SERMON XVII.

ACTS xvi. 30, 31.

What must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

WE have particularly considered the pretensions which Jesus has to our faith in him as our Saviour, from his being Christ, in himself the only Son of the Father, and by constitution our Lord. If he be set apart and fitted for his work by divine unction, if he cannot want power to perform it as being the only-begotten Son, and if his authority be not less than his power as Lord of all in his mediatorial character, then the grounds on which we believe in him cannot be insufficient, and we have no room left us to question whether there be a saving efficacy in all that he has done, is doing, and has yet to do, in the matter of God's glory in our salvation, who believe in his name.

By what steps he has proceeded and does proceed herein, working out salvation, we now declare, when we say, "Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," &c. In which several points are comprised certain foundations of fact, upon the performance of which, we, knowing also who he is, remain satisfied in his being a Saviour sufficient in all respects.

The first is," That he was conceived by the Holy Ghost ;" and from his being so (in connexion with the dignity of his person as the Son of God, and his divine constitution to his office and to dominion therein, and with the several other points which come afterwards to be spoken to as necessary to make his work complete), we profess our belief in him as Jesus, the Saviour. And it will be exceedingly delightful to the humble soul to follow Jesus through the whole of these transactions, and to sce him taking away, one after another, all those obstacles which

stood in the way of fallen man's happiness in God in the future and eternal world.

This person, who, we say, was conceived by the Holy Ghost, is no other than he who was just before spoken of, Jesus Christ the only Son our Lord. And when we allege that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, we mean to express our belief, "That the Word was made flesh." Concerning which incarnation of the Word by the operation of the Holy Ghost on the Virgin Mary, enabling her to conceive, two things must be previously laid down.

First. That there was an absolute necessity that the onlybegotten Son, who had undertaken the work of redemption, should be made man to effect it. He was to redeem man, who was fallen from God, and lay under a curse declared by the mouth of God," In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," and which justice demanded the full execution of. The nature, therefore, which lay under the curse for sin, must suffer; and in that must the atonement be made. According to which was the original promise respecting our redemption; The seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head.' And therefore the apostle urges, that Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For, verily, he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren." And,

Secondly. It was not less necessary that the manhood he should assume should be free from sin, I mean especially from original sin, which is the source of all actual transgression, and that for some very important reasons. Namely, First, That it might be fit to be assumed into union with the Word, which it could not be if itself had been defiled by sin. Secondly, Because being to discharge the office of a Saviour, and therefore both to perform a perfect obedience, and to make a satisfying atonement for us, it was absolutely needful that he should be altogether holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; for other

wise his obedience could not have been a proper and acceptable obedience, nor of consequence his death meritorious. His obedience could not have been a proper obedience, because it would have been deficient in a perfect conformity to the law, which on no consideration, and in no view, admits of the least deviation from it; and so his death would have been but the mere execution of the curse of the law upon him for his own personal guilt: so that in this case, instead of having provided a righteousness and atonement for others, he should have needed both from some other for himself. And, Thirdly, Because as from our other representative and covenant-head there is derived to us a principle of sin, so from Christ believers must receive a contrary and quickening spirit and principle of universal holiness, which nevertheless could not have been the case, had he not been possessed of it himself, but born in sin as we are.

These things being laid down, we shall very readily see the meaning of our professor, when he says, "I believe in Jesus Christ the only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost. I believe in him (says he) in all those characters, among other reasons for this, because he was in that manner conceived: for as I am well satisfied of the necessity there was that the Word should have been made flesh for our salvation, and that that flesh should have been free from all sin, so I hereby declare myself to be undoubtedly assured of the fact itself," and this is my intention in saying, "that I believe he was conceived by the Holy Ghost;" whereby I would have it understood,

