creatures at an infinite distance from true Deity, but really Divine, par. taking of the nature of that Godhead from which they proceed, and in which they are comprehended.

10. The Socinians and Arians, indeed, with a view to get rid of the irrefragable argument which the text just referred to furnishes against their scheme, would fain force a very different sense upon it, and translate it, "Being in the form of God, he coveted not after, or did not eagerly catch at an equality with God." But there are two insuperable objections to this translation, (if it may be called one ;) the first is, that the words will not bear it, nyndalo apraypov, signifying not "he coveted not after," or "did not eagerly catch at," but simply and only, he thought it not an act of robbery, or any usurpation of another's right; and the following words, vai de, meaning only to be equal with God. The second objection to this forced translation is, that it would make the apostle very absurdly represent it as a great instance of Christ's humility, that he was not as proud as Lucifer; who, (as is supposed,) though highly exalted in the scale of being, yet being a mere creature, and, as such, infinitely inferior to God, manifested insufferable pride in eagerly coveting and catching at an equality with God. Now, surely, if Christ had been a mere creature, the apostle would never have mentioned it as a great proof of his humility, that he did not, like Satan, aspire after an equality with one infinitely above him!

11. We must, therefore, of necessity, abide by the grammatical and literal sense of the words above mentioned; which we may do with the greater satisfaction, having seen it confirmed, in the preceding chapters, by so many testimonies of the same apostle in other places, as well as of other apostles and inspired writers. For surely he who appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, at sundry times, in the character of God; he to whom the apostles, speaking by inspiration of God, applied many passages of the Old Testament, containing proper descriptions of the Most High; he to whom Divine names and titles are given, and Divine attributes are ascribed; he who is represented as the immediate author of all the Divine works, and who has been, is, and is to be worshipped God-he must be equal with God; or, in other words, he must be God, possessed of true and proper Deity, in union with the Father, whose Word and only begotten Son he is, and from whom he never can be separated.

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12. "But if the Word and Son of God be really a Divine person, how could he 'empty himself,' (which in this very text he is said to do,) 'leave the glory' he had with the Father, or become poor ?" See John xvii, 3; 2 Cor. viii, 9. I answer, it is easy to conceive that he might do this, as far as these texts signify that he hath done it. They do not say that his nature underwent any change, that his wisdom, power, or love, his holiness, truth, or justice, were either lost or lessened: they only speak of his form or mode of manifestation. This passage in the Epistle to the Philippians being much more particular, is plainly a key to the other two; and all that he asserts is, that (when in the "form of God, and equal with God," the Godhead of the Father being his Godhead,) he emptied himself, taking the "form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.' So that the emptying of himself, which the apostle speaks of, manifestly consisted in his taking the form of a ser

yant, which form he took when he was made in the likeness of men. It consisted in this, in that though he was the Word and Son of the Father, who had spoke the universe into being, and had manifested himself to the patriarchs and prophets of old, as the Creator, Preserver, and Lord of all, he now appeared in the form of a creature; yea, of a mere and mortal creature,—a creature compassed about with infirmity, liable to pain and misery, and subject to dissolution and decay! And surely this might very properly be termed an emptying himself, a leaving his glory, and becoming poor. For how great the contrast! He had given the law on Sinai, amidst thunder and lightning, storm and tempest, earthquake and devouring fire: he had appeared in glory to the nobles of the children of Israel, when there "was under his feet, as it were, a paved work, of a sapphire stone, and, as it were, the body of heaven in its clearness." Isaiah had seen him "upon a throne, high and lifted up, when his train filled the temple, and the seraphim cried one to another, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts! the whole earth is full of his glory!" And now that same Word and Son of the Father dwells in the flesh; in the meek and lowly Jesus, "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, despised and rejected of men, having neither form nor comeliness that we should desire him;" whose greatest triumph was to ride into Jerusalem upon a colt, the foal of an ass, amidst the acclamations of children and a few poor people; and who, at last, was executed upon a cross, between two thieves, as a malefactor!

