to execute condign punishment for sin. He is the Judge of the world, and is the infinitely just judge of it, and will not at all acquit the wicked, or by any means clear the guilty.
And yet he is one that is infinitely gracious and merciful. Though his justice be so strict with respect to all sin, and every breach of the law, yet he has grace sufficient for every sinner, and even the chief of sinners. And it is not only sufficient for the most unworthy to show them mercy, and bestow some good upon them, but to bestow the greatest good; yea, it is sufficient to bestow all good upon them, and to do all things for them. There is no benefit or blessing that they can receive so great, but the grace of Christ is sufficient to bestow it on the greatest sinner that ever lived. And not only so, but so great is his grace, that nothing is too much as the means of this good: it is sufficient not only to do great things, but also to suffer in order to it; and not only to suffer, but to suffer most extremely even unto death, the most terrible of natural evils; and not only death, but the most ignominious and tormenting, and every way the most terrible death that men could inflict; yea, and greater sufferings than men could inflict, who could only torment the body, but also those sufferings in his soul, that were the more immediate fruits of the wrath of God against the sins of those he undertakes for.
II. There do meet in the person of Christ such really diverse excellencies, which otherwise would have been thought utterly incompatible in the same subject; such as are conjoined in no other person whatever, either divine, human, or angelical; and such as neither men nor angels would ever have imagined could have met together in the same person, had it not been seen in the person of Christ. I would give some instances.
1. In the person of Christ do meet together infinite glory, and the lowest humility. Infinite glory and the virtue of humility, meet in no other person but Christ. They meet in no created person; for no created person has infinite glory and they meet in no other divine person but Christ. For though the divine nature be infinitely abhorrent to pride, yet humility is not properly predicable of God the Father, and the Holy Ghost, that exist only in the divine nature; because it is a proper excellency only of a created nature; for it consists radically in a sense of a comparative lowness and littleness before God, or the great distance between God and the subject of this virtue; but it would be a contradiction to suppose any such thing in God.
But in Jesus Christ, who is both God and man, these two diverse excellencies are sweetly united. He is a person infinitely exalted in glory and dignity. Phil. ii. 6, "Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God." There is equal honor due to him with the Father. John v. 25, "That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." God himself says so to him: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever," Heb. i. 8. And there is the same supreme respect and divine worship paid to him by the angels of heaven, as to God the Father; as there, verse 6, "Let all the angels of God worship him."
But however he is thus above all, yet he is lowest of all in humility. There never was so great an instance of this virtue among either men or angels, as Jesus None ever was so sensible of the distance between God and him, or had a heart so lowly before God, as the man Christ Jesus, Matt. xi. 29. What a wonderful spirit of humility appeared in him, when he was here upon earth in all his behavior! In his contentment, in his mean outward condition, conentedly living in the family of Joseph the carpenter, and Mary his mother, for thirty years together and afterwards choosing outward meanness, poverty and
