A TREATISE 
 
 INCARNATION 
 
 ETERNAL WORD. 
 
 NEW BURGH: 
 
 DAVID L. PROUDFIT. 
 1842.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, 
 
 BY DAVID L. PROUDFIT, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New- York. 
 
 H. LUDWIO, PRINTER, 
 73 Vwey t, N. Y.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE substance of the following Essay was 
 published several years ago, in an Edinburgh 
 periodical, in connection with a review of 
 some ephemeral publications on the human 
 nature of Christ. When the present Editor 
 first met with the article, he was so impressed 
 with its value, that he thought it would be 
 useful to give it to the public in a separate 
 form. This belief was strengthened by a re- 
 perusal, after the lapse of some years, and by 
 the concurring opinion of several judicious 
 friends. He accordingly proceeded to prepare 
 it for publication. In doing this, the whole 
 Essay had to be re-written and several altera- 
 tions made, as it was not originally written for 
 separate publication. No farther liberties, 
 however, have been taken with the Author 
 than were necessary to give the work a regu- 
 lar and connected form. In preparing it for
 
 IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 the press, the Editor believed it calculated to 
 subserve the cause of truth and righteousness, 
 and his sincere desire is that it may be blessed 
 to the welfare of his fellow-beings. How far 
 his estimate of the value of the work is correct, 
 will be judged by the Christian public, to 
 whom it is now respectfully committed.
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 THE doctrine of the Incarnation, so far as it 
 can be understood by man, is sufficiently sim- 
 ple, and might be stated in a few sentences. 
 But it has been so involved not in mystery, 
 for a mystery the gospel makes it, and a mys- 
 tery it must ever remain but in metaphysical 
 perplexities, as to make it look with a most un- 
 favourable aspect, upon almost every article of 
 our creed. It will therefore be necessary to 
 take a somewhat more extended survey of the 
 work of redemption than would otherwise have 
 been requisite, that we may, if possible, have 
 a clearer view of the Incarnation from the light 
 reflected on it by being viewed in its proper 
 place in the Christian system. 
 
 That God made all things for his own glory, 
 is a proposition which we suppose will not be 
 disputed by any. It is a proposition, however, 
 which requires some explanation. When we 
 say that he made all things for his own glory, 
 we mean, not that he made them for the pur- 
 pose of rendering himself more glorious than 
 he was from all eteniity, for that is impossible, 
 his glory being alike incapable of increase and 
 diminution, but that he made them for the pur- 
 1*
 
 6 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 pose of making his glorious perfections mani- 
 fest. And when we say that he made all things 
 to manifest his own perfections, we mean that 
 the manifestation was to be given, not to him- 
 self, which was impossible, but to the creatures 
 whom he made. It was obvious then that the 
 manifestation w r as to b % e made, both by the crea- 
 tures and to the creatures. They were to be 
 both the manifesters, and the percipients of the 
 perfections so manifested ; and this was the 
 great end of the being of the creatures. Now 
 as this is the end of every creature's being, that 
 it may, according to its nature, manifest the 
 perfections of God, and perceive them as man- 
 ifested by itself and all other creatures, it fol- 
 lows, as a necessary consequence, that to do 
 this must be just the glory and happiness of 
 the creature, its being's end and aim ; and it 
 follows also, that the higher the degree in 
 which any creature is capable of doing this, 
 the higher is the degree of glory and of happi- 
 ness which it is capable of attaining and en- 
 joying 
 
 That every thing, according to its nature and 
 capacity, does both manifest the perfections of 
 God, and rejoice in them, is a fact open to every 
 one's observation, and is often referred to in 
 Scripture. The inanimate parts of God's 
 works are often spoken of, not only as mani-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 7 
 
 Testing his perfections, but as rejoicing in the 
 manifestation. " The heavens declare the 
 glory of God, and the firmament showeth forth 
 the works of his hands. Day unto day utter- 
 eth speech, and night unto night teacheth 
 knowledge." The sun rejoiceth to run his 
 race ; the heavens and the earth are called on 
 to hear the word of the Lord ; the sea roars 
 and the fulness thereof; the floods lift up their 
 voice ; the forests clap their hands, the moun- 
 tains break forth into singing, and the little 
 hills rejoice. These, no doubt, will be con- 
 sidered as figurative expressions, and so they 
 are ; but then they are expressions which 
 show the truth of the principle that all things, 
 according to their nature, manifest the perfec- 
 tions of God, and rejoice in them when so 
 manifested. The same remark still more ob- 
 viously applies to such things as have life and 
 feeling. The lower animals, which have re- 
 ceived their instincts from God, and enjoy his 
 bounties, though they know not, nor can know, 
 any thing of him from whom their enjoyments 
 come, afford a still more striking manifestation 
 of his perfections, as is amply and beautifully 
 illustrated towards the end of the book of Job. 
 But beyond all creatures man is fitted not 
 merely to be the percipient of the Divine per- 
 fections, but to manifest these perfections ;
 
 8 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 and this he does not simply by that bodily 
 structure which is " fearfully and wonderfully 
 made," nor by those mental faculties which 
 raise him so high above the lower animals, 
 which enable him to recall the past, to antici- 
 pate the future, and to approximate the re- 
 mote, but more particularly by the fall, the 
 redemption, and the whole history of the hu- 
 man race. The first lesson that our church 
 teaches her children is, " The chief end of 
 man is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever ; " 
 and it is upon this broad basis that we con- 
 ceive all sound theology must be built. 
 
 Now this leads us to consider the work of 
 man's redemption, not simply with a reference 
 to man alone, but to the whole rational family 
 of God. The election of Israel out of all the 
 tribes of the earth, to be the chosen people of 
 God, will afford us a correct illustration of the 
 choice of the human race as the objects in 
 whom his redeeming power and love might be 
 displayed, from among all the various races 
 that constitute his moral government. The 
 Israelites were not chosen to be the peculiar 
 people of God on account of any superiority 
 that they possessed over the rest of mankind, 
 for they were chosen in Abraham, before they 
 actually existed ; so neither were mankind 
 chosen to be the objects of God's redeeming
 
 THE INCARNATION. 9 
 
 love on account of any intrinsic merit of their 
 own, for this idea is inconsistent with the fact 
 that they needed redemption, but were chosen 
 in Christ before they were created. The Is- 
 raelites were not chosen that they alone might 
 enjoy the blessing of God, but that, through 
 them, that blessing might come upon all na- 
 tions ; neither was man chosen to redemption 
 that its blessings might redound to him alone, 
 but " to the intent that unto the principalities 
 and powers in heavenly places, might be 
 known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of 
 God. The Israelites were chosen, that unto 
 them God might commit his revelations for 
 the use of all nations : so were men chosen, 
 that in them God might manifest his perfec- 
 tions for the instruction of all his rational crea- 
 tures. Though many of his chosen Israel 
 perished in their sins and their idolatries, yet 
 the great purposes for which that people was 
 chosen were effectually accomplished : so, 
 though multitudes of the human race perish, 
 yet the designs of God's redeeming love, and 
 the lessons which it is fitted to teach, are not 
 the less effectually accomplished. As the 
 Israelites, though far behind most other na- 
 tions in arts and sciences, yet taught to the 
 world something infinitely more valuable than 
 aught that art or science were ever capable of
 
 10 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 discovering : so the human race, though far 
 inferior to man, other races, yet manifests to 
 all a knowledge of the character and perfec- 
 tions of God, which otherwise they could never 
 have known. And, finally, as the Israelites 
 are destined yet to stand at the very head of 
 the human race, and to be the most glorious of 
 nations : even so the human race, though now 
 so low, is destined to take its place at the 
 head of all the families of God. Human na- 
 ture is, at this moment, the most glorious of 
 created natures, taken, in its assumption by the 
 Son, into a nearness of union with the God- 
 head, which none other enjoys ; and where our 
 head is, there all his true members shall in due 
 time be. As the man Christ Jesus passed 
 through all suffering into glory, even so his 
 people, exposed to dangers which others never 
 knew, and made triumphant through his Spirit 
 dwelling in them, rise to honours with which 
 others can never be crowned ; and, living 
 monuments of all those divine perfections 
 which were displayed in their redemption, 
 living records of the glory of God, they will 
 awaken, among the hosts of heaven, a song 
 which, throughout eternity, will be ever new. 
 In fine, if all things were made for the purpose 
 of manifesting to the creatures the perfections 
 of the Creator, then, above all things with
 
 THE INCARNATION. 11 
 
 which we are acquainted, must the work of 
 redemption be designed and fitted for this 
 great end. 
 
 In order to see how the human race, in their 
 fall and their redemption, acquire for them- 
 selves, and teach to others, this knowledge of 
 the perfection of the Creator, it will be neces- 
 sary to go back to a period when as yet there 
 was no sin in the dominions of God when 
 there were none but unfallen beings in exist- 
 ence. Such beings, it is clear, could have but 
 a very limited and defective view of the nature 
 and character of God. From his works they 
 would be able to infer that he was possessed 
 of great wisdom and great power ; and, from 
 the happiness they enjoyed, they would be 
 persuaded of his great goodness. But that his 
 wisdom was omniscience that his power was 
 omnipotence that his goodness could extend, 
 not merely to the unfallen and unsmiling crea- 
 ture, but also to the ; ' unthankful and the evil," 
 they could not by any possibility know. Of 
 his other perfections they could have but very 
 little knowledge, if any at all. They could 
 not tell if he were immutable, when nothing 
 had occurred to put his immutability to the 
 test. For the same reason, they could not tell 
 if he were inflexibly just, unchangeably true, 
 infinitely and unalterably holy. They might
 
 12 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 be able to prove, by abstract reasonings, the 
 probability that he possessed these perfections ; 
 but these proofs would be just similar in their 
 nature to the proof of the immortality of the 
 soul by Plato or Seneca a fine speculation, 
 but producing no such conviction as to become 
 a living active principle, to be held fast and 
 acted upon, and carried out to its practical re- 
 sults, at the expense of all that is dear in life, 
 or at the expense of life itself. 
 
 These perfections, in order to be fully 
 known, must be seen carried out into actual 
 operation, and operating too, under such circum- 
 stances as to prove them to be absolutely infinite. 
 Of his mercy, it is obvious, that they could not 
 possibly have any idea whatever. A large 
 family living under the eye of a father, whom 
 not one of them has ever offended, may have 
 a considerable knowledge of his character ; 
 yet that knowledge must be imperfect and 
 defective. They cannot tell to what extent 
 his truth, his justice, his goodness may go ; 
 because nothing has occurred which could 
 afford an occasion of trying, of limiting or 
 restraining the exercise of these qualities. But 
 let some individual of the family offend him, 
 and then, in his treatment of that individual, 
 all the rest of the family, as well as the 
 offender himself, will obtain a new view, and
 
 THE INCARNATION. 13 
 
 consequently a more extended knowledge of 
 his character. While the prodigal son dwelt 
 beneath his father's roof, he knew well the 
 goodness of his father's heart. But he did 
 not know the whole extent of that goodness. 
 When pining in want and misery, he resolved 
 to return to his father's house, to be received 
 and treated as a hired servant, and that only 
 on the most lowly confession of his errors, 
 was all the extent to which he dared to hope 
 that his father's goodness could go. But when 
 his return was welcomed with joy and glad- 
 ness, when he felt his father's embrace, saw 
 himself arrayed in the richest robes, and 
 feasted in the most sumptuous mariner, then 
 did he feel convinced that his father possessed 
 a goodness, the existence of which he did not 
 dare previously to believe. Even so the great 
 Father of all, whose prerogative it is to bring 
 good out of evil, hath, out of the ruin of the 
 human race, drawn an exhibition of his own 
 character, from which angels, not less than 
 men, acquire new views and more extended 
 knowledge of it. And as that knowledge 
 constitutes the very end and aim of their 
 being, therefore, though possibly no danger 
 might result to them from our fall, yet their 
 glory and happiness have received, and will 
 2
 
 14 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 receive, an incalculable augmentation from our 
 redemption. 
 
 With the commencement of moral evil, then, 
 whatever was its origin, commenced a new 
 and glorious development of the divine per- 
 fections. When part of the angels sinned, 
 and for their sin were doomed to punishment, 
 being driven out from the presence of the 
 Lord, and from the glory of his power, then 
 God was seen in a new relation, and an addi- 
 tional view of his character would be given. 
 Something would be known of him, that was 
 not known before. But then this knowledge, 
 like most other pieces of knowledge in intel- 
 ligent minds, would give rise to some doubts, 
 and to questions not easy to be solved. Some 
 illustration of God's displeasure against sin, 
 and of his power to punish it would be given ; 
 and they would feel that even though possessed 
 of angelic excellence, they must obey or suf- 
 fer. But then they would, for the first time 
 know sin, of which before its actual existence 
 among them, they probably had not even an 
 idea. And that idea would necessarily be 
 attended with a painful feeling,* the feeling 
 
 * This is perhaps too strongly expressed. We can 
 scarcely conceive of perfectly holy beings subject to painful 
 feelings of insecurity. The same objection may, perhaps, 
 be urged against some previous expressions, in which it is
 
 THE INCARNATION. 15 
 
 of insecurity- The offenders, it is true, were 
 driven out, but they now knew, what probably 
 they knew not before, that they were liable to 
 sin and to punishment ; and we may easily 
 conceive how such a knowledge would affect 
 their happiness. Their perfect and unsuspi- 
 cious confidence in, and reliance upon each 
 other, would be abated. The same cause that 
 had already introduced sin among them, might 
 produce the same effect again, and by succes- 
 sive defections, the throne of God might be 
 left without a worshipper. And it would natu- 
 rally occur to them to inquire, how it happened 
 that sin could enter into the dominions of God 
 at all ? If he were perfectly holy, then must 
 he hate sin; and if he were omniscient and 
 omnipotent, why did he not foresee and prevent 
 that, which, as holy, he must hate ? And these 
 are questions, to the solution of which, there is 
 no reason to suppose that they could make any 
 
 represented as impossible for creatures to know any thing of 
 the attributes of God, except by seeing their operations ; 
 since it is manifest that God could make himself known by 
 direct revelation. The main idea, however, is undoubtedly 
 correct in both cases. The attributes of God are chiefly 
 known by being seen in actual operation, and every new 
 exhibition of his immutability, and his goodness, would give 
 a new feeling of security, and additional happiness to his 
 holy creatures. The bible itself in making known to us 
 what God is, accomplishes the end chiefly by relating 
 what he does. (Editor.)
 
 16 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 thing like a near approach. Hence painful 
 fears and doubts would be the result of the 
 first appearance of sin in heaven. 
 
