great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ.' He speaks in both places of one and the same person, namely, Christ under two titles: and thus here he doth the like of God the Father, 'The God and Father of Christ.' And this parallel speech used to Christ in those places, compared with what the Apostle useth here, those places are strong proofs and assertions apostolical, that Christ is God as well as Saviour, the great God and Saviour; even as it is evident here in the like tenor of speech, that the person of God the Father is both the God and the Father of Christ: for in the very same strain and tenor of speech it is that both these are said of Christ, wherein here both are spoken of God the Father in his relation unto Christ. This for the phraseology; now as to the thing itself.

Two things are here to be apart spoken to for the explanation hereof:1. The matter itself: how God the Father is the God and the Father of Christ, and in what respects the one or the other, either of them.

2. The reason why here he singleth out these relations of God to Christ, and under the respects and considerations thereof he blesseth God here.

6

1. The matter itself, 'The God and Father of Christ.'-That the Father is both the God and Father of Christ, other Scriptures affirm, yea, accord also, in putting both relations thus together as well as here; yea, upon the cross he challengeth his interest in both, 'My God, my God,' Matt. xxvii. 46, and Father, into thy hands,' Luke xxiii. 46; and on the other side, when to enter into his glory, he mentions both, John xx. 17, 'I ascend unto my Father, and to my God.' There are both, you see, found in one sentence, only he puts Father first afore being his God; so there; but here the God afore the Father of Jesus Christ.

The difficulty about it is, how these two relations respectively are to be understood.

We all know and acknowledge Christ's person hath two natures. He is God, he is man; and we often find in one and the same sentence several things attributed to the person of Christ, whereof the one is spoken of him in respect of the human nature only, the other in relation to the Divine. I shall mention but one instance, because somewhat akin to this here; Heb. vii. 3, his person is described to be without father, without mother, and both are equally said of this one and the same person; yet the one in respect of one nature only, the other in relation to the other. It is evident the man Jesus had a mother, and yet he is said to be without mother, namely as God. It is evident that he called God his own Father, John v., as also he useth to do upon every occasion everywhere, and yet this person as man is said to be without father. And that both these should be thus attributed to, and said of one and the same person, all the wits in the world cannot otherwise reconcile than by affirming or acknowledging two natures to abide in this one person; and withal what is proper to each, yet to be in common and alike attributed to the person himself, respectively to these two natures. And therefore the Apostle elsewhere is fain to distinguish upon this matter with this or the like distinction: who, according to the flesh or human nature, came of the fathers by his mother Mary; and who, according to the spirit or Divine nature, is the declared Son of God, and God blessed for ever.* You have these distinctions in terminis thus applied, Rom. i. 3, 4, and Rom. ix. 5, and it is the sum of the scope of both places, as also of Acts ii. 30. In like manner here bring but these, the same distinctions tricked up, and insert them to each, and none will question this exposition, that question

En Deus, et Pater unius et ejusdem Christi; Deus quidem ut incarnati, Pater, ut Dei Verbi.'-Marlorat.

not the verity of one of those his natures, that as Son of God, and so God equal with God, God is his Father: and that as Son of man, so the same God that is his Father is his God also. Thus Bishop Davenant expoundeth these words, 'God and Father of Christ.'

The God.-The Father is the God of Christ in relation to his being man, and that in these respects more peculiar to him-

1. Because he chose him to that grace and union, 1 Peter i. 20. Christ as man was predestinated as well as we, and so hath God to be his God by predestination and so by free grace, as well as he is our God in that respect.

2. Because God the Father made a covenant with him. Look, as because of that covenant with Abraham, &c., he is termed the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so in respect of that covenant made with Christ, which we have specified, Isa. xlix., throughout, where Christ doth call him 'My God,' ver. 4, of which covenant, as also God's being his God, David was his type, Ps. lxxxix. 26.

3. Because God was his only refuge in all times of distress. Thus when hanging on the cross, he cries out to him, 'My God, my God,' Matt. Ixvii. 46, compared with Ps. xxii. 1–5.

