Page:Works of President Edwards vol. 4.pdf/196
contempt, rather than earthly greatness; in his washing his disciples' feet and in all his speeches and deportment towards them; in his cheerfully sustaining the form of a servant through his whole life, and submitting to such immense humiliation at death!
2. In the person of Christ do meet together infinite majesty and transcendent meekness. These again are two qualifications that meet together in no other person but Christ. Meekness, properly so called, is a virtue proper only to the creature: we scarcely ever find meekness mentioned as a divine attribute in Scripture; at least not in the New Testament; for thereby seems to be signified, a calmness and quietness of spirit, arising from humility in mutable beings that are naturally liable to be put into a ruffle by the assaults of a tempestuous and injurious world. But Christ being both God and man, hath both infinite majesty and superlative meekness.
Christ was a person of infinite majesty. It is he that is spoken of, Psalm xlv. 3: "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty." It is he that is mighty, that rideth on the heavens, and in his excellency on the sky. It is he that is terrible out of his holy places; who is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea; before whom a fire goeth, and burneth up his enemies round about; at whose presence the earth doth quake, and the hills do melt; who sitteth on the circle of the earth, and all the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; who rebukes the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up the rivers; whose eyes are as a flame of fire; from whose presence, and from the glory of whose power, the wicked shall be punished with everlasting destruction; who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, that hath beaven for his throne and the earth for his foostool, and is the high and lofty One, who inhabits eternity, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and of whose dominion there is no end.
And yet he was the most marvellous instance of meekness, and humble quietness of spirit, that ever was; agreeable to the prophecies of him. Matt. xxi. 4, 5, "All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." And agreeable to what Christ declares of himself, Matt. xi. 29, "I am meek and lowly in heart." And agreeable to what was manifest in his behavior here in this world: for there was never such an instance seen on earth, of a meek behavior, under injuries and reproaches, and towards enemies; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; who was of a wonderful spirit of forgiveness, was ready to forgive his worst enemies, and prayed for them with fervent and effectual prayers. With what meekness did he appear when in the ring of soldiers that were contemning and mocking him, when he was silent and opened not his mouth, but went as a lamb to the slaughter! Thus is Christ a lion in majesty, and a lamb in meekness.
3. There meet, in the person of Christ, the deepest reverence towards God and equality with God. Christ, when he was here on earth, appeared full of holy reverence towards the Father: he paid the most reverential worship to him with postures of reverence. Thus we read of his "kneeling down and praying," Luke xxii. 41. This became Christ, as he was one that had taken on him the human nature; but at the same time be existed in the divine nature; whereby his person was in all respects equal to the person of the Father. God the Father hath no attribute or perfection that the Son bath not, in equal degree, and equal glory. These things meet in no other person but Jesus Christ.