 When they saw man made, a part of their 
 fears would be removed. They would see 
 that there could be no room to fear, that though 
 all angels should rebel, " heaven should want 
 inhabitants, or God want praise." But the 
 first step in the providence of God, the fall of 
 man, would bring back all their fears with in- 
 creased pressure. Was God really so little 
 able to resist the rebels, that he could not up- 
 hold his own fair workmanship from being led 
 away captive by them ? When they saw Sa- 
 tan become the god of this world, would not 
 the power, and other perfections of God stand 
 greatly in doubt ? The sons of God shouted 
 for joy when man was made ; and that shout 
 was expressive, not simply of adoration at 
 seeing a new exhibition of their Maker's power, 
 but also of the delight which they felt at hav- 
 ing, by this exhibition of his power, so many 
 of those fears removed, which the entrance of 
 sin had awakened. And proportioned to the 
 delight which they felt, and expressed at man's 
 creation, would necessarily be the consterna- 
 tion with which they beheld his fall. And 
 when they heard it declared that man, though 
 fallen, and taken captive by Satan, yet was
 
 THE INCARNATION. 17 
 
 not to be lost, what would be the result of 
 such a declaration ? Just new doubts, and new 
 fears. They would naturally ask, what new 
 thing is this ? or how can it possibly be ? 
 When angels fell they were driven away in 
 their wickedness, and no hope of restoration 
 was held out to them ; yet they still possessed 
 so much power as to have carried away man 
 into rebellion, and now he is not to die, even 
 after the sentence denounced, " In the day 
 thou eatest thou shalt surely die."* Was God 
 to prove himself regardless of his truth, by 
 recalling the sentence so solemnly pronounced ? 
 Was he to abandon his own holy law to vio- 
 lation, and his authority to contempt, by ex- 
 tending mercy to the transgressors 1 Was 
 the majesty of the divine government to be 
 insulted with impunity ? and was the holiness 
 of God to stoop to hold communion with that 
 which was polluted ? In short, was God to 
 prove that immutability formed no part of his 
 character 1 If he was destitute of any one of 
 these perfections, or if he possessed any one 
 of them only in a limited degree, and if angels 
 were about to see that limit reached, then their 
 
 * Adam did die on the day that he sinned, and angels 
 knew this. But this just increased the difficulty, for 
 how were creatures already dead in sin to be revived and 
 restored? 
 
 2*
 
 18 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 happiness was gone. His immutability stood 
 most in doubt, and most of all was it necessary 
 that they should be well assured of this. For 
 what other security had they for the continu- 
 ance of their happiness, than just this, that he 
 who had made them, and bestowed that happi- 
 ness upon them, was a being who could not 
 change? Let this once be made doubtful, and 
 then, in addition to the feeling of insecurity 
 arising from a sense of their own liability to 
 sin, they would experience the still more pain- 
 ful feeling of insecurity derived from the mu- 
 tability of the divine character. 
 
 But then how could man be pardoned and 
 saved, without all these painful consequences 
 being the result ? God had most positive- 
 ly declared, that on the day in which he 
 transgressed he should die. Could that sen- 
 tence be reversed, or even its execution sus- 
 pended, without creating some question as to 
 how far his truth might be relied upon ? If the 
 law of God was violated, and the authority of 
 God trampled upon, with not merely impunity, 
 but with favour to the transgressor, was not 
 this in effect to abrogate that law? Even 
 under the Christian dispensation, which so aw- 
 fully demonstrates the sanctity of the law. how 
 difficult is it to prevent men from " turning the 
 grace of God into Iasciviousncss 3 " and from
 
 THE INCARNATION. 19 
 
 sinning, " because grace abounds ?" But had 
 God forgiven men, without any demonstration 
 of the holiness, and the unalterable nature of 
 the law, this would have been just to set open 
 a flood gate for the introduction of all iniquity. 
 That God could, by a mere act of power, or, as 
 it ought rather to be called in this case, offeree, 
 have rescued the sinner from the grasp of Sa- 
 tan, and have created him anew, and have re- 
 instated him in higher happiness than that from 
 which he fell, may be perfectly true. But 
 what then became of his moral attributes'? 
 Who among his unfallcn children, could have 
 in this case avoided the conclusion that he was 
 an unholy, an unjust, a mutable, nay, a capri- 
 cious being ? And such an act of power, while 
 it might have been an act of great mercy to- 
 wards the guilty, would at the same time have 
 been an act of great cruelty towards the 
 innocent. 
 
 We are often told that it is an easy thing 
 for God to forgive sin that there is nothing to 
 prevent him from withdrawing his right to 
 punish the guilty, and that such an act of grace 
 would highly illustrate his goodness, and 
 awaken songs of praise among both angels 
 and men. Nothing, however, can well be 
 more evident than the truth of the very reverse 
 of this. Among men such an act of grace
 
 20 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 would have been, and could have been pro- 
 ductive of nothing else than the most unbridled 
 licentiousness; and among angels of nothing 
 but consternation and dismay ; and an act of 
 mercy so exercised would have defeated all 
 the purposes of mercy. Every sinner thus 
 rescued by an act of omnipotent power, not 
 from the grasp of Satan, but from the sentence 
 of God's most holy law, would have been just 
 a new monument of a mutable God, and of a 
 despised law, and instead of being hailed on 
 his entrance into heaven with songs of joy, 
 would have been received with expressions of 
 jealousy and fear. It is easy, it is said, for 
 God to depart from his right to punish ; but 
 by whom is this said 1 By men who have 
 never been convicted of sin, who know not how 
 exceedingly sinful a thing it is, who know 
 nothing of the extent and spirituality of the law 
 of God, and have never felt their need of and 
 dependence upon a Saviour. Ask you the 
 awakened sinner who has felt the terrors of the 
 law coming like water into his bowels, and 
 like oil into his bones, if he thinks it an easy 
 thing for God to forgive sin? He will tell 
 you that when a violated law set all his sins in 
 array before him, and when conscience con- 
 firmed the sentence of the law, so far was he 
 from thinking it an easy thing for God to for-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 21 
 
 give his sins, that hardly all the grace mani- 
 fested in the Gospel could persuade him to 
 believe it possible, that even with God there 
 was an extent of mercy sufficient to forgive 
 his sins ; that while he felt no difficulty in be- 
 lieving the general proposition, that with God 
 there is mercy for sinners, he feels that nothing 
 but a divine power could have enabled him to 
 apply the general proposition to his own par- 
 ticular case, and to believe that there was mercy 
 in God sufficient for him. It is easy, we are 
 told, and told often, for God, by a mere act of 
 grace to pardon, and by a mere act of power to 
 regenerate and save sinners. It is easy for him 
 to forego his right to punish the transgressor. 
 But it is not seen, nor, save by the awakened 
 sinner, can be seen, that, in so doing, he fore- 
 goes all the inflexibility of his justice, all the 
 sacredness of his truth, all the sanctity of bis 
 law, all the spotless purity of his holiness, and 
 all the majesty of his government, and his de- 
 stroying all the security that is founded on the 
 immutability of his character. Moreover, the 
 pardon of sin, without any manifestation of its 
 hatefulness, or of the perfections of God, would 
 have brought both his wisdom and his power 
 into question. For surely it would have ex- 
 hibited much more of both to sustain man from 
 falling at all, than to leave him to fall, merely
 
 22 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 in order to rescue him from its effects, by an ex- 
 ercise of power put forth at the expense of all his 
 moral attributes ; while all the lessons taught by 
 the work of Redemption, for the sake of which 
 the world was made, and man upon it, would not 
 only have been entirely lost, but it would have 
 been impossible to determine why some men 
 were saved, and others left to perish why 
 grace was offered to one fallen race, and 
 none offered to another ; and it would in- 
 deed have been a question which defied solu- 
 tion, for what one useful purpose could such 
 a being as man possibly have been made 1 
 The Jews erred grievously when they sup- 
 posed that the dispensation, of which they were 
 the recipients, terminated in themselves, and 
 was given them, not for the sake, but to the 
 exclusion of all other nations. And we carry 
 the same error to a much more pernicious ex- 
 tent, and still more effectually mar the glory of 
 the work of redemption, when we consider that 
 work as terminating in man when we con- 
 sider ourselves as an insulated race, and not 
 as beings intimately connected with, and made 
 for the sake of all the rational family of God. 
 Had no nation been to be blessed but the Jews, 
 the Jews w r ould never have been chosen ; and 
 had no being been to profit by the work of 
 redemption but man, it seems impossible to
 
 THE INCARNATION. 23 
 
 conceive one rational purpose that could be 
 answered, by such a creature as man being 
 made at all. 
 
 It was then when it was declared that fallen 
 man should be saved, and when it appeared 
 not how that salvation could be effected with- 
 out the most disastrous consequences to the 
 whole universe, without casting doubt and dis- 
 trust upon all the perfections of God, and upon 
 all the principles of his divine government, 
 that the great mystery of Redemption, into 
 which angels desire to look, and from which 
 they learn wisdom, began to run its mighty 
 course. It was then that the eternal Word 
 was announced as the Saviour of the fallen 
 race, who should rescue them from their thral- 
 dom, in a way which should not only cast no 
 doubt over the perfections of God, but should 
 afford the most glorious illustration of all these 
 perfections, who should not only reconcile, 
 but continue in the most indissoluble union, 
 these apparently most irreconcilable things, 
 the glory of God, and the safety of sinful men 
 who should unite, in most harmonious agree- 
 ment, these apparent contraries, the mercy 
 that pleaded for the sinner's safety, with the 
 truth which demanded his punishment, the 
 righteousness that condemned him, with the 
 peace that was promised him. The Son was
 
 24 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 announced as the Prophet, Priest, and King 
 of the human race, and the first acts belonging 
 to all these characters he performed person- 
 ally- He, as prophet, announced to man the 
 hope of deliverance through the " woman's 
 seed." As priest he appointed sacrifices as 
 typical of his own death for sinners, and cloth- 
 ed our first parents with the skins of slain 
 beasts instead of their own fig leaves, as a 
 token that he would cover their spiritual naked- 
 ness by the perfection of his own righteous- 
 ness.* And as- a king he sent them forth to 
 cultivate the ground until they should return 
 to the dust whence they came. These offices, 
 thus formally and personally undertaken by the 
 Son, were thenceforth delegated to his repre- 
 sentatives, till the fulness of time should ar- 
 rive for his coming in the flesh. To what ex- 
 tent the knowledge of men or of angels, as to 
 the nature of these offices might then go, we 
 have no means of ascertaining ; but this we 
 know, that at that period commenced, and, in 
 the evolution of the work of Redemption, w r as 
 gradually unfolded, for the instruction of both, 
 
 * This may appear rather a wild interpretation of this 
 transaction. If so, it is only the more suitable for the pre- 
 sent age. However, we should hardly, perhaps, have ven- 
 tured to put it down, had we not seen it sanctioned by sorne 
 sober and able writers ; among others by Benson, in his 
 Hulsean lectures on Scripture Difficulties.
 
 THE INCARNATION. 25 
 
 nn exhibition of the glory of God's perfections, 
 of the majesty of God's government, and of 
 the sanctity of God's law, far beyond aught 
 that could have been derived either from the 
 sinless obedience, or the endless punishment 
 of all created beings. 
 
 It may perhaps be said, that a considerable 
 portion of what we have now been stating, 
 rests upon no better a foundation than conjec- 
 ture, and consequently, however plausible it 
 may be, cannot be relied on as certainly true. 
 But we think that, on a very little considera- 
 tion, all that we have assumed, at least all that 
 is in any way essential to our view, will be 
 readily granted. It will, we suppose, be grant- 
 ed that the invisible and incomprehensible God, 
 who dwelleth in unapproachable light, can be 
 known to angels, only in the same way in 
 which he is known to us, namely, by the con- 
 templation of his works and ways ; and that his 
 perfections could be very imperfectly known, 
 till they were seen in actual exercise. It will, 
 we suppose, be farther admitted, that angels 
 are just as deeply interested as we are, in see- 
 ing the perfections of God vindicated from all 
 the doubt and suspicion which were attached 
 to them by the entrance of sin into his do- 
 minions. And if, finally, it be admitted that 
 nothing that we know, or can form any con- 
 3
 
 26 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ception of, forms so glorious a manifestation 
 of the perfections of God, as the work of man's 
 Redemption, and that that work was designed 
 by God for this very purpose, then we see not 
 that we have assumed any thing that can be 
 denied. If on any minor point our readers 
 differ from us, we can have no dispute with 
 them on the subject, for it affects not our ge- 
 neral views. 
 
 We hold it indisputable that before the In- 
 carnation, when Christ came personally to ex- 
 ecute the offices of prophet, priest, and king, 
 as far as the execution of them on earth was 
 necessary, the angels had a much clearer view 
 of the nature of the work which he came to do, 
 than men had. For that work, being intended 
 for their benefit as well as ours, was doubtless 
 to them the object of most interesting study ; 
 and though no revelation of its nature had been 
 made to them, beyond what was made to man, 
 and we know of no reason to suppose that there 
 was, yet we take it for granted that they under- 
 stood much better than men, the meaning of the 
 types and shadows of the preparatory dispensa- 
 tions, and the predictions of the prophets. But 
 still, though they understood better than men 
 what Christ was about to do on earth, they 
 could have but a very imperfect and inadequate 
 conception of it till they saw it actually done.
 
 THE INCARNATION. 27 
 
 Let us then consider what Christ came to do 
 in the flesh ; and this will lead us at once to see, 
 both the necessity of the Incarnation, and also 
 the necessity that, when he took flesh, it should 
 be not sinful flesh, but flesh completely and 
 totally alienated from all sinfulness. He came, 
 as we have already stated, to execute the offi- 
 ces of prophet, priest and king. 
 
 CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 
 
 Let us look then to Christ as our prophet. 
 His duty in the discharge of this office, was to 
 reveal unto us the Father, as he saith, " Nei- 
 ther knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, 
 and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him," 
 and again it is said, " No man hath seen God 
 at any time, the only-begotten Son, which is in 
 the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." 
 Now how did Christ reveal to us the Father? 
 Not by any set proofs of his existence, nor by 
 any abstract discussions upon his nature or 
 character, nor by didactic discourses, but by 
 action ; a mode of instruction as level to the 
 comprehension of the meanest capacity, as to 
 that of the loftiest, as intelligible to the peasant 
 as to the philosopher. He taught us, for exam- 
 ple, that God is holy. But how did he do this? 
 Not by any set dissertations on the holiness of 
 God, but by the unceasing and spotless holi-
 
 28 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ness of his own conduct. Never were allure- 
 ments more enticing than those by which he 
 was sometimes solicited, and never were trials 
 more severe than those to which he was com- 
 monly exposed, and never were testimonies so 
 numerous, unequivocal, and decisive, as those 
 by which it is proved that by.no allurement 
 was he ever enticed, by no trial was he ever 
 pressed into a deviation, or into the manifesta- 
 tion of a wish to deviate, from the path of duty. 
 Not only could he himself challenge his bitter- 
 est foes to convince him of sin, but the testi- 
 mony of his friends and foes alike concurs to 
 assure us that he "did no sin," and that in his 
 mouth guile was not found. In the same man- 
 ner he teaches us that God is good, not by any 
 regular proofs of this in his discourses, but by 
 the constant exhibition of it in his practice. 
 When the infirm and the distressed applied to 
 him, the application was never made in vain. 
 He never said to the applicant, you are of too 
 abandoned a character for notice, and richly 
 deserve all the misery you endure, or, your 
 disease is of too desperate a nature, or of too 
 long standing to admit of relief. No, but his 
 language was, "If thou canst believe, all things 
 are possible to him that believeth." And while 
 he was literally fulfilling the prediction which 
 thus spoke of the blessings of his coming,
 