First.-That I believe the human nature or manhood of Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost. And my meaning is, on the one hand, that what the Virgin was enabled to conceive in her womb was a complete, real, and proper man, consisting of a reasonable soul and human flesh as other men do, and of his mother's substance as other children are; in which respect there is no manner of difference between him and me, both of us deriving our substance in the womb from our respective mothers; and both subsisting of a reasonable soul and human flesh, which I as plainly discern he did, as I know I do myself. But, on the other hand, I am not less comfortably satisfied, that in regard of the manner of our conception in the wombs of our several mothers, there is the greatest difference. For whereas I was in a natural

ordinary way begotten, the manhood of Jesus was conceived without the Virgin's knowing a man, by the Holy Ghost coming upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadowing her, whereby this child was singularly conceived. And although I know not anything of the manner of this miraculous conception, nor have any conceit arising therefrom that what was begotten was of the substance of the Holy Ghost, or anything other than proper man; yet hereby I am fully assured the nature of that child was holy, and that being conceived by the Holy Ghost, he was conceived without that infection of original sin which accompanies the conception of every one naturally gendered of Adam; of which, as I am satisfied by the manner of his conception, so am I further clearly assured by the express words of the angel, who, speaking of the Holy Ghost's overshadowing Mary, adds, as the consequence thereof, "Therefore also that HOLY thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." And that he was indeed a holy thing, without any mixture of sin, is still additionally manifest to me from his whole life afterwards, in which he always did the things which please God, and upon just grounds challenges all his enemies to convince him of sin; as indeed well he might, seeing he had so great and sufficient a testimony of his perfect uprightness as God's public voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." But this is not all that I would be understood to mean by his being conceived by the Holy Ghost; for,

Secondly. I do intend thereby further (without which indeed I could not say that the Word was made flesh) the assumption of this manhood so conceived into personal union with the eternal Son of the Father. This assumption or taking of the manhood into God, as it is the corner-stone of all his mediatorial transactions (since whatever he has done, does, or shall do, in quality of Mediator, he does, not as God simply, but as God manifest in the flesh), I find clearly set down in Scripture, where I am told, "that the Word was made flesh; that God was manifest in the flesh; that Christ Jesus being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man." Indeed nothing is more evident to me through the whole Scriptures, especially of the New Testament,

than that that very person, who was the Son of God from all eternity, was made man in time. From the most undoubted testimonies, by the plainest declarations, and convincing actions, I am perfectly satisfied of his being at once the Son of God and the Son of man; I say at once, because while I see distinctly the divine and human natures subsisting in him, I see as distinctly that they subsist together in his own person. For by personal union I mean the subsisting together of two things dif ferent in nature in one person. So I know that the soul and body of man are of different natures, yet united they make one only person, a man. In like manner I am as well convinced that two natures subsist together in Christ, so as that, while they are two different natures, they do nevertheless make but one person. I say they do subsist together in his one person; and that without confusion for although by their union they constitute that person, yet in that person they so subsist together as that there is no manner of mixture, or changing the one nature with or into the other; but neither nature being changed into or confounded with the other, they do both retain the acts and operations which are proper to each nature. Nevertheless, as both these natures do subsist in the same one person, the act of that person is that of both the natures together. Hence I hear Jesus saying while he was on earth, that the Son of man is in heaven, ascribing, in consequence of this personal union, that which was proper to the divine nature unto the human, which latter was not then, but the divine nature only, in heaven. And so on the other part I find that which is proper to the human nature ascribed to the divine; as when it is said, God purchased the church with his own blood, we have the action of the manhood attributed to the Godhead, and therein not only the clearest proof of the union of the two natures in Christ, but also the comfort to find that whatever the man Jesus said or did was also done and said by the Son of God. Knowing him therefore to be God and man in one person, I do,

Thirdly. Most satisfiedly and assuredly acquiesce in him as being exactly that Mediator which the glory of God on one side, and the wants of us fallen creatures demand on the other. Being God and man at once, he could in our nature perform an obedience and pay a price, which, because of his being the Son of God,