fuch glory and grandeur, of such grace and goodness, was not to be achieved by any other agent than him who is the fubftantial virtue and love of God; by whom we fee all extraordinary and most eminent works managed and attributed to him. In the creation of the world he moved upon the waters, forming and actuating the world; by him thofe fignal works of providence, revelation of divine truth, prediction of future events, performance of miracles, renovation of men's minds, and reformation of their manners, are in a particular manner afcribed; and fo to him this most high and glorious performance was proper and due. Gal. i. 15. 2. It being neceffary that our Saviour fhould be confecrated to his great offices, and perfectly fanctified in his perfon; and those performances being appropriated to the Holy Ghost, (the natural spring and author of all derived fanctity,) his efficacy therefore muft needs intervene, if Jeremiah, St. Paul, St. John Baptift, (persons defigned to Jer. i. 5. offices and employments in dignity and importance fo far inferior,) were fanctified, and separated, and filled with the Holy Ghoft from their mother's womb; in how more excellent a kind and degree was it requifite that he should be fanctified, who was fent to redeem and purify the world from all filth and fault? It was neceffary that his human nature, which God vouchfafed fo highly to advance, (to affume into fo near a conjunction and union with himself,) fhould be free from all ftain and pollution, (fuch as adheres to our finful flesh and corrupt nature in ordinary Rom.viii.3. propagation;) that he whom God fhould fo dearly love, and be fo entirely pleased with, should be void of the leaft inclination to iniquity or impurity; for God, as the Psalmist Pfal. v. 4. tells us, is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with him: He is of purer eyes than Heb. i. 13. (so much as) to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity, much lefs would he receive any defiled thing into so near an union, fo dear a refpect and complacence with himself. It was also neceffary, that he who was appointed to appease God's difpleafure, and reconcile him fully toward us; to redeem mankind from the guilt and power of fin; to fatisfy and expiate for all our offences, with full authority to teach, command, and exemplify all righteousness; 2 Cor. v. 21. fhould himself know no fin; Such a high-priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, feparate from finnersHeb. ii. 26, who had no need first to offer up facrifices for his own fins. The facrifice expiatory of our fins was and ought to be 1 Pet. i. 19. a Lamb (äμapos xai äomiλos) without blemish and without Spot therefore was he fully fanctified, and became rò Luke i. 35. yiov, that holy thing, as he is called by the angel; (There 27. fore that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God;) therefore from the fountain of holiness, the Holy Ghost, (whose proper name doth import holinefs, whofe proper work it is to fanctify,) did he derive a perfect fanctity and purity in his facred concep tion. 3. I might add, as obfervable, the analogy (or refemGal. iv. 19. blance) that is between the conception of our Saviour for us, and his formation in us; his generation and our regeneration; his becoming our brother in the flesh, our becoming his brethren in the Spirit; both being performed by the fame agent: as Chrift was made true man, and partaker of our nature, fo we become true Chriftians, and 2 Pet. i. 4. (Jsías púœews xowwvoi) partakers of the divine nature by the operation of the fame divine Spirit: as he by nature, so John i. 13. we by grace are born not by blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Hence accrues a new relation, and we become his brethren, not only as he was made like us, but as we become like him, and are 1John iii. 9. begot of God by the fame heavenly virtue, by the same incorruptible feed. 1 Pet. i. 23. The proper ufe of this doctrine is to caufe us farther ftill to adore the goodness and wisdom of God, so fully, fo fitly carrying on that infinitely merciful and gracious work of our redemption; all the divine Persons in a particular manner confpiring, as in the defign, fo in the execution thereof: the Father fending his Son; the Son condescending to come; the Holy Ghoft bringing him into the world: to which bleffed Trinity therefore rendering all praise and thanks, we proceed to that which is farther contained in thefe words; Born of the Virgin Mary. 31. ii. 5. Born of her. Being born doth not barely denote his nativity, but includes his whole human generation, (with the parts and progress thereof;) implying all that she, as a mother, did confer thereto; and comprehending, 1. His conception of her substance; whence he is called the fruit Luke i. 41, of her womb; rod (or branch) Sprouting from the ftem of . xi. 1. Jeffe; and, Behold, faith the angel, ovaańwy iv yaspì, thou Luke xi. 27. fhalt conceive in thy womb. 2. The nutrition, augmentation, and entire conformation of his body, alfo of her blood and fubftance; whence her womb is faid to bear him, (Blessed is the womb that bare thee;) that she was yxvos, (gravidated, or) great with child of him; and ɛυpén, she was found (she was observed by apparent figns) Matt. i. 18. Ev yaspì xeoa, to be of child with him. 3. His nativity itself; thus expreffed by the Evangelift; The days were Luke ii, 6, accomplished that she should be delivered; and she brought