 THE INCARNATION. 29 
 
 "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, 
 and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped : 
 then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and 
 the tongue of the dumb shall sing ; " he was, 
 in so doing, giving proof of his power and his 
 readiness to give a far higher accomplishment 
 to this happy prediction, by healing the spiritual 
 diseases, of which those of the body were only 
 feeble, however painful symptoms. And when 
 he went about doing good, and healing all man- 
 ner of disease, we are expressly taught that the 
 design of his so doing was to lead men to ap- 
 ply to him for blessings of a higher order, and 
 to convince them of his power and readiness 
 to confer these blessings. Thus, when the 
 scribes murmured at hearing him say to the 
 man who was sick of the palsy, " Son, be of 
 good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee," he asked 
 them, " Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins 
 be forgiven thee ; or to say, Arise and walk 7" 
 very plainly intimating that he who had the 
 power and the will to do the one, had no less 
 the power and the will to do the other, a truth 
 which he proceeded still more directly to teach, 
 saying, " But that ye may know that the Son 
 of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, 
 (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, 
 take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." 
 Here ability to command the sick man to arise 
 3*
 
 30 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 and walk, is, by our Lord himself, adduced as 
 a convincing proof of his power to forgive sin. 
 Now, he who exhibited this unceasing holi- 
 ness, and this unlimited goodness, was God 
 with us, " God manifest in the flesh." And 
 such as he was in the world, even such is God. 
 If we wish to know the character of God, we 
 shall find it revealed there, where the life of 
 Jesus is recorded. Hence, the following most 
 distinct language is used by our Lord himself 
 on this subject : " If ye had known me ; ye should 
 have known my Father also : and from hence- 
 forth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip 
 saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and 
 it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I 
 been so long time with you, and yet hast thou 
 not known me, Philip 1 He that hath seen me 
 hath seen the Father ; and how sayest thou 
 then, show us the Father ?" Hence, too, when 
 we are called upon to combat the fears that 
 take possession of the awakened soul, and the 
 arguments which ignorance and unbelief raise 
 up, in the heart of the convinced sinner, against 
 faith and hope, we find the record of our Sa- 
 viour's life a good and an efficient ground, on 
 which they may be combated. We just say 
 to the sinner under these circumstances, He, 
 whose goodness was so unlimited, was God 
 manifested in the flesh, and manifested there
 
 THE INCARNATION. 31 
 
 that we might see with our own eyes, and have 
 the most perfect knowledge of the gracious 
 dispositions of God toward us. If you say that 
 you admit the general proposition, that there is 
 mercy with God for sinners, but dare not spe- 
 cifically apply the proposition to your own in- 
 dividual case, and hope that there is mercy for 
 you, then we say that you are negativing not 
 only his manifold and gracious declarations, 
 whereby he encourages the weary and the heavy 
 laden to come to him, that they may find peace 
 and rest ; but you are negativing the import of 
 the lesson taught by the whole course of his 
 conduct. For, from that exercise of inconceiva- 
 ble goodness which he manifested when, leav- 
 ing the glory which he had with the Father 
 before the world began, he condescended to 
 become obnoxious to every suffering that human 
 nature knows, in that flesh which he took into 
 personal union with himself, down to that other 
 equally inconceivable exercise of goodness 
 which he manifested when he bowed his head 
 and gave up the ghost, giving his own life for 
 that of a lost world, what one act in the whole 
 course of his earthly existence is not in most 
 perfect accordance with the grace and the good- 
 ness which distinguished alike its commence- 
 ment and its close ? What wretch ever applied 
 to him and was sent away unrelieved '? Whom
 
 32 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 did he ever ask, by what right, or on the ground 
 of what merit they laid claim to his interposi- 
 tion in their favour / Whom did he ever reproach 
 with the guilt that had brought their miseries 
 upon them 1 If he healed the sick, and raised 
 the dead, if out of one he cast seven devils, and 
 dispossessed another of a whole legion, it was 
 just for the purpose of convincing you that there 
 is no limit either to his power or his willingness 
 to heal your spiritual sickness, to quicken you 
 from your death in sin. He asks no question 
 as to the past. lie asks not if you be loaded 
 with the sins of a few days, or with the sins of 
 many years. He asks not if your crimes be 
 few or many, slight or aggravated. They all 
 lie equally within the compass of his power ; 
 and his only question is, ; ' Wilt thou be made 
 whole ?" If, for a moment he refused the wo- 
 man of Syrophenicia, it was only to teach you 
 the happy effect of persevering and importu- 
 nate prayer. If he refused her for a moment, 
 it was only the more emphatically to teach this 
 truth, that he will never refuse, that ivlioso- 
 ever cometh unto him shall not be denied. 
 
 In the same manner was the holiness of God 
 displayed in the life of him in whom dwelt all 
 the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And if the 
 life of Christ, was just a living manifestation of 
 all the perfections of God, and if we know
 
 THE INCARNATION. 33 
 
 God, just because God has dwelt in the flesh 
 amongst us, then is it obvious, not merely that 
 the Son who became our prophet to reveal unto 
 us the Father, must of necessity become flesh, 
 since in no other way that we know could he 
 make that revelation ; but it is not less obvi- 
 ously necessary that the flesh which he took 
 should be perfectly holy, else it is not conceiva- 
 ble how his life could afford us any exhibition 
 of the holiness of God. He might have showed 
 to us the holiness of a man, such as Abraham 
 or Moses, carried to a still higher degree of 
 perfection, even to the extent of avoiding all 
 actual transgression of the law of God. But 
 if his flesh was really sinful, if it even felt the 
 slightest propensity or inclination to sin, an 
 inclination which required to be repressed, in 
 order to prevent it from proceeding to actual 
 guilt, then this propensity was itself, at least in 
 our view of the matter, criminal, and effectually 
 disqualified him for giving any practical reve- 
 lation of the divine holiness in his life. The in- 
 clination of his flesh to sinful indulgence might 
 be in him kept as " a spring shut up, and a 
 fountain sealed," from which no emanation of 
 actual guilt was ever permitted to proceed. 
 The inclination of the flesh might be so power- 
 fully and successfully repressed, that it might 
 be truly said of him in whom it dwelt, that he
 
 34 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 " did no sin ; " but with what truth it could be 
 said of him, whose whole life was an unceas- 
 ing, however successful struggle, against the 
 will .of the flesh, compelling "the flesh against 
 its will," into however perfect a harmony with 
 the will of God, that he "k?ievj no sin," is alto- 
 gether beyond our comprehension. If such 
 inclination existed, however successfully sub- 
 dued, it existed as the germ of all actual trans- 
 gression, as containing in it the elements of 
 all human guilt, as the object of just wrath, 
 and deserved punishment, as that which can 
 be rendered fit for communion with God, only 
 through that shedding of blood, without which 
 there can be no remission, and consequently 
 totally depriving him in whom it existed, of all 
 claim to the title, and of all power to accom- 
 plish the purposes, of a " Lamb without blem- 
 ish, and without spot." 
 
 But in order to see all the fulness with which 
 he discharged the duties resulting from his 
 prophetic character, and to learn from his dis- 
 charge of them all, the knowledge which it is 
 intended and fitted to convey, we must look, 
 not merely to his life, but still more especially 
 to his death. He was a prophet on the cross, 
 as well as a " priest on the throne," and not 
 the less a king on both. And whatever know- 
 ledge of the perfections of God w r e derive from 
 the life of Christ, is both carried out to a great-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 35 
 
 er extent, and taught with a more impressive 
 emphasis, by his death. 
 
 By his life we are taught that God is good, 
 and the sinner is powerfully encouraged to 
 come to him for pardon and for peace. But it 
 was on the cross that he gave the highest ex- 
 hibition of the Divine goodness. To all his 
 creatures the goodness of God was known ; 
 but to none of them was the infinite and in- 
 conceivable extent of that goodness known, till 
 Christ died on -the cross. When man fell, 
 had God freely forgiven the rebel, and by a 
 word restored him to perfect purity, and placed 
 him in a state of impeccable stability, this would 
 have been an act of unexampled goodness. 
 But as this act could by no possibility be per- 
 formed, without throwing doubt on the Divine 
 perfections, and producing the most disastrous 
 consequences, the next and only method which 
 created reason could have su^o-ested for the 
 
 oo 
 
 treatment of the rebels would be, to give up the 
 fallen pair to him to whose suggestions they 
 had listened, in opposition to the command of 
 God, cut off the stream of iniquity by drying 
 up its source, and people the world anew with 
 less feeble creatures. But when they heard of 
 the Incarnation, when they heard that the Eter- 
 nal Word, who spoke the world into being, was 
 himself to be made flesh, and in the weakness
 
 36 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 of flesh was to go forth into that world of which 
 Satan had become the god, and to meet him in 
 his own domain, and to contend with him and 
 all his powers on his own ground, and by his 
 own deeds and his own sufferings, to take away 
 the captives of the mighty, and to redeem the 
 prey of the terrible, and when they saw all this 
 actually accomplished, then had they a view of 
 the goodness of God, far beyond aught that 
 they could possibly have had before. When 
 they saw God willing to redeem from their 
 captivity, and to ransom from destruction, 
 creatures, whose utter and final perdition could 
 not have affected his happiness or glory, with 
 no less a price than the blood of his own well- 
 beloved Son, it is no matter of surprise that 
 they, delighted thus to be assured of the infi- 
 nite extent of the goodness of their God, should, 
 as well as the redeemed from among men, 
 celebrate the death of Christ, in the most ex- 
 alted strains of gratitude and adoration, as we 
 are assured by John in the Revelation that 
 they do, when he says, " And I beheld, and I 
 heard the voice of many angels round about 
 the throne, and the beasts, and the elders : and 
 the number of them was ten thousand times 
 ten thousand, and thousands of thousands ; say- 
 ing with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb 
 that was slain to receive power, and riches,
 
 THE INCARNATION. 37 
 
 and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and 
 glory, and blessing. And every creature which 
 is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the 
 earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that 
 are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and hon- 
 our, and glory, and power unto him that sit- 
 teth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for 
 ever and ever."* And well might the same 
 writer, when contemplating the goodness of 
 God, as it is set forth in the unspeakable value 
 of the price by which he purchased our safety, 
 thus speak of it, " In this was manifested the 
 love of God towards us, because that God 
 sent his only begotten Son into the world, that 
 we might live through him. Herein is love, 
 not that we loved God, but that he loved us, 
 and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our 
 sins."t The love of God is indeed thus mani- 
 fested to be something, the extent of which no 
 language may describe, and no heart may con- 
 ceive : and the redeemed of the Lord, while 
 throughout eternity his love flows forth to 
 them in an ever-increasing weight of glory and 
 blessedness, will feel no misgivings lest he 
 who thus blesseth them should grow weary in 
 the exercise of his love, and should come to a 
 limit, beyond which they shall not go in its 
 
 * Rev. v. 11. t Uohniv. 9. 
 
 4
 
 38 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 enjoyment, while they can ever look back to 
 the cross of Christ, where the death of our 
 Prophet gave an ineffaceable and irrefragable 
 demonstration that the love of God is truly 
 boundless, exhaustless, and passing all under- 
 standing. 
 
 Now, we would ask, is it possible that the 
 life of Christ, clear, and distinct; and decisive 
 as are the manifestations of the love and good- 
 ness of God which it affords, could have mani- 
 fested that love and goodness, to as great an 
 extent, or have given so impressive and indu- 
 bitable a demonstration of them as that which 
 we derive from his death 1 Every reader will, 
 we suppose, answer, No. It was in his whole 
 life, but still more especially and emphatically, 
 in his death, that our great Prop..et revealed 
 unto us the Father. Then he died as a pro- 
 phet, not less than as a priest ; or, in other 
 words, it was from his death as a sacrifice to 
 expiate our sins, that we derive the highest 
 instruction, which, as our prophet, he came to 
 teach us. ' We beg our readers to keep this 
 observation in mind, that, even as our Prophet, 
 it was necessary that Christ should die, and 
 not less necessary that his death should be that 
 of an ur.fillen, sinless person. 
 
 In the meantime we go on to remark, that 
 this demonstration of the love of God, which
 
 THE INCARNATION. 39 
 
 was given in the death of Christ, becomes 
 much more distinct and impressive, when 
 viewed in connection with that demonstration 
 of the exceedingly hateful and malignant na- 
 ture of sin, which was given by the same 
 event. When sin was first introduced into the 
 dominions of God, some demonstration of its 
 evil was given in the punishment inflicted on 
 the offenders. That demonstration, however, 
 was comparatively trifling. In them it was 
 not immediately punished to the full extent of 
 its demerit, nor consequently the full extent of 
 its evil shown. And had these first offenders 
 been at once, and frankly forgiven, could this 
 by any possibility have been done, it would 
 have afforded a comparatively trifling manifes- 
 tation of the grace of God. Before that grace 
 could be seen in all its glory, sin must be first 
 seen in all its malignity. And this could not 
 be seen merely by ihe fall of angels. One of 
 its most awful characteristics, their fall could 
 not show. We refer to its generative nature, 
 its capability of being propagated from race 
 to race tl rough successive generations. What- 
 ever number of angels there were who kept not 
 their first state, each fell by his own personal 
 act, and to however many other sins that first 
 sin might give rise in the individual, this was 
 only a proof that sin once admitted into the heart
 
 40 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 would propagate itself there ; but could give 
 no idea of another fact, which far more fear- 
 fully demonstrates the malignity of sin, name- 
 ly, that sin might be committed under such cir- 
 cumstances, as would render it just in God to 
 cause the poison of that sin to pass from the 
 actual transgressor to unnumbered millions of 
 other responsible creatures, connected in a par- 
 ticular manner with the transgressor, so as to 
 involve them all in his guilt and in his doom. 
 Till man fell, and the result of his fall was seen, 
 it could not be known that such was the malig- 
 nity of sin, that one sin of one man, was suf- 
 ficient to diffuse guilt and misery through all 
 generations of men. One sin thus committed, 
 under circumstances which afforded it an op- 
 portunity for producing all its natural and pro- 
 per effects, gave a much more impressive view 
 of its native malignity, than the fall of angels 
 could possibly do. Many proofs of the hate- 
 fulness of sin have been given, such as the 
 sweeping away of a guilty world by the flood, 
 the sudden destruction of the " cities of the 
 plain," the devotion of the Amorites to exter- 
 mination, when the measure of their iniquities 
 was full. And all the madness, and folly, and 
 guilt, and misery, that abound on earth, and every 
 sin, and every sorrow of every individual, when 
 viewed, as it ought always to be, in connexion
 
 THE INCARNATION. 41 
 
 with the original source whence it sprung, are 
 all affecting and convincing proofs proofs 
 coming home to the bosom of every man who 
 is capable of feeling how " evil a thing and 
 bitter sin is," while they are proving that the 
 "evil figment" of man's heart, "the root of 
 bitterness," is at this day as vigorous and fresh, 
 and flourishing, and fruitful as it was at the 
 beginning ; and while they are showing how 
 one sin of one man, when committed under 
 circumstances favourable to the development 
 of its proper effects,, is capable of resulting in 
 the actual guilt and temporal suffering of all, 
 and in the final condemnation of many. 
 
