilst his Glorious Presence is only in Heaven at the right hand of God. Mk.16:19. Likewise, by virtue of the same, whilst he acts towards us by the Comforter from the Father, Jn.15:26, he is, as the Apostle saith, “Christ formed in us,” Gal.4:19, and “Christ in us the hope of glory,” Col.1:27, as to the mighty effects of his saving presence with us.
Particularly therefore, as the Son of God in his Essence and Uncreated Glory was in Heaven, when Christ spake these words on earth; so the Son of Man, personally subsisting in the Son of God, was in Heaven too at the same time, in the Man-Covenant. At his open Incarnation he came down by Creation-work of the Holy Ghost, in the promised lines and genealogies of Human Race, through a descent of two and forty generations from Abraham, Mt.1:17, and twenty more from Adam, Luke, chapter 3; and all was already done, in the Purpose and Mind of God, before any of those generations opened to the world. And yet all was orderly done in the under-fall way of means, after all these Generations were settled, and the matters fixed with God, in Laws of the Everlasting Man-Covenant with his own Son. The stipulation of this Covenant is expressly asserted in Psalm 40. “Then said I, Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” {40:7-8} “Then said I, lo I come.” Lo! Here it was past in David’s time, that Christ had said it to God; and not I will come, but I come; all things being always in the present tense to God, and in the future only to our imperfections. Thus it appears by the Covenant-language which Christ used to God about Redemption-work; and so much for the opening that difficult text, “and no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.” Jn.3:13. {A place I began with earlier in this chapter.}
It is upon the same foot that we are to understand in what sense Christ intercedes with his Father for that very Glory he had with the Father, when he ascended up to Heaven, Psal.68:18, in the Covenant-Glory and Exaltation; been made thus the Man of God’s right hand from Everlasting. “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Jn.17:5. Now, if this glorious knowledge of Christ, Isa.22:23, and the love of the Father to him as the Man, is to be dropped or laid by out of our thoughts, it will be impossible to interpret this text, Jn.1:1,2 with Prov.8:22-23, also consistently. For, I do not see how the common interpretation can stand, as divines generally go to work upon it, in turning us over to the Son of God, as Second Person in the Essence of God, and leaving out all the Glory of the Man in God’s Covenant; and so speaking nothing of the Glorious Man Christ, as he stood in God, and was set up by the Father from Everlasting. Yet this is men’s way, as they thus shut out the Mediator from Everlasting. Thus, like the Dogmatics {or Opiniators, never building upon Revealed Gospel according to God’s Eternal Counsels, but as it falls in with men’s opinions} and like the speculative Schoolmen, they fall in with too much Natural Religion in the Office of the Mediator, and remit us over to the Essence and Attributes of God, as our immediate object, without the face of Jesus Christ, II Cor.4:6, in the most Evangelical Mysteries. But who can this way open John 17:5, or vindicate what hath appeared in the common way thereon, without absurdity? Who can interpret it agreeably with the scope of intercession that shuts out the Glory of the Intercessor, Psal.118:16, as Mediator? And if the Glory of Christ be meant there as Mediator, it is the Glory of the Man in the personal Union; and if of the Man, it is plain it must be meant, as the Man Subsisted in the Second Person of God by Covenant before time, according to the Father’s loving of Christ-Man in this Everlasting Covenant, with this Everlasting Love. Thus he was the Glory-Man of the Old Testament set above the Heavens.
