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less feelings peculiar to human nature, which some call sinless infirmities; (how far the expression is proper I must leave to brighter understandings than my own;) which shew that he took a real human nature. He was weary, and sat on Jacob's well, John iv. 6. "When he had fasted forty days and forty nights (during Satan's temptations) he was afterwards an hungred," Matth. iv. 2. When he came from Bethany, and cursed the barren fig-tree, he was hungry, Mark xi. 12, 13, 14.-He thirsted, John xix. 28.-He had feelings of sympathy and compassion. Hence we read that at the grave of Lazarus "Jesus wept," and " groaned in spirit," John xi. 33,35.-And when he was come near Jerusalem he beheld the city, and wept over it," Luke xix. 42.-He slept: "and he was in the hinder part of the ship asleep on a pillow, and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? when he rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm," Mark iv. 38, 39.-He was sensible of pain of body and distress of mind; but from circumstances without him, there being no cause in him. All which prove that he assumed a real human nature, which being a pure nature, we never read that he was sick; nor have we any account that he was ever in the least subject to disease. The physicians had nothing to do with him; for, being perfectly holy, and pos

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sessing no mortality, he was free from all those effects of sin with which our natures are afflicted. He was never unwell, as we are; for, being perfectly holy, disease could have no power in him. I am now,

IV. To oppose the belief of Christ's body being mortal;" and to shew, in some instances, the evil consequences arising from such an error.

When a minister publishes his confession of faith to the world, or to the church, we naturally expect it will be fully confirmed by scripture; but this gentleman only says, "Before he suffered it was a mortal body." This is his faith; but where does he find passages of scripture to prove the truth of the assertion? There are none at all; therefore his confession, or this article of his faith, cannot be received. I reject it altogether, because it is not according to scripture. And upon this the church of England speaks well in her Sixth Article upon the holy scripture: "Whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith." And the scriptures are very decisive upon the subject. "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them,” Isa. viii. 20.

Again. "If any speak, let him speak as the oracles of God, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ," 1 Pet. iv. 11. Adam's nature was the workmanship of God; he was a holy, pure being, and never could have died if he had never sinned; and, if he never could have died, he never could have become mortal; therefore there was no mortality in his nature. As it was the pure workmanship of God, he was holy in both soul and body. This, I presume, is the generally received opinion. Now, if it be so, why is that denied to the Saviour which is granted to Adam? The human nature of Christ was the pure workmanship of God, the product of the Holy Ghost, and his human nature is called an holy thing; and Adam in innocency was a figure of him that was to come: therefore, if there was no mortality in Adam, there was none of course in Christ. And take notice here what a horrid consequence arises out of the assertion that Christ's body was mortal. Christ's body was formed by the Holy Ghost; therefore, if Christ's body was mortal, this shocking consequence naturally follows, that the Holy Ghost is the author of mortality! But I forbear to name the natural inference that must

be drawn from such a consequence. Again. The assertion of Christ's body being mortal has this dreadful idea attached to it; viz. that the

Son of God took into union with himself a mortal body! If so, then where is the difference between ours and his? O, but say the advocates of this erroneous doctrine, we do not believe that there was any sin in Christ! Then, if no sin, how could his body be mortal? The entrance of mortality came into the world thus: "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

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Let our adversaries prove the cause of mor tality in any other way if they can. And, if they cannot do this, then they establish what we defend, that Christ's body was not mortal. And thus, by a necessary consequence, ruin the cause they are labouring to support. What absurdities men run into when they are not taught of God! Again. If Christ's body is mortal, and yet he is without sin, then they hold a sinless mortality, which is as palpable an absurdity (to use the words of the late - amiable Rev. James Hervey on a particular occasion) as to find sound sense and propriety of speech in a person's talking of a dark sunshine, or a round square! Again. They say "his body must have been mortal, because he died." That is easier said than proved. The sins of the elect were imputed to Christ, and to atone for those sins was one reason why he died another reason was to satisfy justice-a

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third, to appease the wrath of God-a fourth, to remove the curse from his family, he being made a curse for his people-a fifth was to reconcile God to man, and man to God-a sixth, to ransom the whole of the elect from death, hell, and the grave-a seventh, to bring us into communion and fellowship with God. But mindhe died, "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."—An eighth was to destroy the devil, and to ransom and save all the elect from his power: "forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, (their nature, but not the sin and mortality of their nature) that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil," Heb. ii. 14. 66 The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil," 1 John iii. 8. Those are some of the things that Christ's death accomplished. Was his body therefore mortal because he thus died? No; for, if his body had been mortal when he died, every individual of the human race must have perished, as he could not have been a foundation for the church of God, for there could have been no church to be the foundation of. No, indeed; heaven would never have been possessed by any of the children of men. Bringing it therefore to this, and to this point so gross an error must lead, it becomes at once

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