 A.nd when this demonstration of the malig- 
 nity of sin has been for ages exhibited to the 
 examination of men and angels, when we have 
 seen one sin spreading its contamination over 
 a whole world, and over all generations of men, 
 and showing its poison in the production of a 
 guilt and misery that baffles all -calculation and 
 all conception, is this demonstration, over- 
 whelming though it be, the most painful exhi- 
 bition of the " exceeding sinfulness of sin," 
 which God hath given to angels and to men ? 
 No. There is a demonstration more striking 
 still. His only-begotten Son is sent forth to 
 teach us this, among other things, that the holi- 
 ness of God is something far beyond all con- 
 4*
 
 42 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ception, that his aversion to sin is wholly un- 
 alterable, and that, in short, there is a hate- 
 fulness in sin, which we can no more compre- 
 hend, than we can comprehend the perfections 
 of God. We have seen the effects of one sin, 
 and these are disastrous beyond all calculation. 
 But the death of our Divine Prophet must be 
 supposed to afford a demonstration even be- 
 yond this, else it would not have been given. 
 When angels saw him, whom they were ac- 
 customed to worship, go forth into the world 
 .in the " likeness of sinful flesh" when they 
 saw him take upon him the penalty due to the 
 sins of a lost world, when they saw him un- 
 dertake to pay a debt of such incalculable mag- 
 nitude, they would be ready to say, surely it 
 is sufficient that he has had goodness enough 
 to undertake for these fallen creatures ! The 
 debt will not be, in reality exacted ; the penal- 
 ty will not be unsparingly inflicted upon the 
 only-begotten and well-beloved Son. A little 
 may be exacted in order to prove the reality of 
 his suretyship, a little may be inflicted to 
 prove the reality of his substitution ; but surely 
 the whole will never be cither required or in- 
 flicted He will spare the Son. But no, not 
 one pang due to our guilt was withheld, not one 
 drop of gall which guilt had mingled in our 
 eup, was abstracted from. his. " The Lord
 
 THE INCARNATION. 43 
 
 hath laid on him the iniquities of us all ; " and 
 he is able to forgive every sin, because there is 
 no sin, the bitterness resulting from which he 
 did not feel to the full. And this is what consti- 
 tutes his death so awful, and solemn, and im- 
 pressive a demonstration, beyond all other de- 
 monstrations, of the inconceivable holiness of 
 God, and of the unspeakable . hatefulness of 
 sin, that though he on whom our iniquities 
 were laid was the well-beloved Son, yet not 
 one pang due to guilt was spared him. 
 
 We have already said that the demonstra- 
 tion of the unspeakable grace and goodness of 
 God, which was given in the death of Christ, 
 would appear still more conspicuously when 
 viewed in connection with the demonstration 
 of the exceeding " sinfulness of sin," derived 
 from the same event. For if such be the hate- 
 fulness of sin, that, even when the Son took our 
 sins upon him, not one pang due to them was 
 spared him, then how great is the goodness of 
 God in providing a ransom, and such a ransom, 
 for creatures so deeply involved in all its pol- 
 lution and hatefulness ! Well might the apos- 
 tle say, " For scarcely for a righteous man will 
 one die ; yet perad venture for a good man 
 some would even dare to die. But God com- 
 mendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
 
 44 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 were yet sinners, Christ died for us."* And 
 well might he also say, as he does in the same 
 chapter, " Where sin abounded, grace did 
 much more abound." For if such be the ma- 
 lignity of sin, that one sin of one man was suf- 
 ficient to involve the whole human race in 
 guilt and condemnation, how great is that 
 grace of God, which forgives not one sin of 
 one man, but innumerable sins of innumerable 
 men ! 
 
 As the death of a fallen and sinful creature 
 could be no demonstration whatever of the 
 grace and goodness of God, so neither could 
 it be any greater a demonstration of the malig- 
 nity of sin than our own death If then Christ 
 was a fallen sinful creature, if there existed in 
 any department of his constitution the slightest 
 portion of that abominable thing which God 
 hates, if he died merely by the " common pro- 
 perty of flesh to die, because it was accursed 
 in the loins of our first parents," or because he 
 had taken a portion of the " perilous stuff," 
 then his death, instead of being the most awful 
 and solemn exhibition of the holiness of God, 
 and of the sinfulness of sin," which men or 
 angels ever saw, was just such a common ex- 
 hibition of these, as we have the advantage of 
 
 * Rom. v. 7.
 
 THE INCARNATION. 45 
 
 seeing every day, in the death of other fallen 
 sinful creatures. 
 
 Hence then we again come to the conclu- 
 sion, that the death of Christ was necessary to 
 the full discharge of his prophetic office. He 
 died that he might teach us the important and 
 necessary lesson, that there is an inconceivable, 
 that is, to us, an infinite malignity in sin that 
 there is in God an inconceivable holiness and 
 hatred of sin, and that sin can never be for- 
 given without being first atoned for. And we 
 come also to the conclusion that this lesson 
 could not be taught by the death of a sinful 
 creature, in any higher degree than it is taught 
 by the death of those who are daily dying 
 around us, and consequently that our prophet 
 who died to teach us this was not a sinful 
 creature. 
 
 We might make similar remarks upon the 
 Truth and the Justice of God, from the illustra- 
 tions of which, given in the death of our 
 prophet, the same conclusion that he was not 
 sinful or fallen, might be drawn. We shall, 
 however, remark upon no other of the divine 
 perfections, save his Immutability, as the 
 knowledge of this is, in itself, most necessary, 
 and includes, in some measure, both his Jus- 
 tice and Truth. Of the existence of this per- 
 fection the history of the world affords many
 
 46 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 striking illustrations. Many things occurred 
 to induce God, if change with him had been 
 possible, to change his purpose of grace and 
 mercy to a fallen world. The history of the 
 antediluvian ages shows us men, not, as might 
 have been expected, mourning over the dis- 
 mal consequences of the fall, and walking in 
 all the humility of deep penitence before the 
 God whom they had offended, and cherishing 
 with feelings of heartfelt gratitude the happy 
 hopes which he had graciously held out to 
 them ; but, on the contrary, devoted to every 
 species of wickedness, and carrying their guilt 
 to such an extent as to render it necessary to 
 sweep away the whole race. Yet even in the 
 infliction of this terrible judgment, he, in the 
 midst of w r rath, remembered mercy, and pre- 
 served one family, that through them the pro- 
 mise that the woman's seed should bruise the 
 serpent's head might be fulfilled, and the im- 
 mutability of his purpose might be manifested. 
 Again, when Israel was chosen, that to that 
 nation might be committed the " oracles of 
 God," and that they might be placed under a 
 dispensation preparatory to the coming of the 
 promised Messiah, how constantly did they 
 prove themselves to be truly a stiff-necked and 
 rebellious people 1 Not all the wonders which 
 they saw in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the
 
 THE INCARNATION. 47 
 
 wilderness, not their own constant experience 
 of the happiness of obedience, and the misera- 
 ble consequences of rebellion, in short, nothing 
 could turn them away from their idolatries. 
 How often had God to give them into the 
 hands of their enemies ! But nothing could 
 induce him to cast them off. Their unbelief 
 could not make his faithfulness of none effect. 
 " I am Jehovah ! I change not ; therefore ye 
 sons of Jacob are not consumed." Notwith- 
 standing all their provocations, therefore, they 
 were still preserve. I till the promise was ful- 
 filled, and the " Consolation of Israel" sent. 
 
 And even now, that for the rejection of the 
 Messiah, they have been for many ages sifted 
 like wheat among all nations, still the same 
 immutability which performed former pro- 
 mises, will fulfil that which teacheth us to 
 hope, that the veil shall yet be taken away 
 from the hearts of that people, when Israel 
 shall turn unto the Lord and be saved. 
 
 That God persevered, in the accomplish- 
 ment of a purpose which every thing in the 
 history of the world in general, and of his own 
 chosen people in particular, strongly provoked 
 him to abandon, is a great and impressive 
 proof of his immutability. But a still greater 
 was wanted, and the greatest that can possibly 
 be conceived is given in the death of Christ.
 
 48 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 When all our iniquities were laid on him, and 
 the penalty of them all was exacted of him, 
 will not God relax a little of the firmness of 
 his purpose ? When he beholds the agonies 
 which rend his spotless soul with unutterable 
 anguish, when he hears his strong cryings, and 
 sees his tears, and the shrinking and shudder- 
 ing of nature, not at the thought of death, but 
 of that hour and power of darkness by which 
 death was preceded, when the malice of men, 
 and the power of Satan, and the curse of a 
 broken law, were all let loose against him, will 
 not God, under such circumstances as these, 
 relent in favour of his well-beloved Son .' Will 
 he not interfere to confound the malice of men, 
 to wither up the power of Satan, to abate the 
 demands of the law ? Will he not now change, 
 or at least somewhat modify the purpose which 
 declared that thus it must be ? No. He will 
 not change now, and thus gives the most deci- 
 sive proof that never on any occasion can he 
 change. Even when the pains of hell got hold 
 of his well-beloved Son, and the sorrows of 
 death encompassed him around, and he found 
 trouble and sorrow such as mortal man may 
 never adequately conceive, yet God maniiested 
 no variableness and no shadow of turning. If 
 he had, what would have been the conse- 
 quence ? A God capable of change, and go-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 49 
 
 verning by a law which had been violated, with- 
 out its demands being fully satisfied, and its 
 penalty fully inflicted, would have been the 
 object presented to the view of angels, and an 
 object which, it is obvious, they could never 
 have contemplated without terror and alarm. 
 Never was immutability put to such an awful 
 test, and never was result so glorious, and never 
 coul'd conviction be deeper than that which was 
 impressed upon the hosts of heaven, that in 
 God they could never henceforth dread any 
 change. And the powers of darkness know 
 that God, who withdrew not his well-beloved 
 Son from one pang that the imputed guilt of an 
 apostate world entitled them to inflict upon him, 
 tmtil he was enabled to say, " It is finished," is 
 a God who cannot change. And the believer in 
 Jesus knows that the God who gave up his 
 Son to die for him, is a God who cannot 
 change, and rejoices to know that if God hath 
 chosen him to salvation : through sanctification 
 of the Spirit and belief of the truth, there is 
 then nothing in heaven above, or in hell be- 
 neath, that can separate him from the love of 
 God which is in Christ Jesus. And let the 
 thoughtless, heedless, careless sinner know, 
 that God can never change ; that his threaten- 
 ings are as unalterable as his promises. He 
 is pleasing himself, it may be, in some vague,
 
 50 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 undefined, and unfounded reliance in the un- 
 covenanted mercies of God ; and is soothing 
 down the alarms of conscience by saying 
 God is merciful. And merciful he is, beyond 
 what heart can conceive, but merciful to those 
 only who seek his mercy in the appointed way. 
 He thinks perhaps that a few prayers and 
 tears wrung from him at the last trying hour, 
 may prevail on a being so merciful, to save 
 him from the fearful and irreversible doom de- 
 nounced against sinners. But look to the cross- 
 of Christ. He spared not his own Son, and 
 will he spare thee, as if he loved thec better 
 than him? He abated not one iota of the de- 
 mands of the law in the case of his own well- 
 beloved Son, and will he abate its demands for 
 thee ? With unchanging and unaltering pur-- 
 pose he said of him, " Awake, Oh sword, 
 against my shepherd, and against the man that 
 is my fellow." And hopest thou that the sword 
 that was made so sharp to him, shall be sheath- 
 ed for thee ? Thou hopest for impossibilities. 
 Away with the delusive, the destructive hope, 
 and flee to him in whom alone safely is to be 
 found. 
 
 Again, then, we come to the conclusion, that 
 Christ died as our Prophet, that lie might re- 
 veal to us, among other things, the immutabi- 
 lity of God. For his death put that immuta-
 
 t * THE INCARNATION. 51 
 
 bility to a test which proves this characteristic 
 to be truly infinite, and which can leave to 
 neither the sinner nor the saint, the fallen 
 angels, nor those that surround his throne, 
 either the hope, or the fear of change. And 
 again we also conclude, that to him, from 
 whose death w T e learn the immutability of 
 God, the terms fallen, and sinful, never could, 
 with truth, be applied. For where was the 
 mighty test of immutability in giving up such 
 a being to death 1 Or what could we have 
 learned of the character of God at all from his 
 death, more than from the death of other men? 
 We can produce the most irresistible proof of 
 every particular in this proposition, " God is 
 a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in 
 being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, good- 
 ness, and truth ? But remove the cross of 
 Christ, from which alone the proof is derived, 
 or make it the cross of a fallen, sinful man, 
 and we are again plunged into all the uncer- 
 tainty of those speculations upon the being and 
 attributes of God, the only effect of which has 
 been to show, that unaided reason could never 
 draw any satisfactory conclusion upon the sub- 
 ject, from the kingdom either of nature or of 
 providence that as the sun can be discovered 
 only by his own light, so God can be known 
 only by his own revelation.
 
 52 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer on the prophetic 
 office of Christ, for the purpose of showing 
 that to the due discharge of the duties peculiar 
 to that office, his death, and, consequently, his 
 Incarnation, was not less necessary, than for 
 the purpose of making atonement for sin, or 
 for the discharge of the duties of his sacerdo- 
 tal office. To the latter our attention is com- 
 monly more particularly directed, when speak- 
 ing of the Incarnation and death of our 
 Redeemer. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer on his prophetic 
 character too, for the purpose of leading us to 
 a principle which it is of the utmost impor- 
 tance to keep constantly in view, in all discus- 
 sions on such topics, and indeed in all theolo- 
 gical discussions, namely, that, in Christ, the 
 prophetic, sacerdotal, and regal offices were 
 never divided. His every act must be viewed 
 in its prophetic, sacerdotal, and regal aspects, 
 before its full importance can be seen. This 
 principle I shall take some pains to establish. 
 But it will be more easily done when I have 
 made such remarks as the subject requires on 
 the other offices of Christ. 
 
 Let us not, in passing, neglect the more strik- 
 ing and important practical bearings of this 
 subject. I have already had occasion to show, 
 that the death of our Prophet very distinctly
 
 THE INCARNATION. 53 
 
 teaches us, that such is the goodness of God, 
 that there is no extent of guilt which he is not 
 willing to pardon, and, therefore, that there is 
 no sinner who may not venture to come to the 
 throne of grace. I have also shown how the 
 same event proves, that to hope for salvation, 
 excepting through an union with Christ, is to 
 hope that God will overturn the whole princi- 
 ples of his moral government, and render the 
 whole scheme of redemption, and all that it 
 cost the Saviour to accomplish it, a mere nul- 
 lity ; and that, for the purpose of sparing the 
 sinner the trouble of denying himself, and 
 abandoning his sins. I would now further re- 
 mark, that the death of our Prophet distinctly 
 teaches us to what extent our obedience to God 
 must be carried. His command is, that we 
 should be ready to lay down our lives for the 
 brethren, and should l resist even unto blood, 
 striving against sin.' His own practice goes 
 to the full extent of his precept. He obeyed 
 even unto death. He has thus cut off every 
 excuse that can possibly be made for a limited 
 obedience. 
 
 Whether then we look to the communication 
 of theological truth, or to the illustration and 
 enforcement of practical principle, it is plain 
 that our instruction would have been altogether 
 defective, had not our Prophet died. Had his 
 5*
 
 54 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 obedience been limited to something short of 
 death, then we would have felt encourged to 
 s.et a limit, and that a much narrower limit, to 
 our own obedience. But if even death, in its 
 most fearful form, did not authorize the Son to 
 decline from the path of obedience, then his 
 every pang impresses upon our hearts the 
 lesson, that when God commands, there is no 
 plea, however plausible, that can possibly be 
 admitted as an excuse for neglecting to obey ; 
 that though obedience should lead us through 
 a fiery furnace, or a lion's den, the example of 
 him who obeyed through sufferings more fear- 
 ful by far than either, infallibly assures us, that 
 no argument can apologize for our turning back 
 when God calls us to go forward. When a 
 man begins to inquire, not how he may most 
 effectually obey God, but within how narrow 
 limits he may venture to contract his obedi- 
 ence ; when he begins to ask, not what is right, 
 but what is expedient, let him look to the cross 
 of Christ, and either renounce such principles, 
 or renounce the name of Christian. 
 
