have been damned. These are the depths of Satan, which all Christians ought to pronounce accursed.

XXVI. Hence we see what we are to think of the divinity of the Remonstrants on this head, who, in chap. xvii. p. 187. b. of their apology or remonstrance, say, that "the obedience of Christ was of a different nature from ours; but agreeing in this that it was altogether free. Christ obeyed the will of his Father, not as we obey the law of God, under the threatening of eternal death, in case of disobedience: God forbid; but as an ambassador is said to obey his sovereign, or a beloved son his father, when his sovereign or father, confers on either an honourable office to be executed by them, adding the promise of some extraordinary reward, if they will freely, and on their account undertake it. Whoever obeys in this manner, that is, willingly takes that office upon himself, he indeed properly and freely obeys, not that he would properly sin, did he not undertake it; or when undertaken, lay it down again, with the good-will of the father; much less that he would deserve eternal punishment, if `he did not undertake it, or excuse himself from undertaking, or bearing the burden thereof; as it is most certain, that when we disobey God and his law, we deserve punishment. But no such threatening of punishment was made to Christ; but he could either not undertake it, or when he undertook it, resign his charge, and so not enjoy, or forfeit the promised reward."

XXVII. In this discourse there are as many faults, as sentences. W will now chiefly remark these following things. 1st. The leading error of the Remonstrants, from whence their other errors flow, is their making the liberty of the will to consist in indifference, so as one may, or may not obey; whereas it is to be placed in the free good pleasure of the mind. Unless one would affirm either of these things, that it was either possible or lawful, for the holy angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, nay, Christ himself exalted, not to do the will of God. 2dly. They distinguish not the person of the Son of God, and the grace, by which he humbled himself to undertake obedience in the assumed human nature, from the human nature itself, and obedience of Christ, now in his state of humiliation. The grace of the Son of God was so free, that he could not be against this humiliation, or emptying of himself, that he might come under an obligation to obedience. There is no reason, but the most free good pleasure of the divine will, why this future humiliation was decreed by the adorable Trinity, and consequently by the Son himself. Yet, upon supposing this free decree, the human nature assumed by the logos, or the Word, could not decline, or draw back from the office assigned to Christ, and now undertaken by the logos himself, without sin and disobedience.

3dly. They do not consider, that the human nature of Christ was bound, by an indispensable necessity, to that holiness which is the image of God: since they compare the whole of Christ's obedience with the undertaking of some office, which a sovereign confers on

Tambor a father on his son. For,

as an ambassador, in the quality of a subject, and a son, as such, are bound by the law of nature itself, to perforin to a sovereign and a father, an obedience distinct from that which arises from their willingly undertaking this honorary office; so in like manner, the human nature of Christ was and still continues to be, bound to perform obedience to God, in order to maintain this conformity with the holiness of God; which obligation is distinct from his undertaking the mediatorial office. 4thly. They falsely place the essential difference between the obedience of Christ and ours; in that we obey being awed by the threatening of death; but Christ not so. For, that threatening does not properly belong to obedience, which really ought not to be extorted from us by the fear of punishment, but to come freely from a reverence to the divine command, and a love to holiness Our obedience will be no less obedience in heaven when the threatening of eternal death shall no longer have any place. Moreover, the same law which is proposed to us was the rule of the life and actions of Christ. But that law had the sanction of eternal death, which it was incumbent on Christ to believe to be just and right; tending to inform the conscience of God's hatred to sin, and to inflame it likewise with a hatred of sin and unrighteousness. And thus far, after Christ bad humbled himself for us, he obeyed the law even under the threatening, and acknowledged the same to be just; and that every threatening of the law, produced in Christ a sense of the wrath of God, when he suffered for us. 5thly. They absurdly pretend, that Christ could, with the Father's consent, decline the office committed to him, or, resign it after he had undertaken it; as if one should say that a son could have the consent of a virtuous father to make him a liar and guilty of perjury. For God the Father had mised, and solemnly confirmed by oath, that he would procure our salvation by the Son. 6thly. Nor is it less absurd, that they perceive no inconvenience flowing from the nonsusception, or from the resignation of that office, but this one, that in that case Christ, would not enjoy, or would forfeit the promised reward; since the very salvation of all the elect, and, which is above all, the whole of the glory of God, would thence fall to the ground. I would also fain know, what reward Christ would, according to that hypothesis, have forfeited; whether the honour of the hypostatical union, or eternal salvation itself, and the communion

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of the divine love and glory; or whether that sublime glory, in which he is now eminently placed above the rest of the creatures; also, whether it is not blasphemy to say, that either the hypos tatical union is dissolved, or that any nature bypostatically united to the Son of God, can have no share in eternal salvation; or, if in a state of happiness, has not a more excellent name than the rest of the creatures: in like manner, whether the loss of so great a happiness, can, in an intelligent nature, be without an eternal sensation of the most bitter anguish: in fine, whether it is not much better and more worthy of God and his Christ, to believe that Christ could not but undertake the office assigned unto him by the Father, and never withdraw from it, than run headlong into such absurdities.

XXVIII. We shall briefly dispatch the fourth thing remaining; namely, the reward which the Son was to obtain in virtue of this covenant, by enquiring first, what reward was promised the Son: and then what relation his obedience had to this reward.