4. Because God is the author and immediately the matter of Christ's blessedness, (as he is man,) and therefore blessed be he as the God of Christ, who hath blessed our Lord Christ for ever and ever, as Ps. xlv. 2, whereupon, in the 7th verse, it follows, God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.' The Psalmist satisfieth not himself to say, ' God hath anointed thee,' but with an emphasis, 'God, thy God' and thy God he is in relation to this effect and fruit of it, anointing thee with gladness; which, ver. 2, is synonymously expressed, God hath blessed thee for ever.' And then anointed by God as man he was when glorified, Acts iv. 27. And God thus blessed him by becoming himself his blessedness; which, in the 16th Psalm, Christ exults in, ver. 2, 'My soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord.' And, ver. 5, it follows, 'The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance; and, ver. 6, 'I have,' says he, 'a goodly heritage,' that is, in having God to be my God and heritage to live upon for ever; for, as he further speaks in ver. 11, 'in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.' The psalm is made in Christ's name, as the Apostle, Acts ii., and he speaks it of his human nature expressly in the 9th verse, 'My flesh,' says he, shall rest in hope,' namely this hope, by this my death to be advanced to the right hand of God, (which alone that man Christ Jesus is, for as God he was always at his right hand,) where those pleasures are: so then God is his happiness. Hence, therefore, when Christ was risen, and speaks of ascending, and was shortly to ascend, then it was he calls God his God, John xx. 17, 'I ascend to my God;' that is, to him in whom my happiness I now am going to enjoy consists. And therefore, John xiv. 28, he told his disciples, 'If ye loved me, you would rejoice that I go to my Father: for I go to him that is able to make me happy, and is my immediate blessedness. For it follows, 'My Father is greater than I,' (namely, as I am a man,) and so I am to be blessed in him, the less being blessed of the greater. The human nature, though glorified, is not blessedness to itself, it is but finite in itself; but God immediately is. Nor is that human nature, though God dwells in it, the utmost blessedness of us; but God immediately also is: yet as to our right thereunto, it is because he is our God and his God first. Thus his God, as man.

But whether the Father is termed the God of Christ, as Christ is God, and so in relation to his divine nature, I will not debate it. There are that

read that passage of the 45th Psalm thus: O God (as speaking to Christ as God) thy God, so terming his Father, Deus de Deo, God of God, is old: and the Father is Deus gignens, the Son Deus genitus, and Deus Dei is near to these ; the Father is the God of the Son, who is God. But I pass it.

And the Father.-This is out of question spoken of Christ, and is true of him, both as God and also man.

1. As God: so he is his Son, his own Son, Rom. viii. 32, and reciprocally the Father, dios Taтnр, his own Father, John v. 18, and therefore 'equal with God,' as it is emphatically there said; for the Jews objected against him, that marépa ïdiov ëλeye tòv Oeòv, he said God was his own Father, (so in the Greek,) making himself equal with God. All which do imply, that he was such a Son as was begotten of the substance and essence of his Father, even as he that is said to be a man's own natural son useth to be, and is thereby distinguished from their adopted children; and in that respect also is Christ said to be God's only begotten Son, and ó viòs, Dei vivi, that Son of the living God, Matt. xvi. 16; and so discriminated from all other. As from the angels, 'To which of all the angels did he say, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?' Heb. i., and so from all creatures. For whereas, John i. 18, he is termed the only-begotten Son, in distinction there from all creatures, which are said to be but made, ver. 1, 3, and believers to have received power from him to be sons, ver. 12. In fine, he is in such a respect the Son of God, and begotten of God, as being man he was the Son of David, because out of his loins. Thus Matt. xxii. 42. And that he was thus the Son of God, is the main and most fundamental point of the gospel, Rom. i. 3, 4, compared; and therefore is still brought in as the conclusion of all those several discourses of the last evangelist's Gospel, beginning at the first chapter, ver. 18, 49, chap. iii. 16, and so on to chap. xx. 31, where, in the conclusion of his book, he professeth this to have been the intended scope of the whole, 'These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing (thus of him) ye might have life through his name; through that name of his that he is the Son of God, and thereby the fountain of life and sonship to us; for upon this very rock or foundation, Christ told his disciples he

would build his Church.

2. As man and Son of man, God was his Father. That forementioned profession and answer in the name of all the rest of his disciples was setly pitched upon this in Christ's question as punctual thereunto: Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?' That was Christ's question. He answers thereupon, 'The Son of the living God.' Therefore as man he was the Son of the living God. The like ye have uttered by Christ himself, (for it was that point he died upon,) Mark xiv. 61, 62, compared.

But then as to this last point the question is, How it is to be understood that as man he was the Son of God; whether only but as other men, or in any transcendent privilege above us? Or thus, whether as man he was but the adopted son, as the saints are; or whether not the natural Son of God? Which is solved by these considerations :

1. That the subject of this relation as Son to God, or the terminus of it, is not either his nature divine or human, but his person; for sonship is a personal property, not of the nature.

2. Hence, secondly, in the person of Christ there are not two Sons, or two sonships or relations of sonship unto God as a Father; but as God is but one, so the person of the Son but one, and so but one sonship in him.

3. Hence, thirdly, Christ as man is but one and the same Son of God;

that he is as he is God, that is, his style and honour is to be the natural Son of God, even as man. The sonship of the man Christ Jesus doth coalesce into one sonship with the Son of God, even as in like manner the man is taken up into one person with the Son of God, Luke i. 35, ‘That holy thing which shall be born of thee (speaking of Christ's conception to the Virgin Mary) shall be called the Son of God." For look as though he was man, yet that man was never a person of itself, but subsisted from the first in the personality of the second Person: so that the Son of man was never called or accounted a Son to God, of himself, as such; but his sonship was that of the person which he was taken up into. Only with this difference, that he is the Son of God as God, in that he was begotten of the Father's substance, but so the Son of man was not; but this Son of man becoming the Son of God, who was begotten of the substance of the Father by personal union, he the man, by being made one person with him, wears that dignity. The one is per essentia communicationem, the other per unionem cum persona.

