“To make this appear, I shall consider that account which
Dr Owen gives us of the personal graces and
excellencies of Christ, which in general consist in three
things:— First, His fitness to save, from the grace of union, and the
proper and necessary effects thereof. Secondly, His fulness to save, from
the grace of communion, or the free consequences of the grace of union.
And, thirdly, His excellency to endear, from his complete suitableness to
all the wants of the souls of men. First, That he is fit to be a Saviour,
from the grace of union. And if you will understand what this strange
grace of union is, it is the uniting the nature of God and man in one
person, which makes him fit to be a Saviour to the uttermost. He lays his
hand upon God, by partaking of his nature; and he lays his hand on us, by
partaking of our nature: and so becomes a days-man or umpire between both.
Now, though this be a great truth, that the union of the divine and human
nature in Christ did excellently qualify him for the office of a mediator,
yet this is the unhappiest man in expressing and proving it that I have met
with. For what an untoward representation is this of Christ’s mediation,
that he came to make peace by laying his hands on God and men, as if he
came to part a fray or scuffle: and he might as well have named Gen. i. 1, or Matt. i.
1, or any other place of Scripture, for the proof of it, as
those he mentions.”