XXIX. The reward promised to the Son, is the highest degree of glory, John xvii. 1. "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." But this glory may be considered distinctly with respect to the humanity, to the Deity, and to the whole person. In the humanity, I observe these three degrees of glory. 1st. That, together with the elect, his fellows, Psal. xlv. 7. and co-heirs, Rom. viii. 17. it is blessed in the perfect fruition of God. 2dly. That it is exalted above all creatures, on account of the dignity of the hypostatical union. 3dly. That the glory of his Godhead shines forth therein, with a more illustrious refulgence than in the days of his flesh: so that the man Christ cannot be seen, but he must appear to be the glorious Son of God, and his glory be as " the glory of the only begotten of the Father," John i. 14.

XXX. As the Deity of the Son could not properly be humbled, so neither could it acquire any new increase of glory. For as the humiliation of Christ, with respect to his God-head, consisted in this, that under the human form of a servant, which he assumed, the brightness of his glory was covered as with a vail: so the glorification of the Deity consists in this, that all the magnificence of the glorious majesty of God beautifully dis covers itself, and becomes more conspicuous. And this is what Christ prayed for, John xvii. 5. " And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine ownself, with the glory which I had with thee, before the world was.'

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XXXI. The whole person of the Mediator obtains for a reward, 1st. That God hath weg was over raised, "highly exalted him, and given him a name, which is above every name,"

Phil. ix. 2.Far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come," Eph. i. 21. 2dly. That the whole church is given him as his peculiar possession, Ps. ii. 8. Is. liii. 10. And that he himself is given as head over all things to the church, Epb. i. 22. and all power given him in heaven and in earth, Matt. xxviii. 18. that he may govern all things, for the benefit of the church. 3dly. That, on account of the most intimate union of the church, as his mystical body, with himself, he received all those gifts which he merited, and on that account are bestowed on the elect. For the church united to Christ,the body, together with the head, is called Christ, 1 Cor. xii. 12. And thus literally run the words, Psal. lxviii. 18. thou hast received gifts in men, as the Septuagint also renders them, ἔλαβες δόματα ἐν ἀνθ guros. Instead of which the apostle, Eph. iv. 8. not literally, but giving the sense of the words, says, idwas doμara roic avôgúxois, he gave gifts to men. For, as Christ is supposed to receive them, when they are given to his members, so he gives his members what he received of the Father, Acts ii. 33. therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.

XXXII. The obedience of Christ bears to these blessings, not only the relation of antecedent to consequent, but of merit to reward: so that his obedience is the cause, and the condition now fulfilled, by virtue of which he has a right to the reward, as several express passages of scripture declare; Ps. xlv. 7. thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness, (which is a description of the obedience of Christ) 15, THEREFORE God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows; which words contain the reward, intimating the most joyful entrance of Christ into the kingdom of his glory ard delight. The relation of obedience to the reward is set forth by the word therefore, which denotes the cause, and not a mere antecedent. In like manner, Isa. liii. 12. 15, THEREFORE will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, wx na BECAUSE he hath poured out his soul unto death. Where the relative particles, x n and expressly indicate that commutative justice, whereby the reward due, bears a reciprocal relation to the obedience performed, Phil. ii. 8, 9. he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross: διὸ καὶ ὁ Θεὸς ἁυλον υπερύψωσε, WHEREFORE God also hath highlyeralted him. Heb. xii. 2. ἀντὶ της προκειμενης αυτῶ χαρας υπέμεινε ςαυρόν, who, FOR the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.

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Where there is an express commutation, or interchange of obedience and reward.

XXXIII. And the thing speaks for itself. For as there is a covenant between the Father and the Son; when thou shalt make his soul (if the soul of the Son shall devote himself) an offering for sin, Isa. liii. 10. upon performing the condition, the Son acquired a right to the reward, and so has a merit according to the covenant. Nay, as it is not the obedience of a mere man, but of Christ God-man, an infinite person, it is also of an infinite value, consequently bears the justest proportion to the greatest corres ponding glory; and thus far it is a merit of condignity, as it is called; such as no mere creature is capable to acquire.

XXXIV. The passages of scripture which represent, the humiliation of Christ as the antecedent to the subsequent glory, are not contrary to this doctrine. For every cause is an antecedent, though every antecedent is not a cause. And the merit of Christ for himself is so far from being prejudicial to his merit for us, that on the contrary, they are inseparably conjoined. For if he merited for himself, in order to be the head of the elect in glory, and to receive gifts for them, he certainly at the same time, merited for the elect, in order to their being glorified, and enriched with gifts becoming the mystical body of Christ. Neither by this doctrine is the excellency of the love of Christ towards us diminished, though in his state of humiliation, he had likewise an eye to his own exaltation. For he might have been glorious as to himself, without going to it by this way of death, and the pains of hell. Besides he looked upon his own glory as the beginning and cause of ours, and whose fruit was all to redound to us. And it was the highest pitch of love, that he would not be glorious without us. Nor should the word xagatal, given which the apostle uses, Phil. ii. 9. be urged too closely, as if the rewards there mentioned were of mere grace freely given to Christ, without any regard to h obedience, as the cause of his right or title to them. For Faul there expressly asserts, that they were given to Christ on account of his obedience. And that term does not always denote mere grace. Hesychius, that very excellent master of Greek, explains it by dgãr là nexagieuéra, to do what is acceptable. But those things also are called acceptable, which are due; the Greeks say, Oɛbiç xexagiouína moui, to do what is acceptable to the gods. Whence the same thing, which here, in respect to Christ is called xágua, is Isaiah xlix. 4. called his work, or the reward of his work, adjudged to him by the just judgment of God. "My judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." So that the plain meaning of this passage in Paul is this; because

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