 CHRIST OUR PRIEST. 
 
 Let us now direct our attention to the Sa- 
 cerdotal office. The great duties of a priest 
 are to make atonement for the sins of the peo- 
 ple, and to offer up intercessions for them. It
 
 THE INCARNATION. 55 
 
 is clearly necessary that he who thus appears 
 before God, in behalf of the people, must him- 
 self be perfectly holy. Under the law no per- 
 son could be found possessed of this perfect 
 holiness, but the utmost care was taken to 
 render the Levitical High Priest, as far as 
 possible, a striking type of Christ in this re- 
 spect. He was required to be perfectly free 
 from all bodily defect and deformity. He was 
 to be born of a mother who had been, not a 
 widow, but a virgin, when married to his fa- 
 ther. He was consecrated to his office by 
 ceremonies of the most solemn kind. He 
 wore upon his forehead a golden plate, on 
 which was graven, " like the engravings of a 
 signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD." He was not 
 permitted to mourn, as other men, for those 
 that died, nor to contract any ceremonial un- 
 cleanness even for his father or his mother. 
 And on the great day of atonement, when he 
 entered into the sanctuary, he prepared him- 
 self for the solemnity, by offering first an atone- 
 ment for himself. Thus the utmost degree of 
 ceremonial holiness was conferred upon him, 
 that he might be a type of the immaculate 
 holiness of our great High Priest. 
 
 That Christ made atonement for his people, 
 and intercedes for them, we need not stop to 
 prove. But there are two points upon which
 
 56 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 a few remarks are necessary the one is, that 
 wherever atonement is made, it is made by 
 sacrificial blood-shedding ; and the other is, 
 that to offer this sacrifice was the peculiar 
 province of the priest. In proof of the first of 
 these positions, we might refer to the whole 
 Levitical ceremony. We might go still farther 
 back, and refer to the sacrifice of Abel, as a 
 proof that expiatory sacrifice was instituted by 
 God, from the beginning. At present, how- 
 ever, we shall produce only two texts, which 
 seem sufficiently decisive on the subject. In 
 Leviticus, xvii. 2, it is thus written, " The life 
 of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given 
 it to you upon the altar to make an atonement 
 for your souls ; for it is the blood that maketh 
 atonement for the soul" And in Hebrews, ix. 
 22, it is declared that " without shedding of 
 blood is no remission." Hence the blood of 
 the covenant has flowed through every age, 
 and has been the hope of the saints the sym- 
 bol of the promised seed, through all gene- 
 rations. 
 
 Neither will it be necessary to dwell on our 
 second position, that none save the priest could 
 present this atoning sacrifice. This is very 
 plainly declared in Hebrews, v. 1. "For every 
 high priest taken from among men, is ordained 
 for men in things pertaining to God, that he
 
 THE INCARNATION. 57 
 
 may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." It 
 is sufficiently proved too, by the ceremonies on 
 the great day of atonement. On that day the 
 priest appeared, in the most solemn manner, in 
 the sanctuary before the Lord, on behalf of the 
 people, nor, we suppose, will any one doubt 
 that, had any other person offered to do this, 
 he would have paid for his temerity with his 
 life. No man might take " this honour to him- 
 self, but he that was called of God, as was 
 Aaron." And the guilt of assuming this office, 
 without such a call, was fearfully exemplified 
 in the awful fate of Korah and his company, 
 whose censors, after they had gone down alive 
 into the pit were beaten into plates for a cov- 
 ering to the altar, " to be a memorial to the 
 children of Israel that no stranger, who is not 
 of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer in- 
 cense, and by parity of reasoning, to offer 
 sacrifice before the Lord ; that he be not as 
 Korah, and as his company." The same thing 
 is exemplified in the case of Saul, whoi under 
 trying enough circumstances, said, " I forced 
 myself, and offered a burnt-offering," by which 
 Samuel declared that he had completed the 
 guilt which lost him the kingdom. The case 
 of Uzziah affords distinct proof of the same 
 thing. But it is unnecessary to multiply proofs 
 on a subject so plain ; for the very institution of
 
 58 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 the prie^thcod is a sufficient proof of our posi- 
 tion, since, if any man might offer expiatory 
 sacrifices, that institution was useless. 
 
 These hints may serve for the present on a 
 point, which, we trust, few of our readers are 
 disposed to call in question, that where there 
 is atonement there is sacrifice, and where there 
 is sacrifice there is a priest to offer it. If, then, 
 Christ made atonement for sin, he made that 
 atonement by sacrifice ; and if he offered a 
 sacrifice then was he a priest, not a priest elect, 
 to be anointed to his office at some future pe- 
 riod, but a priest already possessed of all the 
 dignity and of all the prerogatives of the priest- 
 hood at the moment when the sacrifice was 
 offered. 
 
 We have already stated, that the Priest who 
 offered an atoning sacrifice, must of necessity, 
 be perfectly holy, ceremonially so under the 
 law, since really so, none could possibly be. It 
 is to be observed also, that the victim offered 
 was likewise required to be perfect in its kind, 
 without blemish or spot, else it could not be 
 accepted. " Cursed be the deceiver, that hath 
 in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth 
 to the Lord a corrupt thing ; for I am a great 
 King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is 
 dreadful among the heathen." 
 
 Both as the victim offered, then, and as the
 
 THE INCARNATION. 59 
 
 Priest who offered it, it was necessary that 
 Christ should possess all the perfection of holi- 
 ness, a holiness not resulting from a success- 
 ful resistance of the motions of sin in the flesh f 
 but a holiness resulting from the total absence 
 of any such motions. For an inclination to sin, 
 however successfully resisted, and however 
 completely repressed from going forth into ac- 
 tual transgression, is itself criminal, and totally 
 incompatible with the holiness of the " Lamb of 
 God, which taketh away the sins of the world." 
 If such inclination was in Christ, then was he 
 under the same necessity as the Levitical high- 
 priest, to prepare himself for appearing before 
 the Lord, by offering first a sacrifice for his 
 own sins. The holiness of him, therefore, who, 
 "through the eternal Spirit, offered himself 
 without spot to God," was not a holiness that 
 resulted from a successful repression of the 
 sinful inclinations of the flesh, or from a suc- 
 cessful overccm ng of the renitency of the hu- 
 man will against the Divine will ; but from the 
 total absence of any such inclinations, or such 
 renitency in the MAN anointed in the moment 
 of conception, with all the plenitude of the Holy 
 Ghost. Had he been, in any manner, or to any 
 degree, involved in the guilt of men, he could 
 not have substituted himself in the room of 
 guilty men, but must have died for his own 
 guilt.
 
 60 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 Christ then was really and truly a Priest; 
 an unfallen and sinless Priest. He had a life 
 which was strictly his own, which he could, by 
 no law, be required either to assume, or to lay 
 down ; a life which, in this respect, differed 
 essentially from the life of every created being; 
 for no created being assumes life, but receives 
 it at the will of God, without the possibility of 
 giving his own previous consent to its reception, 
 and without the possibility of having or of acquir- 
 ing any right to dispose of that life as he pleas- 
 es. Christ thus having a human life differing 
 from the life of every created being', had power 
 to lay it down at his own pleasure, and in any 
 manner that he might think proper. He did 
 lay it down, and his death was really and truly 
 an atonement. It was the payment of our debt, 
 the ransom of our redemption, the endurance 
 of our penalty, the price by which we were 
 purchased, the removal of the wrath of God 
 from us, by its transference to our substitute. 
 This atonement was demanded by all the attri- 
 butes of the Divine character, all of which are 
 gloriously illustrated by it- It was demanded 
 by the interests of all the rational family of God, 
 which would have been involved in dismay and 
 ruin, had sin been pardoned without that proof 
 of its unalterable hatefalness in the sight of 
 God, which the atonement alone could furnish.
 
 THE INCARiNATION. 61 
 
 By the atonement, Christ has laid a ground 
 for an intercession which must always be ef- 
 fectual, so that the prayer of faith offered unto 
 God through him, can never fail to be heard. 
 " For Christ is not entered into the holy places 
 made with hands, which are the figures of the 
 true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear in 
 the presence of God for us." 
 
 The most important duty, and that which we 
 most clearly and obviously owe to our great 
 High Priest, is to renounce every self-righteous 
 thought, and every self-dependent feeling, and 
 account the pardon of our sins, and eternal life 
 as solely the free gift of God through him. 
 That every deed of righteousness that we do, 
 is not one of the causes, but one of the effects 
 of our justification, is a truth of the very utmost 
 importance ; and a truth which may perhaps 
 be most satisfactorily proved by considering 
 some of the most common objections that are 
 opposed to it- 
 
 It is objected to the doctrine that we are jus- 
 tified solely by the atonement made by Christ, 
 that no necessary connection can be discovered 
 between the pardon of a guilty person, and the 
 death of an innocent one ; nor can any one ex- 
 plain how the latter can be the cause of the for- 
 mer. To this it may be answered and the 
 answer is a complete counterpoise to the ob- 
 6
 
 62 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 jection, that there is just as little connection, 
 that we can see, between pardon and repen- 
 tance, or between pardon and any thing else 
 that may be considered as its cause, as between 
 pardon and atonement. Both the objection and 
 the answer are particular instances of a univer- 
 sal truth, which is, that no'necessary connection 
 is discoverable by us between any two events, 
 which, nevertheless, we are accustomed to con- 
 sider as cause and effect. God has established 
 a connection between the atonement of Christ, 
 and the pardon of the believer ; and what, be- 
 sides the fiat of the Almighty, is requisite to 
 establish a connection between any two things '? 
 or what else has made any one thing in the 
 universe to be the cause of any other thing 1 
 If, therefore, we could see no reason why the 
 pardon of sin is communicated through the ex- 
 piatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ, no necessity 
 whatever for atonement, yet, when the fact is 
 revealed to us by God, that we can be pardoned 
 only through a crucified Redeemer, it would 
 become us, as offending creatures, depending 
 altogether on the mercy of God, to receive the 
 annunciation with all humility and gratitude. 
 But when God has graciously permitted us to 
 see, in part at least, the absolute necessity of 
 atonement, and some of the important moral 
 purposes answered by it, it is worse than fool-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 63 
 
 ish to find fault with this method of communi- 
 cating pardon. 
 
 When it is said that God is willing to par- 
 don us upon our repentance, without any atone- 
 ment, it is taken for granted that we can repent 
 when we please. For if repentance be some- 
 thing entirely out of our power, then it can 
 afford us no comfort to tell us, even if it were 
 true, that repentance will purchase our pardon. 
 And I know not that even the most determined 
 rationalism has ever promulgated a tenet more 
 clearly absurd, or more decidedly opposed to 
 all experience, than the tenet that a man can 
 repent of himself, without being led and enabled 
 to do so by ihe Holy Spirit. Many a sinner is, 
 no doubt, soothing himself to peace by the pro- 
 mise of a future repentance. But he neither 
 knows as yet what repentance is, nor his own 
 need of it, else he would build himself up in no 
 such foolish delusion. For what does the sin- 
 ner do, when he promises himself a future re- 
 pentance ? He just says, To-day, nothing shall 
 induce me to abstain from indulging every 
 appetite and every desire ; nothing shall lead 
 me to think of God at all, or to think of him 
 without dread and aversion ; nothing can make 
 me delight to contemplate his perfections, or 
 find any pleasure in drawing near to him ; to- 
 morrow, I will sit down and mourn, in the ut
 
 64 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 most anguish of spirit, those indulgences from 
 which nothing shall induce me to-day to abstain, 
 and wish a thousand times that I had never 
 yielded to them ; nothing shall give me such 
 delight as the contemplation of those glorious 
 perfections which, to-day, I hate to think of ; 
 and I shall account nothing such a privilege 
 as to draw near to that throne of grace, before 
 which nothing shall induce me, to-day, to bend 
 the knee. This is exactly what the sinner 
 says, when he promises himself a future re- 
 pentance. He promises that to-morrow he 
 will hate with the most cordial detestation, that 
 to which, to-day, he clings with the most ardent 
 affection. He who says, To-day I am bowed 
 down with all the weight of three score years 
 and ten, but to-morrow I am resolved that I 
 shall flourish in all the vigour of unbroken 
 youth, forms a resolution quite as rational, and 
 quite as much within his power to accomplish, 
 as he who says, to-morrow I will repent. Re- 
 pentance and renovation are not sacrifices 
 which we give to God, as the price of our 
 justification ; but gifts which God bestows upon 
 us, and which God only can bestow, in conse- 
 quence of our having been freely justified, 
 through the atonement of our Priest. 
 
 But the grand objection to the doctrine of 
 atonement is, that it is hostile to the interests
 
 THE INCARNATION. 65 
 
 of morality. It is said, that to tell a man that 
 he is justified, not by his obedience to the law 
 of God, but solely by the merits of our great 
 High Priest, is to cut the very sinews of ex- 
 ertion ; to place a pillow beneath the head of 
 the sluggard ; to spread a couch for the re- 
 pose of indolence ; to take away the most pow- 
 erful motives to diligence in doing good, and 
 to steadfastness in resisting temptation. It is 
 very natural, say such objectors, for a man to 
 reason thus. As my justification depends not 
 at all on my own holiness, therefore it is un- 
 necessary for me to put myself to the pain and 
 trouble of cultivating holiness. I need take no 
 care, since I have a sufficient surety to answer 
 for all my failures. That some men should 
 be found who turn the grace of God into las- 
 civiousness, is what any one acquainted with 
 human nature would be prepared to expect. 
 But the Gospel is not responsible for the er- 
 rors of those who pervert it to their own de- 
 struction. No truth is more certain, than that 
 the promotion of holiness is the great end of 
 all that Christ has done and suffered for us, 
 that to raise man from his state of moral weak- 
 ness and degradation, and to lead him to the 
 perfection of his moral nature, is the grand 
 purpose, as far as we are concerned, for which 
 the great plan of our redemption was devised, 
 6*
 
 66 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 and carried into execution. But the atonement 
 is not only not hostile to this purpose, but fur- 
 nishes the only means by which it can be ac- 
 complished. It will be granted, that religion 
 consists in regarding our Maker with all those 
 feelings which his perfections are calculated to 
 inspire ; or, as the sacred writers emphatically 
 call it, having the " heart right with God." To 
 believe in the being of God is the first article 
 in religion ; and to know his nature is the first 
 step toward religious perfection. Consequent- 
 ly, whatever tends most effectually to instruct 
 us as to the character of God, and most deeply 
 to impress upon our hearts a sense of his glo- 
 rious perfections, must also most effectually 
 tend to produce holiness. Now, which of the 
 two has the clearer and more impressive view 
 of the divine character he who believes in 
 the atonement, or he who considers it unneces- 
 sary? In the death of Christ, viewed as a 
 sacrifice for sin, the one sees the holiness of 
 God, and the " exceeding sinfulness of sin" so 
 awfully displayed, that he can conceive of no- 
 thing else which could display them so strongly 
 or convince him of them so deeply that, in 
 his view, not even the destruction of the whole 
 human race could, in so awful and impressive 
 a manner, manifest the holiness of God, and 
 the utter and inconceivable hatefulness of sin,
 
 THE INCARNATION. 67 
 
 as the humiliation and death of the Son of God. 
 In the death of Christ, the other sees no such 
 sacrifice, nor any manifestation whatever of the 
 holiness of God, or of the evil of sin; and he 
 would tell us that the deluge, the destruction 
 of Sodom, or the final perdition of any one 
 human being, is, beyond all comparison, a more 
 awful proof of the hatefulness of sin, than the 
 death of Christ. Is it possible, then, that the 
 latter can have as deep and impressive a view 
 of the holiness of God, as the former ; or have 
 his heart so effectually aroused to a dread of 
 sin, and a sense of its malignity ? 
 
