And if He be only man, He is also one of those who stand in need to be mediated for Himself; how then can He mediate for men? And besides, how can He be a Mediator, who is infinitely below one of the parties, and not at all above the other? How can such a one ever bring them together? No, that cannot be; neither doth the Apostle here say it: he doth not say, that the Mediator between God and men, is only a man he only saith, He is "the man Christ Jesus." And that was enough for him to say in this place, having in many other places declared in the Name of God, "That this Christ Jesus is the Son of God, of the same form or substance with the Father," and so truly God Himself: as where speaking of the Israelites, he saith, " Of whom as con- Rom. 9. 5. cerning the flesh, Christ came; who is over all, God blessed

for ever." And elsewhere, "Let this mind be in you, which Phil. 2. 5, 6. was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God," that is, He did not detract from God, nor rob Him of any honour, by asserting Himself to be equal to Him: as when He said, "I and the Father are one." By this He made Himself John 10. 30. equal with God, and yet did not thereby disparage, dishonour, or undervalue Him, as He would have done, if He that said it, had not been of the same Divine essence and glory with Him. There are many such expressions all over the Bible, which clearly and undeniably demonstrate, that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, the Only-begotten of the Father, and subsisting in the Divine Nature, so that He Himself also is very God, the same in all His essential properties or perfections with the Father: and therefore, when He is here called "the man Christ Jesus," it cannot be so understood, as if He was not God; for that would be a plain contradiction to the rest of the Scriptures, and to this very place too, where He is said to be the "Mediator between God and men;" which none can be, unless He be God Himself: for he that undertakes to mediate, so as to make up all differences between God and men, he must, of necessity, appease the wrath which God hath justly conceived against men, for the sins which they have committed against Him. But who can appease God's anger, but God Himself? He is an infinite being, and all things in the world besides, both

XXX.

SERM. singly and jointly, are only finite; and, by consequence, it is impossible that any of them should ever come near Him by themselves, or do any thing whereby to pacify and reconcile Him to those with whom He is once offended, as the apostate Angels have found by woeful experience: who, although they have as much knowledge, subtlety and power, as any creatures in the world, yet having once offended God, never yet were, nor ever will be able to assuage His wrath, or obtain His love and favour. And the same would have been the fate of all mankind, if they had not a Mediator of infinite power and wisdom, which none is, or can be, but God Himself. This therefore we must lay down, as the foundation both of our religion in general, and especially of that great article in it, which we are now speaking of, that Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and men, is Himself the almighty and eternal God.

Epiphan, hær. 26;

Tertull. de

Carne

But, why then doth the Apostle here call Him, "the man Christ Jesus?" Because, as He was truly God, so He was truly man too. And though in our days, there have been some heretics that have denied the Godhead of Christ; yet in the Apostles', and the succeeding age, His manhood was rather questioned: that He was God, was so plainly attested in the Scriptures, so fully confirmed by the miracles He Christi, c.1; wrought, and so constantly preached by His Apostles, that ad Smyrn- they could not deny that. But the first heretics fell rather æos, cap. into the contrary error, denying Him to be truly man; as cobson. Cf. the Valentinians, Appelletians, Marcionists, and others in Valentin. the very next age after the Apostles; and while the Apostles 28, OPP. themselves lived and preached, the Gnostics denied that Christ took real flesh upon Him, or the true human nature: Præscript. but that all He did, or was done to Him as man, was only in appearance, in fancy, and imagination.

Ignat. Ep.

ii. ed. Ja

Tertull.adv.

260, ed. Rigalt. Cf. Tertull. de

§ 33, p. 214.]

Wherefore, to prevent the growth of this damnable heresy, which began then to spring up in the Church, and to undermine the very foundation of it, the Apostle having elsewhere sufficiently asserted the Godhead of Christ, he here asserts His manhood. And it was most proper for him to do it in this place, where he speaks of Christ's being the "Mediator between God and men;" which He could not have been, if He had not been man: for as He could not mediate

with God, except He was God; so except He was man, He could not have mediated for men; there being many things to be done in order to the perfecting of this mediation, which none could do but He who was truly man Himself. And therefore the Apostle here calls Him "the man," or, as the Greek word veguros, without an article, may be rendered "man Christ Jesus;" man in general, another Adam, sustaining the whole human nature, and so a proper Mediator for all that partake of that nature.