forth her firftborn Son. Whatever therefore any mother doth confer to the entire production of a child is attributed plainly to the Virgin; whence she is truly and properly (and is accordingly frequently called in the Gofpels) the mother of our Saviour, the mother of our Lord; Luke i. 43. and hath been (may be in some propriety of speech) styled Osoróxos, Deipara; Dei Genetrix et Dei Mater; the Bearer and Mother of God, (that is, of him who is God, though not of him, as God.) But let us farther obferve what the words afford to us confiderable: Born of the Virgin Mary: they imply our Saviour born of a woman, born of a virgin, born of Mary. Of a woman, that was neceffary or requifite to be; of a virgin, that was convenient, decent, and wonderful; of Mary, that determines the perfon, and involves many circumstances of importance. 1. I fay, born of a woman, èx ou, (as it is in the best copies of St. Luke, chap. i. 35.) and ix yuvaixòs, (as it is in St. Paul, Gal. iv. 4.) not in a woman only, (iv auTỹ YEVvŋdèv, Matt. i. 20.) or through a woman, but of a woman; 7. 25. that is, of the matter and substance of a woman; fo as thereby to bear the relation of a kinfman, to become conActs xvii. fanguineous to all mankind, (whom God did make of one blood.) We may eafily conceive that God could have immediately created (as he did our first parents) a nature in kind and properties like to ours, and affumed it; but that would not have fo fitly ferved his defign of reconciling himself to us and redeeming us; to the effecting that, not only a resemblance in nature, but a cognation and proximity of blood was requifite, or at least more convenient and fuitable. Our blood being tainted, our whole stock degraded by the difloyalty and rebellion of our common ancestors, it was fit it fhould be purged and restored by the fatisfactory merit and fidelity of one who was of our race and kindred. We being to be adopted and received into God's family, it was fit it should be by intervention of a common relation: fuch is St. Paul's difcourfe; Gal. iv. 4,5. God fent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem thofe that were under the law; that by performing the obedience due to the law, he might redeem thofe, who being obliged to obey the law, did yet tranfgrefs it, (ἵνα τὴν υἱοθεσίαν ἀπολάβωμεν ; that we might be conftituted fons; receive the state and quality of fons to God.) It was congruous that the devil, who by the weakness of a woman had feduced man from his duty to God, (had overthrown and triumphed over God's creature,) fhould, in juft revenge, and for reparation of God's honour, by the strength and conftancy of one proceeding from a woman, be himself defeated and debafed, accordGen. iii. 15. ing to the prophetical promise, The feed of the woman fhall break the ferpent's head: of the woman; the man is not mentioned; for (that which is next to be confidered) he was born of the Virgin Mary. So it was of old preIf. vii. 14. fignified and prophefied; A Virgin fhall conceive, and bear Luke i. 34. a fon: a Virgin; alma, (fo Aquila renders it,) ¿móxpusos, a reclufe; that perhaps feldom had seen, had never how Matt. i. 23. ever known a man. 2. Born of a Virgin. So it was, and fo it was fit it fhould be. It was decent that the tabernacle in which 11, &c. God himself would dwell fhould be wholly proper and enclosed; that the temple of the divinity should be holy and separate; that the foil whence holiness itself would germinate fhould be clear and free from all fordid mixtures; that none should touch the border of that mountain Exod. xix. where God would manifeft himself, nor the luft of man approach that place whence the glory of God fhould fo illuftriously shine forth. It was alfo more than convenient, to excite admiration, to beget faith, to procure reverence in us, that our Saviour fhould be born in a manner fo peculiar and miraculous; it could not otherwife appear plainly that he was the Son of God. Who that hears of fuch a paffage can forbear to wonder and confider? Who can doubt him to be the Son of God, whom by fufficient and certain atteftation he learns to have been conceived without any concurrence of man? Who can do otherwife than adore him, that was born in a manner fo glorious and fupernatural? This, it feems, was that new thing (fo ftrange and admirable) which in the Prophet Jeremiah God did forefhew he would create in the earth, (than when he would reftore Zion, and make a new covenant with Ifrael,) a woman fhall compass a man; that is, a Jer. xxxi. woman (in a manner extraordinary, without man's concourfe) fhall conceive and contain a man; a man, who fhall accomplish those great things there prophefied of and promised. 22. πατριᾶς Δα But farther; born of Mary; of that particular person determined and defcribed in the Gospel; her that was efpoused to and lived with Jofeph; (Jofeph the carpenter, that was born in the town of Bethlehem; lived in Nazareth; was descended in a direct lineage from King Da- Luke ii. 4. ἐξ οἴκε καὶ vid, according to both a natural and legal defcent, and confequently from Abraham; fhe being alfo of the fame. ftock and family, as may be collected from fome circumstances intimated in the story, but more certainly deduced from the prophecies concerning our Saviour's stock, and the affertions implying their accomplishment;) Mary, I fay, a princess by blood and progeny; and extracted from the most illustrious ftem upon earth, not only famous Vid. Luke ii. 4. |