Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/278

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266
How Christ hath fulfilled the office of Mediatour,

fore the eternall Sonne of God, being ordained of the Father to this office of Mediatorship, that he might intercede between God and man, and joyne God and man in one, did assume our nature into the unity of his person, and was born of a woman,Gal. 4.4 that he might save and call sinners, and redeeme them who were under the Law, and shut up under the curse of the Law.

The second person in Trinity, the Son of God by nature, the Image of the Father, by whom all things were made, was made man, that he might renew what was disordered by sinne, and make us the sonnes of God by grace and adoption, who were by nature the children of wrath, it being fit our redemption should be wrought by the Sonne, and sealed by the holy Spirit. For whereas a double mission was necessary, the one to reconcile, the other to give gifts to reconciled friends: the Father being of none, sent his Sonne, the first proceeding person to take our nature and make satisfaction: the Father and the Sonne both send the Spirit, the second proceeding person, to seale up them that Christ hath redeemed by his bloud. And who was fitter to become the Sonne of man, then he that was by nature the Sonne of God? who could be fitter to make us the Sonnes of God by grace and adoption, then he that was the Sonne of God by nature? who fitter to repaire the Image of God decayed in us, then he by whom at first man was made after the Image of God? Thus Christ was a fit and equall middle person, conjoyned by the bands of friendly society, and peaceable agreement with both the parties, God and men, that he might be a Mediatour of reconciliation and peace betweene God and man. He tooke unto him the sanctified nature of man, that therein he might draw neere unto men, and be the root of them that are sanctified; and retained the nature of God, that so he might not depart from God.

Here it is questioned, according to which nature Christ is Mediatour, whether as man only, or as God and man. That he is a Mediatour according to the concurrence of both natures in the unity of his person, it is confessed by all; for if he were not both God and man, he could not mediate between God and man: but whether he be a Mediatour according to both natures concurring in the worke of Mediation, there be some that make question. Our resolution is, that Christ is Mediatour according to both na-tures,