our Saviour fasted forty days, there was no other person hungry than that Son of God who made the world; when he sat down weary by the well, there was no other person felt that thirst but he who was eternally begotten of the Father the fountain of the Deity; when he was buffetted and scourged, there was no other person sensible of those pains than that eternal Word which before all worlds was impassible; when he was crucified and died, there was no other person who gave up the ghost but the Son of him, and so of the same nature with him, who only hath immortality. And thus we conclude our first consideration propounded, viz. who it was which suffered; affirming that, in respect of his office, it was the Messias, in respect of his person, it was God the Son.

But the perfect probation and illustration of this truth requireth first a view of the second particular propounded-how, or in what he suffered. For while we prove the Person suffering to be God, we may seem to deny the passion, of which the perfection of the godhead is incapable. The divine nature is of infinite and eternal happiness, never to be disturbed by the least degree of infelicity, and therefore subject to no sense of misery. Wherefore while we profess that the Son of God did suffer for us, we must so far explain our assertion, as to deny that the divine nature of our Saviour suffered. For seeing the divine nature of the Son is common to the Father and the Spirit, if that had been the subject of his passion, then must the Father and the Spirit have suffered. Wherefore as we ascribe the passion to the Son alone, so must we attribute it to that nature which is his alone, that is, the human. And then neither the Father nor the Spirit will appear to suffer, because neither the Father nor the Spirit, but the Són alone, is man, and so capable of suffering.

Whereas then the humanity of Christ consisted of a soul and body, these were the proper subject of his passion; nor could he suffer any thing but in both or either of these two. For as the Word was made flesh, though the Word was never made (as being in the beginning God), but the flesh, that is, the humanity, was made, and the Word assuming it became flesh; so saith

St. Peter, "Christ suffered for us in the flesh," in that nature of man which he took upon him; and so God the Son did suffer, not in that nature in which he was begotten of the Father before all worlds, but in that flesh which by his incarnation he became. For he was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit;" suffered in the weakness of his humanity, but rose by the power of his divinity. As "he was made of the seed of David according to the flesh," in the language of St. Paul; so was "he put to death in the flesh," in the language of St. Peter: and as he was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness;" so was "he quickened by the Spirit." Thus the proper subject and recipient of our Saviour's passion, which he underwent for us, was that nature which he took from us.

Far be it therefore from us to think that the Deity,, who is immutable, could suffer; who only hath immortality, could die. The conjunction with humanity could put no imperfection upon the divinity; nor can that infinite nature by any external acquisition be any way changed in its intrinsical and essential perfections. If the bright rays of the sun are thought to insinuate into the most noisome bodies without any pollution of themselves, how can that spiritual essence contract the least infirmity by any union with humanity? We must neither harbour so low an estimation of the divine nature, as to conceive it capable of any diminution; nor so mean esteem of the essence of the Word, as to imagine it subject to the sufferings of the flesh he took; nor yet so groundless an estimation of the great mystery of the incarnation, as to make the properties of one nature mix in confusion with the other. These were the wild collections of the Arian and Apollinarian heretics, whom the church hath long since silenced by a sound and sober assertion, that all the sufferings of our Mediator were subjected in his human nature.

And now the only difficulty will consist in this, how we can reconcile the Person suffering with the subject of his passion; how we can say that God did suffer, when we profess the godhead suffered not. But this seeming difficulty will admit an easy solution, if we consider the

intimate conjunction of the divine and human nature, and their union in the person of the Son. For hereby those at tributes which properly belong unto the one are given to the other; and that upon good reason. For seeing the same individual Person is, by the conjunction of the nature of God and the nature of man, really and truly both God and man; it necessarily followeth, that it is true to say, "God is man," and as true, "A man is God:" because in this particular he who is man is God, and he who is God is man.

Again; seeing by reason of the incarnation it is proper to say, God is man," it followeth unavoidably, that whatsoever necessarily belongeth to the human nature, may be spoken of God; otherwise there would be a man to whom the nature of man did not belong, which were a contradiction. And seeing by virtue of the same incarnation it is also proper to say, A man is God, by the same necessity of consequence we must acknowledge, that all the essential attributes of the Divine nature may truly be spoken of that man; otherwise there would be one truly and properly God to whom the nature of God did not belong, which is a clear repugnancy.