13. "It is a vain imagination (says the author last quoted) that our Saviour then first appeared a servant, when he was apprehended, bound, scourged, and crucified: for they were not all slaves who ever suffered such indignities, or died that death; and when they did, their death did not make, but find them, or suppose them, servants. Beside, our Saviour, in all the degrees of his humiliation, never lived as a servant unto any master on earth. It is true, at first he was subject, but as a son, to his reputed father and undoubted mother. When he appeared in public, he lived after the manner of a prophet, and a doctor sent from God, accompanied with a family, as it were, of his apostles, whose master he professed himself, subject to the commands of no man in that office, and obedient only unto God. The 'form, then, of a servant,' which he took upon him, must consist in something distinct from his sufferings or submission unto men, as the condition in which he was when he so submitted and so suffered. In that he was made flesh,' sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, subject unto all the infirmities and miseries of this life, attending on the sons of men, fallen by the sin of Adam in that he was made of a woman, made under the law,' and so obliged to perform the same; which law did so handle the children of God, as that they differed nothing from servants: in that he was born, bred, and lived in a mean, low, and abject cor.dition: 'as a root out of a dry ground, he had no form nor comeliness; and when men saw him, there was no beauty that they should desire him; but he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: in that he was thus made man, he took upon him the form of a servant :' which is not mine but the apostle's explication; as adding it, not by way of conjunction, in which there might be some diversity, but by way of apposition, which signifieth a clear identity.

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14. "And, therefore, it is necessary to observe that our translation of that verse is not only not exact, but very disadvantageous to that truth which is contained in it: for we read it thus, "he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Where we have two copulative conjunctions, neither of which is in the original text, and three distinct propositions, without any dependence of one upon another, whereas all the words together are but an expression of Christ's exinanition, with an explication showing in what it consisteth; which will clearly appear by this literal translation: "But emptied himself, taking the form of a sei vant, being made in the likeness of men." Where, if any man doubt how Christ emptied himself, the text will satisfy him, "by taking the form of a servant:" if any still question how he took the form of a servant, he hath the apostle's resolution, by being "made in the likeness of men." Indeed, after the expression of this exinanition, he goes on with a conjunction, to add anther act of Christ's humiliation: "And being found in fashion as a man," being already, by exinanition, in the form of a servant, or the likeness of men, "he humbled himself and became (or rather becoming, yĉvoμɛvos urnxoos) obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

15. "As, therefore, his humiliation consisted in his obedience unto death, so his exinanition (or emptying himself) consisted in the assump. tion of the form of a servant, and that in the nature of man. All which is very fitly expressed by a strange interpretation in the Epistle to the Hebrews. For whereas these words are clearly in the psalmist, "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened," the apostle appropriateth the sentence to Christ, "When he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me." Now, since the boring of the ear, under the law, was a note of perpetual servitude; since this was expressed in the words of the psalmist, and changed by the apostle into the preparing of a body, it followeth, that when Christ's body was first framed, even then did he assume the form of a servant."

16. As the bishop's reasoning upon this text is strong and conclusive, and sufficiently refutes the Socinian interpretation, (which supposes that Christ had no existence before he was born of the virgin, and that he was no otherwise in the form of God than as working miracles,) I shall transcribe a paragraph or two more:-"It appeareth out of the same text that Christ was in the form of God before he was in the form of a servant, and consequently before he was made man. For he who is presupposed to be, and to think of that being which he hath, and upon that thought to assume, must have that being before that assumption; but Christ is expressly said to be in the form of God, and being so, to think it no robbery to be equal with God, and, notwithstanding that equality, to take upon him the form of a servant: therefore it cannot be denied but he was before in the form of God. Beside, he was not in the form of a servant but by emptying himself, and all exinanition necessarily presupposeth a precedent plenitude; it being as impossible to empty any thing which hath no fulness, as to fill any thing which hath no emptiness. But the fulness which Christ had, in respect whereof, assuming the form of a servant, he is said to empty himself, could be in nothing else

but the form of God in which he was before. Wherefore, if the assumption of the form of a servant be cotemporary with his exinanition, if that exinanition necessarily presupposeth a plenitude as indispensably ante. cedent to it; if the form of God be also coeval with that precedent plenitude; then must we confess Christ was in the form of God before he was in the form of a servant.