 Again : with regard to love to God, that im- 
 portant principle of morality, what can be so 
 well calculated to awaken it, as a belief in the 
 doctrine of atonement 1 " We love him, be- 
 cause he first loved us ;" and it is in the atone- 
 ment that we witness the exhibition of a love 
 ineffable and inconceivable. He who, awaken- 
 ed to a sense of his guilt, has felt himself ready 
 to sink under its insupportable weight, and has 
 found safety and peace in the blood of the 
 " Lamb that was slain," finds himself totally 
 unable to express his sense of the mercy of 
 God, in providing such a ransom for his of- 
 fending creatures. It is in the very God 
 against whom he has rebelled, that he finds 
 his help ; and a life devoted to his service is
 
 68 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 the necessary consequence of that supreme 
 gratitude and affection which have been im- 
 planted in his heart. Who will love God most? 
 He who sees him providing a way by which 
 pardon may be granted, while we are placed 
 in a situation in which pardon was so difficult, 
 that without the shedding of blood there could 
 be no remission? or he who only considers 
 him as pardoning while there was no obstacle 
 whatever to the granting of that pardon 1 
 
 And who will regard the law of God with 
 the greatest respect, he who considers its 
 claims as so limited, that he is fully able to 
 satisfy them, or he who considers it as so pure 
 and so extensive, that he only looks forward to 
 conformity to it, as the completion of his sal- 
 vation and the perfection of his nature? He 
 who considers every deed of righteousness 
 which he performs, as so much of the labour 
 accomplished which is to purchase heaven for 
 him, and for which he looks on God as his 
 debtor ; or he who considers it as a new step 
 gained in his progress to perfection, and a new 
 ground of gratitude to God ? In every view 
 which can be taken of the subject, the law 
 appears to be " made void," not by the man 
 who sets it aside as the ground of justification, 
 because he has so high an idea of its sanctity, 
 that he considers justification, and all the bless-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 69 
 
 ings connected with it, as so many means 
 adopted to produce conformity to the law ; but 
 by him who considers it only as a means for 
 attaining a further end ; and a means, too, 
 which we are perfectly capable of employing. 
 The end of the one is to be justified, and con- 
 formity to the law the means by which it is to 
 be accomplished. The end of the other is to 
 be renewed after the image of his Maker, in 
 righteousness and true holiness ; and justifica- 
 tion is only one of the means by which that end 
 is to be attained. The one obeys that he may 
 be justified ; the other obeys because he has 
 been justified. Much has been forgiven him ; 
 therefore he loveth much. Upon what possi- 
 ble ground, then, can he who denies the atone- 
 ment, triumph over him who adopts it 1 or talk 
 of his regard for the interests of morality, after 
 he has degraded holiness from its lofty situa- 
 tion as the very end of our being, the end for 
 which we were created and redeemed, into the 
 rank of a means for the attainment of some 
 further and more important object? Or how 
 can he pretend that he is exalting the dignity 
 of human nature, who contends for the debas- 
 ing doctrine, that if the dread of punishment be 
 removed, there is no longer any sufficient mo- 
 tive to the cultivation of holiness ? 
 
 The first and most sacred duty which we
 
 70 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 owe to Christ as our Priest, is, to consider the 
 pardon of our sins as resulting solely from his 
 work as our Priest, as freely granted ante- 
 cedently to any holiness that we do or can 
 possess, and consequently as being in no sense, 
 and to no degree, the effect of that holiness. 
 And this belief, so far from being hostile to the 
 interests of morality, affords the only ground 
 upon which the principles of morality can be 
 securely built ; as it makes holiness not the 
 means to some further attainment, but the ulti- 
 mate attainment, the final perfection of man ; 
 and as it not only furnishes the only effectual 
 means for the successful cultivation of holiness, 
 but sets before us motives for its cultivation of 
 a more impressive urgency, than any thing 
 else that we can conceive possibly could do. 
 
 Another duty which we owe to our Priest 
 is to consider him as the ONLY Priest, through 
 whom we can have access to God, or receive 
 any blessing from him. Christ hath, " by one 
 offering, perfected for ever them that are sanc- 
 tified," and if there can be no more offering for 
 sin, then there can be no other priest : and if 
 the death of Christ was perfectly sufficient for 
 our justification, then nothing needs to be add- 
 ed to it. In this respect the Church of Rome 
 is grievously guilty. But upon this subject, 
 where it would be easier to write a volume
 
 THE INCARNATION. 71 
 
 than a page, I am not called to enter. With- 
 out looking to the errors of others, I would urge 
 upon my reader seriously to consider, whether 
 an error of the same kind do not exist in his 
 own heart. Self-righteousness is not so much 
 a speculative error embraced by a particular 
 church, as a practical error derived from the 
 depravity of the heart, whatever may be the 
 creed believed. There is always a tendency 
 to substitute something in ourselves, in part at 
 least, as the ground of that grace which can be 
 derived from our great High Priest alone, a 
 tendency which manifests itself in a great va- 
 riety of ways, and which must b3 sedulously 
 guarded against as dishonouring to Christ. 
 
 Another duty which we owe to our great 
 High Priest, is to live up to our privileges ; and 
 that both as it regards our advancement in the 
 spiritual life, and our enjoyment of spiritual plea- 
 sure. The Christian life is essentially a progres- 
 sive thing. Nothing can be a greater mistake 
 than the opinion which seems to be entertained 
 by many, that when a man has once reason to 
 think himself a Christian, no farther improve- 
 ment in his character can be expected, or needs 
 to be sought after ; that there can be no rea- 
 son why he should possess a stronger faith, or 
 more lively hope, or a larger measure, or a 
 more active exercise, of all Christian graces,
 
 72 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 when he is forty years of age, than when h^ 
 was thirty. He who entertains such a notion 
 has abundant reason to doubt whether he knows 
 any thing about the Christian life. Christ 
 " died that he might redeem us from all our 
 iniquities," and he entered into heaven, there 
 to appear before God in order to procure for 
 us, and bestow upon us, all the grace and all 
 the power necessary to enable us to make our 
 path " as the shining light, which shineth more 
 and more unto the perfect day." And how can 
 we pretend to be his disciples at all. or with 
 what feelings can we hope to meet him r if we 
 can permit days, and months, and years, to 
 pass away, without even calling upon him at 
 all, or calling upon him only in a formal and 
 feeble manner, for the exercise of his sacerdo- 
 tal office on our behalf; and are living as if, 
 so far as we are concerned, it were a matter 
 of no consequence whether Christ be or be 
 not a Priest, whether he do, or do not pos- 
 sess the power of procuring for us every thing 
 necessary to enable us to go on from grace to 
 grace, and from strength to strength, till we 
 appear perfect before God in Zion. Salvation 
 is looked upon as something to be obtained and 
 enjoyed in a future state, and to be seriously 
 sought for, only when we can engage in world- 
 ly concerns no longer ; not as something which
 
 THE INCARNATION. 73 
 
 it is the first concern of man to obtain, and the 
 possession of which alone is able to carry us 
 comfortably through all the duties and trials of 
 life. This is exactly as if the rebel should say, 
 that when actually brought to the scaffold, it 
 would then be time enough to think of the 
 effectual mediator offered to him ; or as if the 
 sick man should say that he would enjoy his 
 disease as long as possible, and then when 
 death seemed inevitable, would apply to the 
 physician who could, and who alone could 
 certainly heal him. 
 
 . The Christian life ought to be, because 
 Christ has amply provided the means by which 
 it may be made, a life of alacrity and joy. It 
 is not more the privilege than the duty of the 
 Christian, to "rejoice always." He can look 
 upon that rich field of privilege and of promise 
 placed before him in the Bible, and can say 
 that it is all his own. And where is the want 
 that the blessed fruits of that, field cannot sup- 
 ply, the distress which they cannot relieve, the 
 wound that they cannot heal, the fear that they 
 cannot quell, or the sorrow for which they do 
 not furnish abundant consolation. Friend of 
 Jesus, why weepest thou ? If you have " an 
 Advocate with the Father," through whom your 
 sins are all forgiven, and you are made a child 
 of God ; and the Holy Ghost is given you as 
 7
 
 74 THE INCARNATION". 
 
 your sanctifier and comforter ; and you are as~ 
 sured of having Almighty power for your sup- 
 port, and unerring wisdom for your guide, and 
 heaven for your eternal' home, what can over- 
 balance or suppress the joy which naturally 
 results from such privileges as these ? Trials 
 we may, we must meet with ; but can these 
 depress us, when we know that " our light 
 affliction which is but for a moment, worketh 
 for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight 
 of glory ?" If tried by bodily pain, we should 
 just feel more keenly the happiness of the hope 
 which anticipates the time when we shall have 
 " a building of God, a house not made with 
 hands, eternal in the heavens." Worldly loss- 
 es will not overwhelm us, if we know that we 
 are undoubted heirs of an " inheritance that is 
 incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not 
 away." Friends may change ; but we will be 
 comforted by the assurance that in Christ we 
 have a " brother born for adversity," nay, " a 
 friend that sticketh closer than a brother." 
 There rolls between us and our Father's house, 
 the deep and restless tide of this world's cor- 
 ruption, through which we must of necessity 
 pass, and the deeper and more dangerous tide 
 of the corruptions of our hearts, and we are 
 surrounded by enemies on every side ; and 
 when we feel our own weakness, w r e may be
 
 THE INCARNATION. 75 
 
 ready to fear lest we should one day fall by 
 the hand of some of them. But every distress- 
 ing fear is removed when we recollect that we 
 " shall not be tempted beyond what we are able 
 to bear," and that, in point of fact, there is no 
 limit to our power, for we " can do all things 
 through Christ strengthening us," and that the 
 life that is in us is the life of Christ, a life 
 which no power can extinguish in any one of 
 Christ's members, any more than it can extin- 
 guish it in our glorious Head. 
 
 In every thing, therefore, does it become the 
 Christian to give thanks, even for those tri- 
 als which call into exercise, and thus strengthen 
 his graces ; for though " no chastening for the 
 present seemeth joyous, but grievous ; never- 
 theless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit 
 of righteousness to them that are exercised 
 thereby." The Christian can therefore "glory 
 in tribulation," well knowing .that when he 
 comes to the end of his course, and looks back, 
 on all his blessings, and on all his trials, when 
 he sings of mercy, he will see reason to sing 
 of judgment too. But when we drag on hea- 
 vily, as if there were disheartening difficulties 
 to be met, arid heavy penalties to be endured, 
 at every step, we bring up an evil report upon 
 the good land ; and make the world believe 
 thai we serve a harsh master, who demands
 
 76 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 much while he gives little ; and confirm the 
 too readily adopted notion, that religion is a 
 dull and gloomy thing, the < eath of all plea- 
 sure, and the grave of all enjoyment. And if 
 we go to the discharge of every duty, as if 
 there were a " lion in the way," and go to 
 meet trial and temptation with feelings like 
 those with which Saul went from Endor to 
 Gilboa, what but discomfiture can we expect, 
 when we engage under the depressing influ- 
 ence of anticipated defeat ? We are invited 
 to come, and that even " with boldness, to the 
 throne of grace." If indeed, we depended for 
 obtaining the petitions that we make, upon our 
 own merits, and might ask nothing but what we 
 deserve, then it would be useless to go to a 
 throne of grace, or to take the name of God 
 into our lips at all ; since we have deserved 
 only wrath. But if our petitions be founded 
 on the merits of Christ, then we can ask no- 
 thing [that he has not deserved, and nothing 
 that, if it be really good for us, he is not will- 
 ing to bestow. In this case, to come to God 
 with fear and hesitation, to limit our petitions 
 to small matters, because we feel that we have 
 no claim to ask larger, or to make our own 
 merits in any degree, the measure of our accept- 
 ance, or to ask as if God would grudge what 
 he bestows in all this we are just dishonour'
 
 THE INCARNATION. 77 
 
 ing our great High Priest, and living far be- 
 neath the privileges which he bestows upon 
 us. To consider religion as being our busi- 
 ness, but the world as the source from which 
 we must draw our pleasures to approach God 
 in prayer as a duty which it is right, and proper, 
 and profitable to perform, but without any feel- 
 ing of its being a privilege which it is delight- 
 ful to enjoy, to come to him as a Judge 
 whose good will it is our interest to conciliate, 
 without being able to look upon him as a Father 
 whose pow r er, and riches, and kindness, it gives 
 us pleasure lo contemplate and celebrate, and 
 whose approving smile, the light of whose 
 countenance, is a greater treasure than corn 
 and wine, and oil, is to take a view of that 
 communion to which God calleth us, and of the 
 privileges which he has conferred upon us, that 
 must greatly mar both our peace, and our 
 progress in the Christian life. While there- 
 fore every thing approaching to presumption, 
 or to that affected familiarity with God which 
 some appear .to mistake for filial confidence, is 
 to be guarded against with the most sedulous 
 care ; with equal care ought we to guard 
 against that distrust of our High Priest which 
 makes us dread to exercise and to enjoy, with 
 the most perfect confidence and freedom, the 
 privileges which in Christ Jesus we possess. 
 7*
 
 78 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 CHRIST OUR KING. 
 I proceed now to the consideration of our 
 Lord's regal offices ; and here it will be seen 
 that his death, and consequently his incarnation 
 was essentially necessary to the due discharge 
 of his functions as a King. From eternity he 
 was Lord over all. He possessed, in common 
 with the other persons of the Godhead, power 
 to sustain and bless his true worshippers, and 
 to involve his enemies in destruction. But, as 
 Mediator, he was the Father's servant, and 
 could obtain no kingdom which he did not first 
 gain by victory, could not be the Saviour of 
 men till he had conquered men's foes, and could 
 not be Lord of all things visible and invisible, 
 for the purpose of effectually securing the sal- 
 vation of his people, till he had first purchased 
 this dignity, by a full and faithful discharge of 
 the duties imposed upon him, and by him un- 
 dertaken in the covenant entered into between 
 him and the Father. A kingdom was given 
 unto the Son by the Father, a kingdom which 
 he will continue to hold until the mystery of 
 redemption be finished, when he shall again 
 give up the kingdom, that God may be "all 
 in all." 
 
