The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption…

The Apostle tells us, that Jews and Gentiles conspired in the contempt of the Gospel.¹ Reason cannot hear without great astonishment, for the appearing contradiction between the terms, that God should be made Man, and the Eternal die. The Jews esteemed it an intolerable Blasphemy, and without any Process of Law were ready to stone the Lord Jesus,² That being a man, he should make himself equal with God. And they upbraided him in his Sufferings that he could not save himself. If he be the King of Israel, ³let him come down from the Cross, and we will believe on him. The Gentiles despised the Gospel as an absurd ill-contrived Fable.⁴ For what in appearance is more unbecoming God,⁵ and injurious to his Perfections, than to take the frail garment of Flesh, to be torn and trampled on. Their natural Knowledge of the Deity inclined them to think the Incarnation impossible. There is no resemblance of it in the whole compass of Nature. For natural Union supposes the parts incomplete, and capable of Perfection by their joining together: But that a Being infinitely perfect should assume by personal Union a nature inferior to it self, the Heathens looked on it as a Fable forged according to the model of the fictions concerning Danae, and Antiope. ⁶And the Doctrine of our Saviours Death on the Cross they rejected as an impiety contumelious to God. They judged it inconsistent with the Majesty and Happiness of the Deity, to ascribe to ⟨p. 129⟩Him that, which is the punishment of the most guilty and miserable. In the account of carnal Reason they thought more worthily of God by denying that of Him, which is only due to the worst of men. Celsus, who with as much Subtlety as Malice,⁷ urges all that with any appearance could be objected against our Saviour, principally insists on his Poverty and Sufferings, the Meanness and Misery of his condition in the world. 'Twas fit, saith he, that the Son of God should appear as the Sun,