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17. "Again: it is as evident from the same scripture, that Christ was as much in the form of God as in the form of a servant, and did as really subsist in the Divine nature as in the nature of man. For he was so in the form of God, as thereby to be equal with God.** But no other form beside the essential, which is the Divine nature itself, could infer an equality with God. To whom will you liken me, and make me equal, saith the Holy One? There can be but one infinite, eternal, and independent Being; and there can be no compson between that and whatsoever is finite, temporal, and depending. He, therefore, who did truly think himself equal with God, as being in the form of God, must be conceived to subsist in that one infinite, eternal, and independent nature of God. Again: the phrase, in the form of God,' not elsewhere mentioned, is used by the apostle with a respect unto that other, the 'form of a servant,' exegetically [explanatorily] continued in the likeness of men;' and the respect of one unto the other is so necessary, that if the form of God' be not real and essential as the form of a servant,' or the likeness of man, there is no force in the apostle's words, nor will his argument be fit to prove any great degree of humiliation upon the consideration of Christ's exinanition. But by the form is certainly understood the true condition of a servant, and by the likeness infallibly meant the real nature of man, nor doth the fashion in which he was found destroy, but rather assert, the truth of his humanity. And, therefore, as sure as Christ was really and essentially man, of the same nature with us, in whose similitude he was made, so certainly was he also really and essentially God, of the same nature and being with him, in whose form he did subsist. Seeing then we have clearly evinced, from the express words of St. Paul, that Christ was in the form of a servant as soon as he was made man, that he was in the form of God before he was in the form of a servant, that the form of God in which he subsisted doth as truly signify the Divine as the likeness of man the human nature; it necessarily followeth that Christ had a real existence before he was begotten of the virgin, and that the being which he had was the Divine essence, by which he was truly, really, and properly God." (Pearson on the Creed, pp. 122, 123.)

CHAPTER XIV.

The use of this doctrine.

AND now, having proved our Lord's divinity, and answered (I hope) the most material objections that are made to it, I shall close this treatise when I have added a few words respecting the use of this doctrine.

Το είναι ίσα Θεώ. Pariari Deo, Tertull. Esse se æqualem Deo, Cypr. Esse æqualis Deo, Leporius. Thus all express the notions of equality, not of similitude; nor can we understand any less by το είναι ισα, than την ισότητα" ισον and tra being indiferently used by the Greek.

1. And its use appears, first, in that it is closely connected with all the offices, which, according to the Scriptures, Christ sustains, and, in the execution of which, he is our Saviour and Redeemer. It is closely connected, even with his office of a prophet. “This is my beloved Son (says the Father) hear ye him." In order that we may hear him with becoming reverence, entire confidence, and ready obedience, it is necessary that we should regard him as the Father's "beloved Son ;" and that in a higher sense than any prophet, or apostle, or angel, ever was, or can be his Son: a Son in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell: yea, all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Hence, as we have seen, he is the very Word of the Father, and what he speaks, the eternal truth, wisdom, and love of God speaks in him. He is the Divine Oracle, and all he says is as important and infallible as what was uttered of old from between the cherubim, upon the mercy seat; and should be received with as much implicit faith, and dutiful submission, as the high priest, or people of Israel of old, received answers from that most holy place.

2. It is true, what was delivered by Moses and the prophets, by the evangelists and apostles, is also the word of God; for "prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost:" but not in so high a sense as what was spoken by Christ. When God spoke by them, he spoke by his servants; when he spoke by Christ, he spoke by his Son. They had the Spirit "by measure," he "without measure.' They deliver his truths and declare his laws; he is the truth itself, and the lawgiver among his people. They come to us with authority from another, and say, "Thus saith the Lord." He speaks as one having authority in himself, and his language is, "I say unto you."

3. And if the doctrine of the proper and peculiar Sonship of Christ be closely connected with his prophetic office, it has still a closer connection with the office of a priest. We have already seen that the virtue of his atonement depends upon it, and that, if he had been but a mere man, or a mere creature, his single and temporal life could not have been a ransom, or "redemption price," for the innumerable and eternal lives of all men. And with regard to his appearing in the presence of God for us, as our Advocate and Intercessor, let those who deny his divinity inform us how we are to obtain access to him, that we may acquaint him with our wants and griefs, and put our cause into his hands? Or how we are to be assured that he knows, and therefore is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, so that he does and will sympathize with us, and afford us grace to help in time of need?

4. Nay, and even as to his kingly office,-what sort of a king would he be, who could neither know his subjects, nor deliver, nor protect, nor govern them? Hueva λawv, "The shepherd of his people," is a common phrase with a heathen poet, when speaking of a heathen king. All good kings, whether heathen or Christian, are the shepherds of the people, and, as such, watch over, protect, and govern them. It is true, this can only be done very imperfectly by men, as men are very imperfect in knowledge, and power, and goodness. But the King whom God hath set upon his holy hill of Zion, is the "good Shepherd," who "gave his life for the sheep," and who says, "I know my sheep, and am known