Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/29

Rh Jehovih will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: he shall feed his flock like a Shepherd," Isa. xl. 10, 11. "All flesh shall know, that I Jehovah am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob," Isa. xlix. 26.

The form, under which Jehovah appeared, and by which he may be said to have sent himself into the world, was called the Son of God; and it was so called for the reasons to be now stated. As it was impossible for the infinitely pure and naked Divinity, such as it is in itself, to come down among men, without consuming them in an instant, the divine mercy of Jehovah God prompted him to come down in such a way of accommodation, that the full intensity of his glory should be with-held from their eyes, while he presented himself in the world principally as divine truth, veiled or clothed in human nature, from which nevertheless the divine good was not, nor could be, really separate. Now this divine truth, so veiled and clothed, inasmuch as it necessarily appeared to be something distinct from the pure Divinity, while notwithstanding this latter was actually within it, as the soul of a man is within his body, was on that account called the Son of God. It is moreover to be observed, that the divine human principle within that form proceeded forth from God, or the pure Divinity, comparatively as a son from a father; and that the very maternal substances also were excited, and put into human form, by the divine power alone. Thus in both respects, that is, in reference both to the form, which was born of a virgin, and to that which came down from heaven, the Lord while on earth was called the Son of God.

The divine truth, which, as before observed, more particularly descended, and was more immediately