4. Hence, fourthly, he is not as man the Son of God naturally or essentially, but he is the Son of God personally. If we take natural for essential, so he is not, as man, God's natural Son; but take natural as in opposition to adoption, and so he is God's natural Son: and not by adoption, this being the title and honour he had from his conception and birth, and from his union with the person of the natural Son, as you heard from the angel, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,' (and God calls things as they are.) And more distinctly, Gal. iv. 4, 'God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons,' where evidently his sonship and ours are set in these terms of distinction, that ours is the sonship of adoption received from his, and that his is primitive, original, and natural; yea, and this is true of him as he is man, for it is spoken of him that was made of a woman, made under the law.'

2. The reason why under these relations of God and Father to Christ, he blesseth God.

Although this will easily appear in many of the particulars that follow, yet one reason may be, to unvail the Old Testament and decipher it into the New, and bring forth the gospel in its substantial and real intendments, both of the promise of blessing, as also of God's relation to us men; God's being their God, this of old was typically set forth under this tenure, 'The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,' Exod. iii. 6. And before them, 'The Lord God of Shem,' Gen. ix. 26; and in the names of these patriarchs the conveyance of the blessing ran, and answerably their return of praise and blessing unto God again then was, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Shem,' Gen. ix. 26. Thus before Abraham. After, when renewed in Jacob's name, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,' as you heard out of David; and this form the Jews (upon whose hearts, as now in their synagogues, the veil remains, 2 Cor. iii. 14, in token thereof they wear it upon their heads,) in their worship keep to this day; but now that the substance is come, the shadows disappear. Abraham, and Isaac, and Israel are subdued. The days are come, as the prophet in another case speaks, that it shall no more be said, The God of Abraham, &c., but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. Christ; and as Isaiah foretold of the gospel times, Isa. lxv. 15, 16, look as my servants (or children of God) shall be called by another name, (namely Christians, as first at Antioch, and no longer Jews;) so also the terms of their covenant is altered, and so their form of blessing God, as

was also foresignified there in the following words, 'He that blesseth himself in the earth, shall bless himself in the God of truth,' namely, when Christ, who is the truth and the life, shall come. Old Zachary, that lived in the expiration or extreme verge of the Old Testament, when Christ was not yet conceived, he then useth that Old Testament form which he found sanctified in the Scriptures of old. But had he stayed half a year longer, (for thereabouts was the distance between Christ's and his son John Baptist's conception,) his 'Blessed be the God of Israel' (which he useth in his song) had been out of date; and 'Blessed be the God and Father of Christ' had come in its room, and been in force.

MEDITATION.

Oh, let us, therefore, that live under the knowledge of Christ in the gospel, bless our God as the God and Father of Jesus Christ, which is the highest note of celebrating his praise which our hearts can reach to! For it is the most elevated strain of the gospel language, and of the glory of God, which any man, or all men, can rise up unto. It is said of Christ in the Psalms, Ps. lxxii. 17, 'All nations shall call him blessed.' In like manner it was spoken of and by herself, that was the mother of his human nature only, 'All generations shall call me blessed.' Oh, then, how should we all bless that God that is the Father of him, who in his person also is God blessed together with his Father for ever! Many good souls find this as an eternal evidence of their own future blessedness, that when wanting assurance of God's love to themselves, they can yet bless God for his being good to others in the same condition with themselves, out of their love to God and to the good of others' souls. If thou findest such elevations of spirit in thee, vent and spend them much more in blessing God, that he is the God and Father of Christ. This is high, and most divine.

Of our Lord Jesus Christ.-He having thus setly displayed these relations of God to Christ, he interweaves withal our special relation to Christ; to wit, his being our Lord; his scope therein being to shew the foundation and descent of those very same relations which God beareth to Christ; and of the same their coming down upon and unto us, namely of his being our God and our Father, which are the groundwork of the conveyance to us of all those particular blessings he doth after enumerate, by and through Jesus Christ's being our Lord or husband.

And it is observable how the Apostle carries on his discourse along. In the second verse he had called God our Father, and Jesus Christ barely the Lord; but then in this verse he styleth this God the Father of Christ, and then subjoins therewith, varying his style, this 'Jesus our Lord.' Thereby to shew the genealogy or descent of our being sons to God, and of God's being our Father, to lie in this, that Christ is our Lord, and so God becomes our Father by being his Father. And then, in the next verse, he answerably proceeds to shew how all other blessings do flow from this relation, first of God to Christ, then this of Christ to us; which in the fifth verse he doth more determinately discover to be his meaning in saying, He hath predestinated us by Jesus Christ to the adoption of children: so that this mention of his being our Lord here, is not merely, as elsewhere, an appellative, or as the ordinary style that is given to the person of Christ, as that whereby he is described when he is spoken of or mentioned, when there is any occasion to name him. Thus frequently his disciples, 'We have seen the Lord,' say they all, John xx. 25. 'It is the Lord,' says he, when he spied him