they undergo, either in their perfons, circumftances. or temper. Every one's obfervation will afford inftances enough. In the prefent cafe, the fame word denotes his being born of a woman, and becomming fubjected to the law mankind were under, and which was the neceffary confequence of his birth.

He was made or born of a woman; the fame thing which the Evangelift John expreffes, by "the Word being made flesh," or becoming flesh; a word strongly marking the human nature as it fubfifts in the natural children of Adam, and very frequently made ufe of in 'this fenfe. One would think this needed not be thought fuch an incredible thing as fome pretend. It is indeed a miracle of divine condefcenfion, and the strongest and most undoubted evidence of what the angels proclaimed when he came into the world, "Peace and

good will toward man." Our Lord and his apoftles carry it, I cannot fay higher, but in rather more endearing terms, God fo loved the world;-he commendeth his love to us, &c. And had there been no more, than the most high God, whom the heavens and heaven of heavens cannot contain, condefcending to dwell with

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men upon earth; and that by making fo near an approach as to unite himfelf to fuch low and ill-deferving creatures; even this would have been fuch a pledge of gracious and kind purpofes, as fhould at once have raised our hopes, and drawn out the strongest expreffions of gratitude and love; and might have paffed for the highest evidence of the moft perfect love, had it not been for what followed, and what the Son of God was fent to do, and actually accomplished in the flesh. This indeed is very wonderful: but that the creator could, if he fo pleafed, unite himself to a creature, and unite the creature to himself, in what degree of nearness he pleafed, has nothing near fo wonderful in it, I might say so incredible, as, what we all profess to believe in creation, viz. giving being to the whole univerfe, when there was nothing either to work upon or to work by, and supporting every order of creatures in the stations he faw fit to place them in.

When the Apostle fays, he was made of a woman, or became one of us of or by a woman, without any mention of a man, no body will need be told, that he

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refers to the whole of his miraculous conception, and birth, by which he was diftinguished from all the common defcendents of Adam; and thus was in his birth, as well as through the whole of his life, holy, harmless, and undefiled; perfectly feparate from finners: and a very little reflection will fatisfy us, that he meant, by this expreffion, to carry us back to what was the origin and fubftance of all the promises God ever made to mankind, viz. That the whom Satan had deceived, fhould have a feed which fhould deftroy him, and his works together. And thus he deduces the promise from the very beginning of the world, down to the time it was punctually performed in Jefus Chrift; "in whom all the promises are yea, and in "him amen;" the whole of the bleffing being lodged in his hand.

What he adds here, of his being made under the law, which we obferved was a neceffary confequence of his being born among the Jews, and thereby becoming one of those who were under the law, in all the views that can be taken of it, this leaves no room for any question, what that law was; and yet there have been many dif

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putes about it; and how far, and in what refpects, Chrift was fubject to it. These I have no mind to enter into: as it is plain, that it was the fame law which the Apostle had been speaking of, the law which held him, and all his countrymen, in bondage, as children under age, and thut up into the faith of Chrift, as it was revealed, and fet in a fair light at the time he wrote; even that law from the bondage of which, and particularly its curfe, Chrift came to redeem them, and buy them up. This laft circumftance hath determined fome of the moft judicious commentators to carry this higher, viz. to the original law given to Adam, and the fanction or curfe annexed to it; and indeed to every tranfgreffion of the law of creation, that is, every fin whatsoever.

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As to the law given to Adam, I mean the positive law about the forbidden fruit, it had a penalty annexed to it, and was fully executed in the true intent and meaning of it, which is certainly best gathered from the sentence given upon the tranfgreffors, by the lawgiver himfelf. There we find the earth was curfed for the man's fake; but it is not faid that he himself was curfed :

curfed: but the fentence concludes with binding him down to return to the dust from which he was taken. There were, befides this pofitive law, a fet of duties, naturally arifing from the benefit of being and life received from the creator's hand, very properly called the law of creation. If this be what our learned men mean by the law of nature, which fuch a noife is made about, they would meet with no oppofition; for it is founded in the natural relation between the creator and the creature. But then it must be remembered, that this law was never left to stand alone, but immediately on the entrance of fin, was incorporated with the promife of a better life, infstead of that which fin had destroyed; and all the duties of it inforced, if not by ftronger, yet by more interefting, motives, which the Apostle here lays to our hand. Thefe were all of them taken in; and the promife laid at the foundation, in the law of Mofes, in these remarkable words, by which it was introduced, "I am Jehovah, "thy God;" which includes every thing.

Having had occafion to fay fo much on our bleffed Lord's redeeming his people

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