Christ Set Forth

And Secondly, That those kind of expressions which were used of God before the Assumption of our nature, only in a way of metaphor and similitude (after the manner of men) should in no further, or more real and proper sense be spoken of Christ and his humane nature now assumed, & when he is a man as truly and properly as we are, I cannot imagine; when I consider and remember that which I last insisted on, that one end of Christs taking an humane nature, was, that he might be a [merciful] High-Priest for ever; in such a way, as he being God alone, could not have been. I confess I have often wondered at that expression there used, Heb. 2. He took the seed of Abraham, that he might he made a merciful high-Priest, which at the first reading, sounded, as if God had been made more merciful by taking our nature. But this solved the wonder, that this assumption added a new way of Gods being merciful: By means of which it may now be said, (for the comfort and relief of our faith) that God is truly and really merciful, as a man. And the consideration of this, contributes this to the clearing of the thing in hand, that whereas God of himself was so blessed and perfect, that his blessedness could not have been touched with the least feeling of our infirmities; neither was he in himself capable of any such affection of pity, or compassion; He is not as a man that he should pity or repent, &c. He can indeed do that for us in our distress, which a man that pities us useth to do: but the affections and bowels themselves ⟨p. 113⟩he is not capable of. Hence therefore amongst other ends of assuming mans nature, this fell in before God as one, that God might thereby become loving and merciful unto men, as one man is to another. And so, that what before was but improperly spoken, and by way of Metaphor and similitude in the Old Testament, so to convey it to our apprehensions, might now be truly attributed unto him in the reality; that God might be for ever said to be compassionate as a man, and to be touched with a feeling of our infirmities as a man. And thus by this happy union of both Natures, the language of the Old Testament uttered only in a figure, becomes verified and fulfilled in the truth of it, as in all other things the shadows of it were in Christ fulfilled.

And Secondly, That those kind of expressions which were used of God before the Assumption of our nature, onely in a way of metaphor and similitude (after the manner of men) should in no further, or more reall and proper sense be spoken of Christ and his humane nature now assumed, & when he is a man as truly and properly as we are, I cannot imagine; when I consider and remember that which I last insisted on, that one end of Christs taking an humane nature, was, that hee might be a [mercifull] High-Priest for ever; in such a way, as he being God alone, could not have beene. I confesse I have often wondred at that expression there used,