To conclude; these things in their opening have sometimes fallen in one upon another. Hence it has been necessary to go still into more texts, and call in new help, before we come to a closing stroke upon the first texts proposed; and so to him that is not used to this way of opening the Scriptures by the Scriptures, {which yet is more Orthodox than to go by the doctrine of their Orthodox Universal Church they talk of,} there may seem a doubling of the same matters; because of other Expositions and Scripture enlargements still emerging forth, and which I have found necessary to interweave and bring in between. And indeed, doublings and triplings of the things in some of these chapters {from the 4th chapter to this 11th chapter} touching the Mysteries of the Love of God and Christ, Eph.3:18-19, have not been amiss; partly, because the Mysteries themselves are very great, and lie much out of the common road; and though old truths, yet too many will seem altogether new, Acts 19:2, being not derived from their Orthodox Universal Church Confessions; nor, it may be, from their Cleric or Doctor under whom they have situated themselves. Partly, because in the difficulty and importance of any Heavenly Subject, there is a natural proneness in men to slight it, if the matter be but once or twice hinted, or, if it be not inculcated, called over and over again, Acts 17:2, cleared up, argued and defended, as in the 6th of John, and other chapters of that Gospel towards the latter end, where we find seasonably repetitions of the same things. Lastly, this is an external means by which they may better be understood and observed, that I did not say one thing and mean another, as Blunderers try to come off. They may better this way be understood, than perhaps they would have been, if carelessly dropped, and in a word or two laid down without opening, without clearing and under-propping of the proofs still with more texts, to come up to his mind, who has uttered his voice, Rev.1:15, as the sound of many waters. And therefore it is not understood what he means distinctly, without comparing, I Cor.2:13, it in the Holy Writings, and taking pains with the Word of Life, I Jn.1:1, as he is transcribed in his Written Word. And this I do that I may show the reader what is the Mind of Christ, I Cor.2:16, so for as Christ hath shown me any part of his mind by his Holy Spirit; for, I can go no farther, II Cor.3:5, than I am led into these matters.
Yet we live in an ungodly age, wherein Dissenters have their profane mockers, Jude 13, that call this enthusiasm! And most certainly, these men are no more born of the Spirit than their other brethren are, who look upon all this sort of leading and teaching by the Holy Spirit of Christ in the Mysteries of the Gospel, I Cor.2:10-12, to be but trite. Now these very things, which our sensualists, Jude 19, having not the Spirit, but abundance of wit and starch to please them that will most please their own bellies, Rom.16:18, take delight to ridicule and despise, are the very words which I take delight to confess, as Christ’s own words, Mk.8:38, before men. And the same things they take pleasure in neglecting, as in the afore esteemed enthusiasm, nay, sometimes under an uneasy pinch of conscience forcing themselves to reproach and condemn the very words which I take pleasure in believing, practicing, vindicating, and growing more and more into an experience thereof, by the gracious power of the Spirit, in applying precious Gospel Truth, I Thes.1:5, on my own, and other men’s souls. I have found it therefore pleasant to my soul, Prov.2:10, and needful besides, to insist upon truths in the larger way of opening the Scriptures; and this makes things to be seen more duly and dependently, when they fall in one upon another. Dropping a text and hinting a Scripture only, as our brother, Mr. John Hunt, hast generally done in his book, which through the leaves he hath entitled the Glory of Christ Unveiled, and in the title page the Saint’s Treasury {as I have before observed,} has been diminishing the Glory, and failing in the Life and Marrow of all the work. Now, I was all too much guilty of this 14 years ago in my Gospel Feast,10 and therefore surely it was too much to commit the fault over again, since the Lord hath shown me a more, I Cor.12:31, Excellent Way.
It must be very painful to any that have seen the King in his Beauty, Isa.33:17, to read Mr. Hunt’s way of unveiling the Glory of Christ! Especially in those parts of his book where he openly professes the badges of Christ’s Honor; as he doth in that Octavo for near thirty pages together, even from page 75 to page 102! He doth indeed rather clothe Christ with dishonor than unveil his Glory! The reason is, he gives the ground of the estimate, in each particular badge of Christ’s Glory, from carnal conceptions, in beholding what glory sinful creatures have; or that honor which he saith is highly esteemed among men, with too much neglect of the Glory which the Lord Christ hath received of the Father, Eph.1:17-22, even that {under-fall} Glory prior to man’s drop into Sin. Therein forgetting, that all which is highly esteemed amongst men is an abomination, Lk.16:15, in the sight of God. And be sure it can be no less, to raise the consideration of his Son’s Honor from the honor of sinful dust! Whereas, this brother had advanced upon a subject in which it was his duty to seek the honor, Jn.5:44, that cometh from God only. What hath carnal honors and carnal estimation to do with such a glorious subject? Do we think God hath clothed Christ thus? And yet Mr. John Hunt’s speeches do tend to beget ill and unbecoming thoughts of the rise of Christ’s Honor. A man would think in taking in the conceptions of this matter, as Mr. Hunt hath set it out, that Jesus Christ’s honor was only a higher honor in degree, not an honor perfectly of another kind than the honor of the world, and therein he darkens counsel by words without knowledge, Job 38:2, of the Nature and Original of the Mediator’s Glory, as the Scriptures have described it. The title of those pages continues, the Glory of Christ Unveiled; but really, whatever the Orthodox title is, the leaves, the matters are, the Glory of Christ Veiled.
