(2.) Hence doth he become an endless, bottomless
fountain of grace to all them that believe. The fulness that it pleased
the Father to commit to Christ, to be the great treasury and
storehouse of the church, did not, doth not, lie in the human nature,
considered in itself; but in the person of the mediator, God and man.
Consider wherein his communication of grace doth consist, and this will be
evident. The foundation of all is laid in his satisfaction, merit, and
purchase; these are the morally procuring cause of all the grace we receive
from Christ. Hence all grace becomes to be his; John xvi. 14, 15. all
the things of the new covenant, the promises of God, all the mercy, love,
grace, glory promised, became, I say, to be his. Not as though they were
all actually invested, or did reside and were in the human nature, and were
from thence really communicated to us by a participation of a
portion of what did so inhere: but they are morally his, by a Isa. liii. 11, 12; John i. 16; Col. i. 19, 20. compact,
to be bestowed by him as he thinks good, as he is mediator, God and man;
that is, the only begotten Son made flesh, John i.
14, “from whose fulness we receive, and grace for grace.” The
real communication of grace is by Christ sending the Holy Ghost to
regenerate us, and to create all the habitual grace, with the daily
supplies thereof, in our hearts, that we are made partakers of. Now the
Holy Ghost is thus sent by Christ as mediator, God and man, as is at large
declared, John xiv.,
xv., xvi.; of which more afterward. This, then, is that which I
intend by this fulness of grace that is in Christ, from whence we have both
our beginning and all our supplies; which makes him, as he is the Alpha and
Omega of his church, the beginner and finisher of our faith, excellent and
desirable to our souls: Heb. xii.
2; Rev. i. 11.— Upon the payment of the great price of his blood, and full acquitment on
the satisfaction he made, all grace whatever (of which at large afterward)
becomes, in a moral sense, his, at his disposal; and he bestows it on, or
works it in, the hearts of his by the Holy Ghost, according as, in his
infinite wisdom, he sees it needful. How glorious is he to the soul on
this consideration! That is most excellent to us which suits us in a
wanting condition, — that which gives bread to the hungry, water to the
thirsty, mercy to the perishing. All our reliefs are thus in our Beloved.
Here is the life of our souls, the joy of our hearts, our
relief against sin and deliverance from the wrath to
come.