Again; if the properties of the divine nature may be truly attributed to that man who is God, then may those actions which flow from those properties be attributed to the same. And seeing the properties of the human nature may be also attributed to the eternal Son of God, those actions or passions which did proceed from those properties may be attributed to the same Son of God, or God the Son. Wherefore as God the Son is truly man, and as man truly passible and mortal; so God the Son did truly suffer, and did truly die. And this is the only true communication of properties.

Not that the essential properties of one nature are really communicated to the other nature, as if the divinity of Christ were passible and mortal, or his humanity of original omnipotence and omnipresence; but because the same God the Son was also the Son of Man, he was at the same time both mortal and eternal; mortal, as the Son of Man, in respect of his humanity; eternal, as the Son of God, in respect of his divinity. The sufferings

therefore of the Messias were the sufferings of God the Son: not that they were the sufferings of his Deity, as of which that was incapable; but the sufferings of his humanity, as unto which that was inclinable. For al-. though the human nature was conjoined to the divine, yet it suffered as much as if it had been alone; and the divine as little suffered as if it had not been conjoined:: because each kept their respective properties distinct, without the least confusion in their most intimate conjunction. From whence at last the person suffering is. reconciled to the subject of his passion: for God the Son being not only God, but also man, suffered, though not in his Deity, by reason of which he is truly God; yet in his humanity, by which he who is truly God, is as truly man. And thus we conclude our two first disquisitions; who it was that suffered; in respect of his office, the Messias; in respect of his person, God the Son; how it was he suffered; not in his Deity, which is impassible, but in his humanity, which he assumed, clothed with our infirmities.

Our next inquiry is-what this God the Son did suffer as the Son of Man; not in the latitude of all his sufferings, but so far as they are comprehended in this article; which first prescindeth all the antecedent part by the expression of time, under Pontius Pilate, who was not governor of Judea long before our Saviour's baptism; and then takes. off his concluding passion, by adding his crucifixion and his death. Looking then upon the sufferings of our Saviour in the time of his preaching the gospel, and. especially before his death, we shall best understand them by considering them in relation to the subject or recipient of them. And seeing we have already showed his passion. was wholly subjected in his human nature, seeing that nature consisteth of two parts, the soul and body; it will be necessary to declare what he suffered in the body,

what in the soul.

For the first; as we believe the Son of God took upon him the nature of man, of which the body is a part; so we acknowledge that he took a true and real body, so as to become flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone. This body, of Christ, really and truly human, was also frail and mor

tal, as being accompanied with all those natural proper ties which necessarily flow from the condition of a frail and mortal body; and though now the same body, exalted above the highest heavens, by virtue of its glorification be put beyond all possibility of passion, yet in the time of his humiliation it was clothed with no such glorious perfection; but as it was subject unto, so it felt weariness, hunger, and thirst. Nor was it only liable to those internal weaknesses and natural infirmities, but to all outward injuries and violent impressions. As all our corporal pain consists in that sense which ariseth from the solution of that continuity which is connatural to the parts of our body; so no parts of his sacred body were injuriously violated by any outward impression, but he was truly and fully sensible of the pain arising from that violation. Deep was that sense and grievous was that pain which those Scourges produced, "when the ploughers ploughed upon his back and made long their furrows;" the dilaceration of those nervous parts created a most sharp and dolorous sensation. The coronary thorns did not only express the scorn of the imposers, by that figure into which they were contrived; but did also pierce his tender and sacred temples to a multiplicity of pains, by their numerous acuminations. That spear directed by an impertinent malice which opened his side, though it brought forth water and blood, caused no dolorous sensation, because the body was then dead: but the nails which pierced his hands and feet made another kind of impression, while it was yet alive and highly sensible. Thus did the body of the Son of Man truly suffer the bitterness of corporal pains and torments inflicted by violent external impressions.

And as our Saviour took upon him both parts of the nature of man, so he suffered in them both, that he might be a Saviour of the whole. In what sense the soul is capable of suffering, in that he was subject to animal passion. Evil apprehended to come tormented his soul with fear, which was as truly in him in respect of what he was to suffer, as hope in reference to the recompense of a reward to come after and for his sufferings. Evil apprehended as present tormented the same with sadness,