By the late DAVID DICKSON, Irvine.
IX. OF THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION.
(Continued from page 247).
Of the Sufferings of Christ in His Soul.—Our Lord’s sufferings in His body did not fully satisfy divine justice; (1) because as God put a sanction on the law and covenant of works made with us all in Adam, that he and his should be liable to death both of body and soul (which covenant being broken by sin, all sinners became obnoxious to the death both of body and soul) so the redeemed behoved to be delivered from the death of both, by the Redeemer’s tasting of death in both kinds, as much as should be sufficient for their redemption. (2) As sin infected the whole man, soul and body, and the curse following on sin, left no part nor power of the man’s soul free; so justice required that the Redeemer, coming in the room of the persons redeemed, should feel the force of the curse both in body and soul.
Objection.—But how can the soul die, seeing it is by the ordinance of God in creation made immortal? Answer.—The death of the soul is not in all things like to the death of the body; for, albeit the spiritual substance of the soul be made immortal, and not to be extinguished, yet it is subject to its own sort of death, which consists in the separation of it from communion with God, in such and such degrees, as justly may be called the death of the soul; from which sort of death, the immortality of the soul not only does not deliver, but also it does augment it and perpetuate it, till this death be removed.
Objection.—But, seeing the human soul of our Lord could never be separated from the permanent holiness wherewith it was endued in the first infusion of it in the body, and could never be separated from the indissoluble personal union with the second person of the Godhead assuming it could how could His soul be subject to any degrees of death? Answer.—Albeit the conatural holiness of the soul of Christ could not be removed, nor the personal union of it be dissolved, no, not when the soul was separated from the body, yet it was subject, by Christ’s own consent, to be emptied of strength natural; to be deprived for a time of the clearness of vision of its own blessedness, and of the quiet possession of the formerly felt peace, and of the fruition of joy for a time; and so, suffer an eclipse of light and consolation, otherwise shining from His Godhead; and so, in this sort of spiritual death, might undergo some degrees of spiritual death.
The Degrees of the Suffering of Christ’s Holy Soul.—Among the degrees of the death suffered by Christ in His soul, we may number, (1) the habitual heaviness of spirit, which haunted Him all the days of His life, as was foretold by Isaiah (liii. 3) “. . . a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” We hear, He wept, but never that He laughed, and but very seldom that He rejoiced. (2) He suffered, in special, sorrow and grief in the observation of the ingratitude of them for whom He came to lay down His life: “We hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not”—Isaiah liii. 3. (3) The hardness of men’s hearts, and the malice of His own covenanted people, and the daily contumelies and despiteful usage He found from day to day, increased His daily grief, as by rivulets the flood is raised in the river: “He was despised and rejected of men”—Isaiah liii. 3. (4) He was tempted in all things like unto us; and albeit in them all never tainted with sin (Heb. iv., 15), yet with what a vexation of His most holy soul, we may easily gather, by comparing the holiness of our Lord with the holiness of His servants, to whom nothing is more bitter than the fiery darts of the devil, and his suggestions and solicitations to sin; especially if we consider the variety of temptations, the heinousness of the sins, whereunto that imprudent and unclean spirit boldly solicited His holiness (Matt. iv.); and withal, the importunity and pertinacity of the devil, who never ceased, partly by himself, partly by those that were his slaves, and partly by the corruption which he found in Christ’s disciples, to pursue, press, and vex the God of glory all the time He lived on earth. (5) The guilt of all the sins, crimes, and vile deeds of the elect, committed from the beginning of the world, was imputed to Him, by accepting of which imputation, albeit He polluted not His conscience, yet He burdened His soul, binding Himself to bear their deserved punishment.
Now when we see that the vilest sinners, as liars, thieves, adulterers, cannot patiently bear themselves called liars or thieves, nor bear the shame of the vileness whereof they are really guilty, with what suffering of soul, with what clouding of the glory of His holiness, think we, did our Lord take upon His shoulders such a dunghill of all vileness, than which nothing could be more unbecoming His holy majesty? (6) Unto all the former degrees of suffering of His soul, the perplexity of His thoughts fell on Him, with the admiration and astonishment of soul, when the full cup of wrath was presented unto Him, in such a terrible way, as made all the powers of His sense and reason for a time to be at a stand. Which suffering of His soul, while the Evangelist is about to express, he says, “He began to be sore amazed, and also to be very heavy”; and to express Himself in these words, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death”—Mark xiv., 33, 34.
Objection.—But did not this astonishing amazement of Christ’s soul, speak some imperfection of the human nature? Answer.—It did no ways argue any imperfection, or lack of sanctity in Him; but only a sinless and kindly infirmity, in regard of natural strength, in the days of His flesh. For the mind of a man, by any sudden and vehement commotion arising from a terrible object, may, without sinning, be so taken up, that the swift progress of his mind in discourse may for a while be stopped, and the act of reasoning suspended a while; all the cogitations of the mind fleeing together to consult, and not being able to extricate themselves in an instant, may stand amazed, and sit down a while, like Job’s friends astonished. Now our Lord, taking on our nature and our common sinless infirmities, became like unto us in all things except sin. Daniel’s infirmity at the sight of an angel, was not sin (Dan. x.).
Objection.—But does not this astonishing admiration, suddenly lighting upon Christ’s soul, prove that something unforeseen of Him did befall Him? Answer.—Not at all; for He knew all things that should befall Him; and told His disciples thereof, and was at a point, and resolved in every thing which was to come, before it came. But this astonishing amazement did only show forth the natural difference between things pre-conceived in the mind, and these same things presented to sense: for there is in the mind a different impression of the preconceived heat of a burning iron, before it do touch the skin, from that powerful impression which a hot iron thrust into the flesh does put upon the sense. In regard of which natural difference between foresight and feeling, between resolution and experience, this astonishment befall our Lord; and in this regard, Christ is said to learn experimental obedience by these things which He suffered (Heb. v., 8).
(To be continued.)