Dear Brother,
Since I sent my reply to some previous questions on the paper on the Sufferings of Christ, two further questions have been sent to me. After the explanation I have given in reply to the former, a short answer will suffice. The inquiry made is, What is the difference between the doctrine of the paper and Mr. Newton's I The question shows the need of making the matter clear to those who have been occupied with it. The answer is very simple. The doctrine of the paper is exactly the opposite of Mr. Newton's. Mr. Newton taught that Christ, as born an Israelite and a man, was at the same distance from God as Israel and man, because He was one of them, was exposed to the consequences of it, and passed through the experiences an unconverted, elect man ought, escaped much of what He was exposed to by. being in their position, by prayer, obedience, and piety, but still had the fierce displeasure of God resting on Him as born one of the people. Hence He listened with glad attention to the gospel under John the Baptist, and passed then for Himself as from the law to the gospel. Most of this terrible anguish to which He was exposed, as born one of the Jews and of the children of Adam, was before His baptism by John 1 believe, on the contrary, that though suffering from man and feeling for all the sufferings of man and Israel, and the sorrow of love resting continually upon His heart, the sunshine of God's favor was on Him and was His delight and His joy continually; and thus there was no divine displeasure resting on that Holy One, nor was His frame wasted by the anguish of it. I detest it as a false abomination. But I believe that in grace, at the close of His history, when His lifework (as presented to Israel according to promise and gracious service towards man) was brought to a close, He, the object of divine favor, entered into the sorrows of His people.
Your correspondent has said in a short parenthesis “(unless anticipatively),” but what is Israel's sorrow in the last day (unless anticipative)? They will not undergo wrath at the close. Christ felt it in Gethsemane anticipatively, because He was about to undergo it. But He did feel it anticipatively; that is, He did feel what Israel will feels only far more deeply. And He felt it in grace, because He was not under it personally; whereas, Israel, as to his own position, will be; and if Christ had been under it personally, because born a Jew, He could not have entered into it in grace. If the whole family are held under the penalties of high treason, and the mother I have supposed in my previous answer in prison necessarily, though not personally guilty, she cannot go to partake of her son's sorrow in love, for the simple reason that she is there by the necessity of her own case. She is not free to go out because she has gone voluntarily in; Christ could have asked for His twelve legions of angels and have been free. Mr. Newton's doctrine was that He was born under it and sought to escape it by prayer, and obedience, and piety, and partially did: mine, that He was not born under it at all, but, instead of having to seek to escape it, entered into the sorrow in love and grace for the deliverance of others. That is, one is exactly and essentially the opposite of the other. The question of “How long?” is as to this, in itself immaterial; but the point that He was entirely free as born into the world, His state the opposite of what Mr. Newton says, and that by grace He entered into it, makes the difference of a false Christ and a true one—a true One who, being free, perfectly free, can care for others; and a false one who, being subject to it himself, must think of himself and not of others in love.
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