nefs from him. God only is good: so says Christ". To communicate his goodness moved him to create; and he willed to love his elect, and to communicate himself to them in love and that to the uttermost. All communion depends

upon an union. The creature must be one with God, ere it can receive and participate of his goodness in a way of blefsednefs. The nearer the union is, the greater will be the communion. The highest communication cannot be without the highest union.

Now the highest union with God is that of a creature with one of the persons in the Godhead. It was the will of the essential Three, that the second person in the self-existing essence should unite himself to a rational human nature, and thereby give personality to it, so as to be one person with it. By this designed union, according to the counsel of the holy Three, the only begotten Son of God would be made man, and be God and man in the person of one Christ, who was the anointed or holy one of God-the man, God's fellow-the beloved object and darling of the holy Trinity-the father's electthe chosen one, in whom his soul delighted; who was to be advanced into fellowship with, and made free in the

* Matt. xix. 17.

society of Trinity. And And grace and glory were to be communicated, and bestowed proportionably to the peculiar dignity and inconceivable honour of being thus advanced into personal union with the co-equal and co-efsential Son of God. By this vast design, conceived in the infinite mind of Jehovah, of an union with the Son of God and an individual humanity, and by this union being carried into execution, the efsential Three have made, and do continue to display the highest manifestation of their glory, and such communications of their love to the man in union with God, as surpass all conception even in glory; and through the God-man to the elect, as by no other way or means could have been displayed. This is grace worthy of God; such as can never be fully comprehended; no, not by saints in Heaven throughout the ages of eternity. In the person of God-man it appears in its first and greatest act, shines forth in its utmost splendour, and is discovered in its utmost freeness, sovereignty, and glory.

By this eternal purpose, which was hid in God, Christ, as God-man, the power of God and the wisdom of God, was brought forth, and set up in the counsels of the eternal Three, as the first born of all the thoughts, ways, and

works of Jehovah towards all in earth and Heaven. Thus the God-man being anointed, set up, and exalted in the eternal decrees of the divine persons, was pofsefsed by Jehovah, as his trea sure. Of which we have a most glorious discovery in the eighth chapter of the Proverbs of Solomon, from the 22d to the end of the 31st verse. In which part of the sacred scripture, Wisdom, a divine person, saith, "The Lord pos"sefsed me in the beginning of his way, "before his works of old. I was set up "from everlasting, from the beginning, "or ever the earth was. When there "were no depths, I was brought forth; "when there were no fountains abound

ing with water. Before the moun"tains were settled; before the hills was I brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, "nor the highest part of the dust of the "world. When he prepared the hea

vens, I was there; when he set a com"pafs upon the face of the depths: when "he established the clouds above; when "he strengthened the foundations of the deep; when he gave to the sea his "decree, that the waters should not pass "his commandment; when he appointed "the foundations of the earth. Then I "was by him as one brought up with “him, and I was daily his delight, re

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joicing always before him; rejoicing "in the habitable part of his earth, and

my delights were with the sons of 66 men. The whole of which pafsage belongs to Christ, considered as Godman, elect. He shone forth from everlasting, as the "brightnefs of the Father's glory, and the exprefs image of his person." In whom all the persons in the efsential Godhead were to shine forth for ever and ever. And thus, God, who is invisible, dwelling in that light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, hath, by his eternal Son's dwelling personally in the humanity afsumed by him, made the uttermost display of his manifestative glory. Hence Christ is styled, “The

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image of the invisible God," on account of the full manifestation of Godhead unto us in him. This union of our nature with the only begotten Son of God is the great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, or, God dwelling personally in our nature.

Now, as all this was in JEHOVAH'S decree from everlasting, and the Son of God then existed in the Godhead, as the second person in the ineffable essence; so, on pafsing the decree in thecouncil of the eternal Three, the efsential Word sustained the title, wore the $ Heb, i. 3. t. Col. i. 15.

glory, and bore the name of God-man among and before the Three in JEHOVAH. And as such the holy Three rejoiced in him; saying, Behold the man is become as one of us, He was the first and principal object of the Father's love-his elect and chosen one, in whom, he saith, "his soul delighteth".

In the intuitive knowledge of him the Lord God chose his elect in him, and made the world for him; that his glory might appear, and his grace and mercy to his elect bride and mystic body be displayed thereon. It pleased the Father that in God incarnate should all fulness dwell, and that he should be the fountain of nature and grace. He was to wear the crown and have the pre-eminence in all things, in creation, providence, grace, and glory. I would here observe on this most deep and truly sublime subject, that Christ hath a two-fold glory, on which all his other glory, viz. of headship, mediation, and relation, as one with his church and people, is founded. On his head head are are many crowns; and he will wear them with increasing lustre for ever and ever. But the glories, which I shall here hint at, are, first, his underived, independent, efsential glory: he being in the Godhead co-equal and co-eternal with the

Isaiah xlii. 1.