But here we must observe, that although Christ be both God and man, yet there are not two Mediators, one who is God, and another who is man; but, as the Apostle here saith, He is still but one Mediator both as God and man: His Godhead and manhood being so united, as to make but one and the same person, and, by consequence, one and the same Mediator. For, as it is rightly explained in the Athanasian creed, "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ." This was foretold by the Prophet, saying, "That His name shall be called," in Isa. 7. 14. one word, "Emmanuel, God with us;" that is, as it is expressed in the Greek, Osάvegwños, ‘God-man,' or God and man in one person. The same is implied also in His name Jesus, which was ordered to be given Him before He was born; for the Angel of the Lord said to Joseph, to whom His mother was espoused, "Fear not to take unto thee Matt. 1. 20, Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost: and she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins." Upon which St. Matthew observes, that "this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken ver. 22, 23. of the Lord by the Prophet, saying, Behold a Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel; which being interpreted, is, God with us," where, by calling His name according to the use of that phrase in the Hebrew tongue, we may understand the same as if it had been said, "He shall be Emmanuel, God-man." And if we take the words in the most obvious and literal sense, as if the Prophet meant by them, that He should be named Emmanuel; we may truly say, He was so, in that He was named Jesus, which in Hebrew signifies a

21.

XXX.

SERM. Saviour; and so, in effect, the same with Emmanuel, because no person can be our Saviour, but He that is "God with us" so that Jesus and Emmanuel are synonymous terms, or names that signify in effect the same thing. Be sure the Prophet, inspired with the Holy Ghost, by saying, that He shall be, or shall be called "Emmanuel, God with us," hath fully assured us, that He is both God and man in one person; as it was necessary the Mediator between God and men should be, that His mediation might be effectual: for, as He could not have suffered at all for men, unless He Himself was man, or have satisfied God, unless He Himself was God; so He could not have satisfied God for men, so as to reconcile Him to them, and bring Him, if I may so speak, and them together, unless He Himself had been both together in one and the same person. For if He that suffered had been a mere human person of Himself, distinct from the Divine, all His sufferings had been the sufferings only of a finite creature, and by consequence no way meritorious for Himself, much less satisfactory to the infinite justice of God for the sins of other men: whereas, by being Emmanuel, God and man in one person, He was completely qualified to mediate effectually between them: for by this means, whatsoever He did or suffered in the human nature, being done and suffered by a Divine person, by one who is the infinite God, it could not but be of infinite value and merit with God Himself, for those in whose nature it was done and suffered. He shed His blood as man, but He that shed it being God too, in the same person, it was the blood Acts 20. 28. of God Himself, as it is expressly called. And therefore it

must needs be a sufficient propitiation for the sins of all 1 John 2. 2. mankind, or, as the Apostle speaks, " of the whole world."

This being premised concerning the person of our Mediator, it will give us great light into the work He undertook for us, the methods He used for the accomplishing it, and the grounds we have to believe and trust on Him, to reconcile our Almighty Creator to us, and so restore us to the same state of purity and happiness, wherein we were at first created. For the right understanding whereof, we must farther observe, that He who is here called "the Mediator Heb. 12. 24. between God and men," is elsewhere said to be "the Media

Heb. 8. 6.

tor of the New Covenant," or, as the word is sometimes translated, "the Mediator of the New Testament," and "the Heb. 9. 15. Mediator of a better Covenant." From whence it appears, that this office which Christ undertook, of being our Mediator, was grounded upon a certain covenant or agreement, that God was pleased to enter into with men: and that this covenant being called the new, and the better covenant, it supposeth there was another before it, an old, and a worse covenant; worse, not in itself, but in comparison of the new one," which was established upon better promises." Where- Heb. 8. 6. fore, that we may be able to frame a true idea of Christ's Mediation for us, it will be necessary to look back upon the first establishment of these two covenants, especially the latter, upon which it was founded.

When God therefore had made man in His own image, enduing Him with the power of discerning between good and evil, and of choosing the one before the other, He put him into a garden, which He had planted with all sorts of trees, pleasant to the eye, and good for food, and gave him full liberty to pick and choose where he would, excepting only one tree, saying to him, "Of every tree of the garden Gen. 2. 16, thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of 17. good and evil thou shalt not eat; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." In which threatening there was a promise also implied, that if he did not eat of that fruit, he should not die, but live: this was the first covenant that God made with man. According to which, if men keep the commandments of God, they shall live, and be happy; otherwise, they must die, and be miserable for ever. But this covenant was broken soon after it was made; for Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, and so made himself, and his whole posterity, then contained in him, liable to that death which God had threatened, under which all sorts of punishments were comprehended: and this he did, by his not believing God's Word, but hearkening to the Devil, who said he should not die, rather than to God, who said he [Gen. 3. 4.] should. By this means, sin and death first came into the [Rom. 5. 12.] world upon all mankind: because, although there were then no other men or women in the world, but only Adam and Eve, and so none could eat of the forbidden fruit, so as to