Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/33

Rh  power of evil, reduced to order all things in heaven, and laid the foundation of a new spiritual church on earth. This process, begun in divine mercy, and conducted by divine power, constituted the true nature of redemption.

THE descent of Jehovah God into the world by the assumption of Humanity, being for the purpose of effecting the restoration of man, as above described, it was necessary, when that work was accomplished, that he should again ascend, or return back to that glory, of which he appeared to be emptied, when he so far humbled himself as to take upon him our infirm nature. In short, it was necessary, that he should divest himself of that material body, with which he Was clothed for a time, aud which in a great measure concealed from mankind the glory of his Divinity. But as it was by Humanity in conjunction with Divinity, that the redemption of man was, and could alone be, effected; so, in order to perpetuate this new condition of the Divine Agent, and that he might be a Redeemer and Saviour to eternity, he gradually united in himself all the attributes and perfections of Divinity, with all the principles and forms of Humanity. This union of the divine essence with the human, which was mutual and reciprocal, was preceded by the most grievous and severe temptations, the last of which was the passion on the cross, by which the Lord finally laid down the merely natural life, together with all the infirmities incident to it, and thus entered into the purely divine life, yet in and with a Humanity perfectly Glorified and Divine.