When the sun is
under a total eclipse, he loseth nothing of his native beauty, light, and
glory. He is still the same that he was from the beginning, - a ‘great light to
rule the day’. To us he appears as a dark, useless meteor; but when he comes by
his proper course to free himself from the lunar interposition, unto his proper
aspect towards us, he manifests again his native light and glory. So it was
with the divine nature of Christ… He veiled the glory of it by the
interposition of the flesh, or the assumption of our nature to be his own; with
this addition, that therein he took on him the ‘form of a servant’ – and of a
person of mean and lowly degree. But this temporary eclipse being past and
over, it now shines forth in its infinite lustre and beauty, which belongs unto
the present exaltation of his person. And when those who beheld him here as a
poor, sorrowful, persecuted man, dying on the cross, came to see him in all the
infinite, uncreated glories of the divine nature, manifesting themselves in his
person, it could not but fill their souls with transcendent joy and admiration.
And this is one reason of his prayer for them whilst he was on the earth, that
they might be where he is to behold his glory; for he knew what ineffable
satisfaction it would be unto them for evermore.