To give us an account of Christ’s honor from the idea carnal men have of honor in the badges of the world is abominable! It is a wild stalk to the Branch, Jer.33:15, of Righteousness! Christ is the Pattern of all their honor, as he is Wisdom-Mediator; but their honor is not the pattern of his; nor are we to conceive of Christ’s Honor, as he is now made of God, I Cor.1:30, unto us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption-Mediator, by any ideas or schemes that can be suggested, or made of theirs. Consequently, abundance of things in these seven or eight last chapters since my close pursuit of Mr. Hunt’s particular sayings {which close method I am to return to again, if the Lord will, in the pursuit of more of his particular expressions} are a very necessary and open answer to that part of his book where he disgraces Christ in the very badges of his Honor; and may serve as a Vindication of Christ from the mingled disparagements he hath cast upon the Lord in those linsey-woolsey badges. For, indeed he hath scraped the matters of them so together, and carnally interwoven all his threads in that garment he designed for honor, that the very contexture is scandalous, and the ground-work, or foundation, upon which he has labored to maintain the idea of Christ’s Honor is profane, and thus is a carnal valuation; for, he is wondrously pleased to build all his particulars and badges of honor upon this, and lay them after this fashion. “Honor, says he, is that which is highly esteemed among men, pg.75, first badge of honor so esteemed among men, pg.79, second badge of honor so esteemed among men, pg.84, third badge of honor so esteemed among men, &c., pg.87.” Thus, everything which he could think of to illustrate the Glory of Christ, he will first erect upon men; thinking to advance Christ’s Repute upon the measures of their esteem; and thus he runs on {in the rest of his particulars} building his house upon the sand, Mt.7:26, and all to bring up these wrong ideas and misconceptions of his point to the Honor of Christ which is not only absolutely heterogeneous, but openly disparaging.
1 Nestorius {386 – 450} an Eastern pastor, made Bishop or Overseer of Constantinople, about the year 430; at which time others do set his condemnation in the Council of Alexandria. His opponents charged him with detaching Christ’s Divinity and Humanity into two persons existing in one body, thereby denying the reality of the Incarnation.
2 Eutyches {380 – 456} was a Presbyter at Constantinople. He first came to notice in 431 at the First Council of Ephesus, for his vehement opposition to the teachings of Nestorius; his condemnation of Nestorianism as heresy led him to an equally extreme, although opposite view, which precipitated his being denounced as a heretic himself.
3 Thomas Jacomb 1622–1687, was an English ejected minister. Several Sermons or Commentary preached on the whole 8th Chapter of Romans, London, 1672.
4 Faustus Socinus, 1539 - 1604, was an Italian theologian and founder of the school of Christian thought known as Socinianism, which amongst other things, rejected the pre-existence of Christ and held that Jesus Christ did not exist until he was conceived by the Virgin Mary.
5 The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was a proclamation made by James II of England and VII of Scotland in 1687. The Indulgence was issued in England on April 4, 1687. It was a first step at establishing freedom of religion in the British Isles.
6 The Works of Tobias Crisp were re-published by his son in 1690, upon which much controversy arose.
7 For an historical {though hostile and tainted} glimpse of these proceedings, see “Life of Doctor George Bull,” written by Robert Nelson, Second Edition, 1714, pages 259-276.
8 Fernández de Portocarrero, 1635-1709, Cardinal and Archbishop of Spain.
9 The Grand Alliance was a European coalition, consisting of numerous European Nations, founded in 1686 as the League of Augsburg, and became known as the “Grand Alliance” after England and Scotland joined the League in 1689. It was originally formed in an attempt to halt Louis XIV of France’s extensive influence. After the Treaty of Den Haag was signed on September 7, 1701, it went into a second phase as the Alliance of the War of Spanish Succession.