 From the beginning, then, was 'Christ a king, 
 and as a king did he come to exhibit himself in 
 the world. When he was anointed with the
 
 THE INCARNATION. 79 
 
 fulness of the Holy Ghost, he was anointed as 
 a king, not less than as a prophet and priest. 
 In proof of this, we would refer to the forty- 
 Jjfth Psalm. There Christ's prophetic charac- 
 ter is first referred to when it is said, " Grace 
 is poured into thy lips : therefore God hath 
 blessed thee for ever," and then follows a 
 splendid description of his regal power and 
 authority. In the twenty-second Psalm also, 
 his prophetic and royal characters are so min- 
 gled as to render it impossible to suppose that 
 the one of these could commence at, one period, 
 and the other at another. In the hundred and 
 tenth Psalm, his regal character is, in the same 
 way, combined with his priesthood, leading ir- 
 resistibly to the conclusion that all these char- 
 acters he adopted, that to all these offices was 
 he anointed, at one and the same time. The 
 prophet Daniel too has determined an appointed 
 time " to anoint the most holy." But the pro- 
 phet has taken no notice whatever of a variety 
 of anointings at different times. But if Christ 
 was, in reality, to be anointed at different times, 
 and for different purposes, then the statement 
 of the prophet is not only defective, but tends 
 to mislead. 
 
 That Christ was a king at his coming into 
 the world, is proved by the fact, that the first 
 specific character under which he is presented
 
 60 THE 1NC1RNATION. 
 
 to us in the New Testament, is that of a king. 
 
 7 O 
 
 " Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of 
 Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold 
 there carne wise men from the east to Jerusa- 
 lem, Saying, where is he that is born king of the 
 Jews?" Now, when these men were led by 
 the Holy Spirit from a far country to proclaim 
 the birth of this king, and when they must have 
 come to worship him, not merely as king of the 
 Jews, a person in whom they could have no 
 concern, but as that generally expected king, 
 who, arising in Judea, was to obtain the domin- 
 ion of the world, who was to be the salvation 
 of God to all the ends of the earth." " a light 
 to lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of 
 Israel," a king the expectation of whose com- 
 ing was so general, that the flatterers of Ves- 
 pasian professed to find the fulfilment of the 
 prophecy in him, upon what possible ground 
 can it be rationally maintained that the person 
 so distinctly announced as the long-promised 
 king, was in reality at that time no king at all, 
 nor to be made a king till after his death ? 
 
 Again, when our Saviour entered into the 
 temple, which the Jews were making a house 
 of merchandise, and when, " having made a 
 scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of 
 the temple, and the sheep and the oxen ; and 
 poured out the changer's money, and overthrew
 
 THE INCARNATION. 81 
 
 the tables ; and said unto them that sold doves, 
 take these things hence ; make not my Father's 
 house a house of merchandise ;" he was surely, 
 in thus purging the temple, not only assuming to 
 himself both a sacerdotal and royal prerogative, 
 but was giving a most unequivocal manifestation 
 of his royal authority. For who is this who not 
 only utters so unpleasant a command, but who 
 so imperiously compels an instantaneous obedi- 
 ence to it? Is this the carpenter's son, the de- 
 spised Nazarene, the obscure peasant of the 
 polluted land of Gallilee of the Gentiles ? A s- 
 suredly, no. Had he appeared in the temple 
 in no other character !,han this, and attempted 
 such a purgation of it, he would at once have 
 been stoned to death, or torn to pieces. It is 
 clear that they who submitted thus to be driven 
 from the temple, which they had converted into 
 an exchange, who, without daring to resist, saw 
 even their money poured out, beheld in him, 
 who thus drove them away, the unequivocal 
 manifestations of a majesty that was not to be 
 opposed, of a regal authority and power, that 
 might not for a moment brook resistance. He 
 was then claiming to himself the honour and 
 the submission due to a king, and as assuredly 
 and as fully possessed that character then, as 
 he does now. 
 
 The prophet had distinctly declared that the
 
 82 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 Messiah would come as a king, saying, "Re- 
 joice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O 
 daughter of Jerusalem : behold thy king com- 
 eth unto thee ; he is just, and having salvation, 
 lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, 
 the foal of an ass." And this prediction was ful- 
 filled to the very letter, when at the triumphant 
 entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem, "the whole 
 multitude of the disciples began to rejoice, and 
 praise God with a loud voice, for all the mighty 
 works that they had seen, saying, Blessed be 
 the king that cometh in the name of the Lord ; 
 peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." 
 And when the Pharisees were offended at this 
 open declaration that he was Messiah the king, 
 and desired him to rebuke his disciples, so far 
 was he from complying with their request, and 
 suppressing the voices that hailed him as the 
 long-promised king, that "he answered and said 
 unto them, I tell you that if these should hold 
 their peace the stones would immediately cry 
 out." 
 
 And was he who was thus announcing him- 
 self to Zion as her king, whom her eyes were 
 almost failing with long looking for, as yet a 
 king only in expectancy? Was he not acknow- 
 ledged by Nathaniel, and hailed by the multi- 
 tude, as "King of Israel?" And are we to 
 suppose that it was without the Providence of 
 God, and without the dictation of his Holy Spi-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 83 
 
 rit, that Pilate wrote, and, though entreated 
 by the offended Jews, refused to alter that in- 
 scription which officially, and more truly than 
 Pilate knew, declared that he, who was sus- 
 pended on the cross, was '*King of the Jews ?" 
 Had there been any one of his offices in which 
 he did not distinctly announce himself to the 
 Jews, then, so far, had they been guiltless, as 
 they could not be guilty of rejecting that which 
 was never offered to them. 
 
 He came not only as King of the Jews, but 
 he came that in man's nature he might over- 
 throw man's foes, might spoil the spoiler, divest 
 Satan of his long usurped dominion, enter into 
 the strong man's house, bind him and take from 
 him his goods, and cast out the prince of this 
 world. During the whole course of his life he 
 showed his superiority to the powers of dark- 
 ness. The demons knew him to be the " Holy 
 one of God," and shunned his presence, and fled 
 his approach, and offered no resistance to his 
 commands. The hour of their power was not 
 yet come, and they could afflict him only through 
 the instrumerftality of wicked men. But that 
 hour did come, the hour when the soul of 
 Jesus began to be "amazed and very heavy," 
 words which fall far short indeed of expressing 
 the energy of the original, as that and all other 
 language must fall far short of expressing in an
 
 84 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 adequate manner, all the Tearfulness of that 
 amazement and horror of mind which then- 
 seized him. The hour did come which made 
 him cry out, " Now is my soul troubled ; and 
 what shall I say 1 Father save me from this 
 hour ; but for this came I unto this hour, Fa- 
 ther, glorify thy name." Now, what was it that 
 made the prospect of this hour so terrible to 
 Jesus ? Was it the mere dread of death ? The 
 supposition is totally inconsistent with the 
 whole of his conduct and character. Many of 
 his disciples have endured the cross, and sub- 
 mitted to all the tortures that ingenuity could 
 devise ; and even women and children have suf- 
 fered all these tortures, without a groan. And 
 did Jesus look on the mere pain of dying with 
 more than all the terror, and cling to a troubled 
 life with more than all the weakness of mortal 
 man ? No. It was not dying that he dreaded, 
 but the fearful conflict by which his death was 
 to be preceded. The powers of darkness were 
 all let loose upon him to assail him with their 
 utmost force. A broken law came to demand 
 of him the restitution of all its violated honour, 
 and to inflict upon him the curse due to its vio- 
 lation. And was it only a part of its demand 
 that it then insisted upon 1 Only a part of its 
 penalty, that it then inflicted? We cannot think 
 it. We cannot see how the law was honoured,
 
 THE INCARNATION. 85 
 
 if only a part of the violations by which it had 
 been insulted and trampled upon, were visited 
 upon him, and only a part of its penalty en- 
 dured. It was not merely a few of the iniquities 
 of his people, " but the iniquities of us all," that 
 he bore on the cross. And how did he bear 
 them ? Was it in mere outward show, while 
 in reality he felt not their penal consequences I 
 How he could be said to bear them then, and 
 to restore that which he took not away, we un- 
 derstand not, and if when the sinner is first awa- 
 kened to a sense of his guilt, or when the back- 
 slider begins to be filled with the fruit of his 
 own ways, when conscience is setting his 
 sins in array before him, and the law is stamping 
 all the bitterness of its curse upon every one of 
 them, thus filling his heart with terrors that can 
 find expression only in groanings unutterable, 
 and more fearful by far than the terrors of 
 death, if the guilt of one individual can thus 
 fill the heart of that individual with such anguish 
 and such agony, who may venture to form any 
 estimate of the agony endured by Christ when 
 he made his soul an offering for sin, when the 
 deceit of Jacob, the adultery and murder of 
 David, the denial of Peter, and the persecutions 
 of Paul, when the sins of an apostate world were 
 collected into one dark mass, and its whole bur- 
 den lajd upon him ? The law, inexorable as the 
 8
 
 86 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 stony tablets upon which it was engraved, was 
 there, setting all the sins by which his guilty 
 people had been polluted, in array before him, 
 filling his soul with all their terrors, and exact- 
 ing from him the penalty due to them all. And 
 death was there, armed with a power, and 
 clothed with terrors, in which he never before 
 or since assailed living being. It is sin that 
 forms the sting of death, and invests him with 
 all his powers. And if his assaults be terrible 
 to every individual of us, on account of our own 
 individual sins, and if he be terrible to us often, 
 even when we know that these sins are all for- 
 given, who may estimate the power and the 
 terror with which he assailed our Lord, when 
 armed with the power and invested with the 
 terrors, not of the sins of an individual, but of 
 those of a lost world ? And he who had the 
 power of death, even Satan, was there, with all 
 his powers unfettered and unrestrained, to try 
 what they might avail against the " second 
 man," in the hour of sorest travail. And the 
 prince of the powers of the air spread darkness 
 over all the land, and made the earth to quake 
 in the mightiness of his efforts. But these were 
 only faint and feeble shadows of the darkness 
 and commotion which were raised in the soul of 
 the sufferer, in that hour of Ins dismal conflict, 
 when his power to accomplish the original
 
 THE INCARNATION. 87 
 
 promise was put to its last fearful trial ; when 
 he conquered in suffering, and bruised the ser- 
 pent's head while his own heel was bruised. 
 
 Now had there been in any department of 
 Christ's person, any thing to which the terms 
 sinful, fallen, rebellious, could with the most 
 distant approach to truth or justice be applied, 
 we would ask if his escape from this hour of 
 the power of darkness was a thing within the 
 bounds of possibility ? Had the law found in 
 him the slightest ground to which it might at- 
 tach the curse due to its violation, it would have 
 held him fast in its adamantine chain, as a 
 debtor on his own account, and never would he 
 have been able to rescue himself, much less us, 
 from its inexorable grasp. Had death and he 
 who had the power of death, found the slight- 
 est ground in which the sting of death might 
 be planted, then assuredly had death had for- 
 cible dominion over him, and the blackness of 
 that darkness which was around him and within 
 him, in the garden and on the cross, had been 
 his portion for ever. But he endured their ut- 
 most rage, deeply tried, tried with a trial be- 
 yond aught that mortal man may ever compre- 
 hend, but unsubdued. He endured till the 
 law had no farther claim, till the powers of 
 darkness fled, their utmost power defeated and 
 baffled, and with them passed away the dark-
 
 68 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ness from the land, and from the soul of the 
 victorious and triumphant sufferer, and Satan 
 saw that his long usurped dominion over the 
 world was now utterly and hopelessly broken. 
 He endured till he could say, " It is finished," 
 till " having spoiled principalities and powers, 
 he made a show of them openly, triumphing 
 over them in it," namely in his cross He en- 
 dured till all his confidence and trusl in his 
 Father had returned, to restore peace and holy 
 joy to the soul from which they had for a time 
 withdrawn, and then, having openly shown that 
 the princes of this world had nothing in him, 
 he freely and voluntarily gave a life which was 
 still his own for the life of a lost world. Fear- 
 ful was the conflict that he sustained during 
 the hour of the " power of darkness," but happy 
 and glorious was the result, and splendid was 
 the victory in which his sufferings terminated, 
 and most royally triumphant was his death. 
 
 From these remarks the reader will perceive 
 that I maintain, not only that Christ's death 
 was as necessary to the due discharge of his 
 royal office, as it was to the due discharge of 
 his prophetic and sacerdotal offices ; but that 
 I further maintain, that his death, at the very 
 last moment of his mortal existence, was per- 
 fectly voluntary. that at that moment, whether 
 he would or would not die, was a thing as com-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 89 
 
 pletely in his power to determine, as, previous 
 to his Incarnation, it was within his power to 
 determine whether he would or would not be 
 made flesh. The simple statement which we 
 have made of the conflict that he had to endure 
 on the cross, and of the victorious manner in 
 which he came out of that conflict; might per- 
 haps be considered a sufficient proof of this. 
 But as it is a matter of the highest importance, 
 I shall enter a little further into it. 
 
 In support of the position that Christ was 
 not subject to death, but that he laid down his 
 life of his own accord, I quote his own ex- 
 press declaration to that purpose : " Therefore 
 doth my Father love me, because I lay down 
 my life, that I might take it again. No man 
 taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself ; 
 I have power to lay it down, and I have power 
 to take it again. This commandment have I 
 received of my Father." Nothing, it appears 
 to me, can be simpler, or clearer, or more un- 
 ambiguous, than this declaration of our Lord, 
 that his life was at his own disposal. This he 
 spoke of his human life, for it would be worse 
 than absurd to suppose that, before he had a 
 human life, he could have used any such lan- 
 guage. It is very clear from this, that the life 
 which he had taken, was a mortal life, else he 
 could not have laid it down at all. And it is 
 8*
 
 90 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 equally clear, that having taken a mortal life, 
 he could not say that he had power to lay it 
 down, if, in point of fact, he had no power to 
 retain it, but was compelled to forego it. He 
 could not say that lie had power to lay it down, 
 and to lake it again, in order to show that he 
 was Lord both of life and of death, if he died 
 because he had come into the region of death, 
 and was no more able to avoid dying than any 
 of those to whom he spoke. If he was not 
 God, and had not assumed human life at his own 
 pleasure, then he could have used no such lan- 
 guage ; for no created being can, by any pos- 
 sibility, possess the power here claimed by 
 Jesus. But if he was God, and if the human 
 life which he had assumed was as truly his 
 own life as his Divinity was his own, then he 
 unquestionably did possess a sovereign right to 
 dispose of that life as he pleased. And if he 
 had not that power over his own life, which no 
 created being can have, then it was not pos- 
 sible to present that life a voluntary offering 
 for the world. It was not his to give. In that 
 case he did no more than Codrus, Curtius, and 
 a hundred more have done. Being bound to 
 die at any rale, he was generous enough to an- 
 ticipate the date of his death, in order to ac- 
 complish an important purpose, and acquire a 
 deathless fame. Though what important pur-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 91 
 
 pose could be accomplished by his death, if he 
 had placed himself in a situation where death 
 was unavoidable, it is not easy to see. 
 
