A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

II. The second thing I would observe concerning the incarnation of Christ, is the fullness of the time in which it was accomplished. It was after things had been preparing for it from the very first fall of mankind, and when all things were ready It came to pass at a time, which in infinite wisdom was the most fit and proper: Gal. iv.4. "But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law."

II. The second thing I would observe concerning the incarnation of Christ, is the fulness of the time in which it was acomplished. It was after things had been preparing for it from the very first fall of mankind, and when all things were ready It came to pass at a time, which in infinite wisdom was the most fit and proper: Gal. iv.4. "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law."

It was now the most proper time on every account. Any time before the flood would not have been so fit a time. For then the mischief and ruin that the fall brought on mankind, was not so fully seen. The curse did not so fully come on the earth before the flood, as it did afterwards: for though the ground was cursed ⟨p. 140⟩in a great measure before, yet it pleased God that the curse should once, before the •••oration by Christ, be executed in an universal destruction, as it were, of the very form of the earth, that the dire effects of the fall might once in such a way be seen before the recovery by Christ. Though mankind were mortal before the flood, yet their lives were the greater part of a thousand years in length, a kind of immortality in comparison with what the li•e of man is now. It pleased God, that that curse, "D•st thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," should have its full accomplishment, and be executed in its greatest degree on mankind, before the Redeemer came to purchase a never-ending life for man.