for me?" "What personage, throughout my vast dominions, is either able or inclined to embark in a work so awful and interesting? Who in the heavens above, or in the world which shall afterwards appear, is capable by the underived, infinite dignity of his nature to bring glory to me in the recovery of man?" The Son, co-equal, and coeternal with the Father, moved by love which only God could feel, instantly replies, "here am I, send me: To my account let all the debt of all thy chosen be charged from this moment; mine be the bitterness and the joy, the reproach and glory of securing an eternal revenue of honor to thy crown in their redemption. Lo! I come, in the volume of thy book let it from this time be written of me, to do this thy will, O God." At that moment "the council was held between them both," and the restoration of man determined. Had angels then existed, they must have clapped their wings, and shouted their loudest hosannas at the depth of divine condescension and mercy; they must speedily have veiled their faces with their wings, unable to behold the full blaze of that sovereignty, and justice, and wisdom, and love, which mingled their glories in this scheme.

Referring to that transaction the Redeemer declares, "I was set up from everlasting; I was ordained by Jehovah the Surety of a better testament, and commissioned to appear in time for the accomplishment

.

of that undertaking." The Father, in his turn, frequently mentions this substitution of his Son in the room of his chosen. “I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people; I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him: With whom my hand shall be established; mine arm also shall strengthen him. Behold my servant whom I uphold; mine elect," my chosen, my consecrated one, "in whom my soul delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." These characters can with no propriety be applied to the Son essentially considered; he is in that sense the Father's FELLOW; he deems it not robbery to be EQUAL with God; he claims, and claims without the least air of presumption, every title, every perfection, every glory that is proper to the Deity; but they belong to him peculiarly as contractor for man: As Mediator he is the Father's servant; he has voluntarily undertaken to perform all his pleasure by standing in our covenant room.

2. By the immediate agency of God the Father, the Eternal Son entered our world, and assumed that nature in which he suffer ed and satisfied for human transgression.→→ While Jehovah, in the original contrivance of our redemption, contemplated the ultimate object, his own glory in the happiness of his creatures, he also contemplated all the intermediate steps by which the Mediator

should accomplish this work; and to these he actually ordained him. The incarnation of Jesus, or his assumption of our nature is therefore represented in scripture as the Father's act; as done in direct submission to his authority. "When the fulness of the time was come," when the moment, mutually agreed upon between the Father and Son in their counsel from everlasting, had arrived, "God sent forth his Son," reminded him of his covenant stipulations, and sent him forth to enter upon the execution of his work, "made of a woman, made under the law; to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.-Wherefore when he the Son cometh into the world he saith," he addresses his Father as vindicating the honors of the Godhead, “sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not," the countless oblations which have been presented, and all the rivers of blood which have flowed in ages past thou hast rejected as insufficient for the expiation of human guilt; "but a body hast thou prepared," framed, made ready " for me." True it is, the manhood of Messiah was formed by the immediate, miraculous agency of the Holy Ghost, yet the Spirit formed it, and the Son assumed in virtue of the Father's appointment. As the assumption of his body, so all the sufferings which he underwent, either in body or soul, either from earth or from hell, were not barely with the permission, but by the direct appointment of the Fa

ther. "It pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put him to grief;" he who in his sovereignty formerly made him to be sin for us, who laid the iniquity of his people on the head of this scape-goat, in his justice made him afterwards to suffer; with his own lips he utters the awful mandate, "awake, O sword against my shepherd," and with his own hand bathes this sword in the blood of his own Son. True it is, a blind, infernal rage roused the opposition of his enemies: Impelled by the alternate passions of envy and avarice and jealousy, one early commenced his persecutions, obliging the child Jesus to flee into Egypt; another betrayed him; another condemned him; others mocked and reviled him: But all this insult was offered, and all this suffering inflicted by the Father's appointment, and for the execution of his absolute, eternal purpose. "Against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, (says an inspired author) both Herod and Pontius Pilate were gathered together, for to do whatever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." While these men were indulging an unprovoked, unhallowed rage, they were fulfilling the sovereign, everlasting decree of heaven; in filling up the measure of their own iniquity, they were filling up that cup which the Father, myriads of ages before, had ordained him to drink.

3. By the immediate agency of God the Father, the Son as Mediator arose from the

dead, and ascended to his present elevation of glory in heaven. In pursuing our precious Lord through all the grades of his exaltation, from the humble tomb to the highest throne, we behold the authority of the Father illustriously expressed. By his appointment, and commissioned by the high court of heaven, the angel leaves his seat in bliss, visits the tomb, breaks off the seal, rolls back the stone, and welcomes to the regions of day his conquered, conquering Lord: we hear the Son thus pathetically address the Father by the mouth of David, his type, "thou will not leave my soul in hell," the prison of the grave, this state of invisibility: "Thy justice indeed required that I, as surety for man, should be seized and cast into prison, but justice now demands that when the debt is discharged the surety be liberated; thou wilt shew me the path of life; thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance." When the risen Saviour had conversed with his apostles; when he had, by frequent and familiar interviews, fully satisfied them that he was really risen from the dead, and had directed them as to the future management of his kingdom, by an immediate act of the Father, Jehovah incarnate ascends on high, enters the gates of the celestial sanctuary, and takes his seat on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Then did his fervent prayer receive a literal answer, "Father, glorify thou me with thine own self; with the glory VOL. 2. P 2