 Should the possibility of a doubt yet remain, 
 whether the text under consideration just means 
 what it so very plainly states, should it be 
 thought possible, without impiety, to under- 
 stand our Lord to mean any thing else than 
 just that at the moment when he was speak- 
 ing, he had absolute power over the life which 
 his hearers saw him possess, to lay it down 
 and to take it up at his pleasure, let us con- 
 sider the purpose for which he made the de- 
 claration. His object was to convince his au- 
 ditors that he was the Life, and that therefore 
 all who committed themselves to him would 
 be perfectly safe, for none could pluck them 
 out of his hand. And the proof, that in him 
 their life was safe, was, that he himself had a 
 life which no man could take from him, a life 
 over which death had no power. Now this 
 is just the ground on which our confidence in 
 him rests, that ' as the Father hath life in him- 
 self, so hath he given the Son to have life in 
 himself." But if, when the hour of trial come, 
 it was found that he could not resist the power 
 of death in himself, nor realize the declaration 
 that he made, that no man could take his life 
 from him, then how can we possibly rely
 
 92 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 upon him, that he can repel the power of death 
 from us, or fulfil the promise that he has made 
 to us, that none shall ever be able to pluck us 
 out of his hand ? He who could not save 
 himself from the grasp of the King of terrors, 
 can afford us little confidence in his power to 
 save us. If, then, to maintain that Christ was 
 a fallen, sinful man, and as incapable of re- 
 sisting death as we are, if to maintain that 
 when the hour of trial came, he conquered not 
 death, but death conquered him, if this be not 
 directly to falsify his own express declaration 
 and to overthrow the very pillars of the Chris- 
 tian's hope, I know not what can be considered 
 as doing so. 
 
 It is of no avail to tell us that, at his resur- 
 rection, this gift of having life in himself, 
 this quickening power was restored. For how 
 do we know that he holds that gift now, by a 
 firmer tenure than that by which he held it 
 before ? When he declared to the Jews, that 
 the Father had given him power to have life 
 in himself, and further assured them that he 
 had perfect power over that life, he had all the 
 fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him, to 
 enable him to resist any violence by which he 
 might be assailed. Can he have more than 
 all the fulness of the Godhead to guard it now ? 
 Yet we are told that a stronger than he came,
 
 THE INCARNATION. 93 
 
 and by violence took away the gift, which the 
 Father had given him for the life of the world. 
 After the restoration of that gift, are we not 
 left to dread, that, by similar violence, it may 
 again be taken away, since assuredly it can 
 be secured by no stronger power now than it 
 was at first ? 
 
 Another text, which very clearly evinces our 
 Lord's victory over death, is in Hebrews, v. 7. 
 "Who, in the days of his flesh, when he had 
 offered up prayers and supplications, with 
 strong crying and tears, unto him that was 
 able to save him from death, and was heard, 
 in that he feared." To him, as man, death 
 was naturally terrible ; and, coming to him 
 armed with terrors incalculably greater than he 
 ever assaulted any other man with, awakened 
 prayers and supplications of the most earnest 
 and pathetic description. One of them we 
 have recorded in Psalm xxii, which he repeated 
 on the cross: "Deliver my soul from the 
 sword ; my darling from the power of the dog. 
 Save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast 
 heard me from the horns of the unicorns." 
 Such were his prayers in the hour of his fear- 
 ful conflict with the powers of darkness. And 
 how was he heard? Was it by being given 
 up, a bound captive, into the power of death, 
 and of him who had the power of death, that
 
 94 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 is, the devil ? No ; but he was heard by being 
 sustained against all their violence, till he tri- 
 umphed over them on the cross, and death, 
 and he that had the power of death, fled away 
 baffled, and found that they had met with one 
 mail} against whom their utmost efforts could 
 avail nothing. And then he voluntarily laid 
 down a life which was still his own to give or 
 to retain ; and he entered into the domain of 
 death, not as a captive, but as a conqueror, to 
 fulfil the prediction, " O death, I will be thy 
 plagues ; O grave, I will be thy destruction." 
 Could he accomplish this prediction by being 
 overcome by death on the cross? No; had 
 death, and he who had the power of death, for 
 one moment overmastered him, then was every 
 hope of a lost world extinguished, and that for 
 ever. 
 
 Again, if the Prince of this world conquered 
 Christ upon the cross, and violently took away 
 his life, then it is clear that he was not then, 
 " King of kings, and Lord of lords ;" he had 
 met with his superior ; he was mt even a king 
 at all, but a fallen, sinfu- man. But how then 
 could he save men from the beginning of the 
 world? And if the cross was a scene of his 
 defeat, and the monument of his weakness, how 
 can it also be the foundation of our hopes, and 
 the ground of our glorying? Or with what truth
 
 THE INCARNATIOJf. 95 
 
 could the Apostle say that he triumphed over 
 principalities and powers on the cross, if there 
 they, in reality, triumphed over him ? 
 
 Finally I appeal, as a proof of the regal char- 
 acter of our Lord's death, to the circumstances 
 that attended it, all of which strongly show that 
 at the moment when it took place it was perfect- 
 ly voluntary. When the band of men and of- 
 ficers went out to take him, he showed how 
 easily he could have escaped out of their hands, 
 for " as soon as he had said unto them, I am he, 
 they went backwards and fell to the ground," 
 overwhelmed, doubtless by some exhibition of 
 his divine power. And when his disciples 
 would have defended him, he told them that, 
 if he wanted defence, he could have, not 
 twelve unarmed apostles, but twelve legions 
 of angels for that purpose. "But then, how 
 shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it 
 must be." Even after he was fastened to the 
 cross, he showed that he was still the life, in 
 the promise made to the penitent thief. What 
 could possibly induce that malefactor to apply 
 in such circumstances to a fellow sufferer, as 
 incapable, according to some, of resisting the 
 death to which both had been doomed, as him- 
 self/ It is unquestionable that he had observ- 
 ed in Christ something more than mortal, 
 when he addressed to him the prayer, " Lord,
 
 96 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
 dom." And why has the Holy Ghost recorded 
 the fact, but lo show, that he who, in such a 
 situation, could make the magnificent promise, 
 " Verily I say unto thee, to-day shall thou be 
 with me in Paradise," was not himself the weak 
 victim of death ? And are we to say that he 
 who thus almost with his dying breath, con- 
 ferred eternal life, was unable to save his own 
 life from the assault of death '/ And when he 
 had endured all that his foes, whether men or 
 devils, could inflict : when the darkness passed 
 away, and the victory was won ; then did he 
 cry out, not. with the feeble breathings of a 
 man whose agonies had worn him down to the 
 very lowest stage of existence, and of whom 
 death had all but taken possession, but with 
 the shout of a conqueror, whose life after all 
 the assaults of death, after innumerable deaths 
 had been inflicted upon him, was yet as whole 
 within him as it had ever been, thus plainly 
 intimating, that, even at that moment, instead 
 of bowing his head and giving up the ghost, 
 he could have stepped down from the cross. 
 " But then how should the scriptures be ful- 
 filled?" "When the Centurion saw that he 
 50 cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, 
 Truly this man was the Son of God." And 
 deeply is it to be regretted that Christian di-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 97 
 
 vines should adopt systems of theology* which 
 compel them to deny a fact so clearly evinced 
 to the Centurion by the evidence of his own 
 senses, as to draw from him this confession, 
 a confession which the Holy Ghost has thought 
 good to record for our conviction, that this MAN 
 freely gave up, for the redemption of a lost 
 world, a life which neither earth nor hell could 
 wring from him, and over which death had no 
 power. 
 
 It was essentially necessary that he who was 
 to deliver others from their sins, should himself 
 be perfectly free from any thing to which such 
 terms could have the remotest application. 
 And it was necessary that we should have the 
 clearest and most decisive evidence of this ', 
 for upon the certainty that. Christ was not 
 fallen or sinful, depends the reality of the 
 atonement, and the certainty of all our hopes. 
 And never was any thing so severely tried, 
 and never was testimony so decisive as that 
 which proves the total sinlessness of the man 
 Christ Jesus The traitor who betrayed him 
 pronounced him innocent. His accusers he 
 could boldly challenge to convince him of sin. 
 
 * This refers to the doctrine freely broached and advo- 
 cated at the time the above was first written, that the flesh 
 of Christ was sinful or at least peccable, and that Christ 
 did no sin' only because ' the will of the spirit enforced 
 the flesh to do it unwilling service. 
 
 9
 
 98 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 The sentence of the judge who doomed him 
 to the cross was. " I find no fault in him." 
 Much guilt however might have been in him, 
 which no mortal eye could detect ; and in a 
 matter in which we are so deeply and vitally 
 concerned, much stronger evidence than that of 
 the Jews and of Pilate was necessary ; and 
 much stronger evidence is given. The justice of 
 God assailed him, armed with all the demands 
 of a violated law. saying, "pay me that thou 
 owest." The debt was paid, the penalty was 
 endured, every demand was satisfied, and di- 
 vine justice retired, saying, " I find no fault in 
 him ; I have scourged him with every strife 
 due as the penalty of the law ; let him go ! 
 The powers of darkness were let loose upon 
 him, to try if their malice could find aught in 
 him with which they might claim alliance, or 
 on which they might ground the slightest 
 charge against him ; and after efforts, the pow- 
 er of which we can little apprehend, they fled 
 baffled away, howling out in anguish their own 
 hopeless doom, while forced to say, ' We find 
 no fault in him ; we have scourged him with 
 worse than scorpion's stings and have been 
 compelled to let him go.' Thus heaven, and 
 earth, and hell unite in proclaiming to us the 
 entire and perfect sinlessncss of God's holy 
 child Jesus, and pouring on our hearts the
 
 THE INCARNATION. 99 
 
 conviction, that in him was no fault, nothing 
 which the inexorable justice of heaven could 
 condemn, and nothing on which the unmitigat- 
 ed malice of hell could lay hold. 
 
 When the Word became flesh, he was not 
 less the Word and the power of God, not 
 less the light and life of men, not less the 
 ruler and Lord of all, than he was before the 
 Incarnation. He did not cease to be God 
 when he became man. When he bore hunger 
 and thirst, he was nevertheless showing, by 
 changing water into wine, and by feeding 
 thousands with a few loaves, that he it was 
 who was indeed supplying the wants of every 
 living thing ; and that he endured hunger and 
 thirst from no defect of power. When he had 
 not where to lay his head, he was not the less 
 " God over all, blessed forever." When, wea- 
 ried, he rested on Jacob's well, the pillars of 
 heaven, and the foundations of the earth rested 
 securely on his sustaining power. And never 
 did he give so splendid a proof that he was 
 indeed the Life, as when he died. For the 
 mystery and the marvel which angels desired 
 to look into was, how he, by any possibility, 
 could die. But they knew not all the extent 
 of his power, they knew not that he had the 
 keys of hell and of death, and that, rebelling 
 as they were against heaven, they were still
 
 100 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 completely subject to him, till they saw him 
 tread the region of mortality, and enter at his 
 own pleasure, unsubdued, as a conqueror, into 
 their dreary domain. Then indeed, when he 
 died, did they know, and for the first time know, 
 in all the extent of its meaning, that he was the 
 Life. 
 
 Christ then was King when he was on the 
 earth, a King in the lowest state of his deep 
 humiliation ; no less than now when he is ex- 
 alted to the right hand of the Father ; and in his 
 very humiliation giving the most splendid and 
 decisive proof of his omnipotent power. Be- 
 fore proceeding farther, it will be proper to 
 notice some of the duties which we owe to him 
 as our King. 
 
 The first of these, which I shall notice is, 
 to obey his laws. To neglect this is to deny 
 that he is King. "Why call ye me Lord, 
 Lord, and do not the things which I say ? " 
 It is not to be doubted that many profess to 
 rely on him as their propitiation, who pay no 
 great regard to his laws ; and think themselves 
 perfectly safe, while living in the habitual neg- 
 lect of some of his commands ; nay, who are 
 less careful to avoid sin just on account of the 
 sufficiency of him on whom they profess to 
 rely for the pardon of sin. But we may rest 
 assured that if Christ be not a king whom we
 
 THE INCARNATION- 101 
 
 obey, neither is he a priest who will save us. 
 To hope that we can be saved without obe- 
 dience, is not only to hope against hope, but 
 against possibility ; for surely it is not possible 
 to be saved from sin while yet we are living 
 in sin. Nor is our obedience to be limited by 
 our convenience, our pleasure, nor our present 
 interest, nor by the sufferings to which we may 
 be called in its discharge. That is no obe- 
 dience which extends only as far as we find it 
 convenient. It was not such. obedience that 
 was yielded by Christ for our sakes, when he 
 submitted to " learn obedience by the things 
 which he suffered." Nor was it such obe- 
 dience that he required of us, when he said, 
 " If any man will come after me, let him deny 
 himself, and take up his cross and follow me." 
 But we are required, not only to obey the 
 laws of Christ, but to approve them, to love 
 them. " Bodily service profile th nothing ; " 
 and our external compliance with a law which 
 we hate in our hearts, is by our King consid- 
 ered as no obedience at all. The reason of 
 this is sufficiently obvious. Our obedience is 
 required that it may do good, not to God, who 
 needs not our services, but to ourselves ; that 
 it may establish in us such habits as will fit us 
 for the occupations and enjoyments of a higher 
 ; state of existence. But if it proceed from any 
 9*
 
 102 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 improper principle, then its operation will be 
 in direct opposition to this end, and conse- 
 quently must meet the disapprobation of him 
 41 the end of whose commandment is charity, 
 out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, 
 and of faith unfeigned." Every action strength- 
 ens the principle from which it proceeds ; and 
 being often repeated, renders the exercise of 
 that principle necessary to our happiness. And 
 when our love to God and man has been so 
 " rooted and grounded" in us by a long course 
 of holiness, that the exercise of it constitutes 
 all our felicity, we are then fitted for the king- 
 dom of heaven. Whereas the most perfect 
 obedience, were it possible for such obedience 
 to proceed from any other principle, would not 
 in the slightest degree promote our moral im- 
 provement, nor our meetness for the society of 
 angels and the spirits of just men made per- 
 fect. 
 
 Another duty which we owe to our King is 
 to depend upon his power. If such an obe- 
 dience as has been described be essentially re- 
 quisite, it may be said, " Who then can be 
 saved?" Had outward obedience only been 
 necessary, even that is difficult. But who can 
 change the whole current of his thoughts, af- 
 fections, and desires, can bring himself to 
 hate and despise what he loves with ah 1 his
 
 THE INCARNATION. 103 
 
 heart, and to love and delight in all that he is 
 most averse to? Can we make ourselves new 
 creatures ? No. We could as easily have 
 created ourselves at first. But this will by no 
 means form any apology for disobedience. 
 For as the wisdom of our Prophet removes 
 our ignorance, and the sacrifice of our Priest 
 removes our condemnation, so that we are 
 without excuse if we be either ignorant or in 
 a state of alienation from God ; in the same 
 manner, the power of our King removes our 
 moral weakness, and endues us with strength 
 to triumph over the foes whom he has conquer- 
 ed, so that we are inexcusable if we remain the 
 servants of sin. And as the renovation of the 
 heart is a gradual thing, .the grace that enables 
 us to do it, must be sought from him daily. 
 The soul needs its daily bread not less than 
 the body. 
 
 Another duty which we owe to our King is, 
 to confide in his goodness. It is for the pur- 
 pose of delivering us out of the hand of all our 
 enemies, and of promoting our welfare, that 
 the Mediator is exalted to the throne of the 
 universe, and appointed the sole disposer of 
 every event in which we are concerned. We 
 cannot for a moment doubt that he is abundant- 
 ly able to give us every thing necessary for our 
 happiness, and nothing can be more offensive
 
 104 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 than to distrust his willingness to do so. He 
 has given us the proofs of his love to little pur- 
 pose, if we " faint when we are rebuked of 
 him," and, when he tries us, presently con- 
 dude that he has forsaken us. This is a sin 
 for which Israel was often reproved. " Why 
 sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, Israel, 
 my way is hid from the Lord, and my judg- 
 ment is passed over from my God T' And 
 surely, if we distrust our King, who assumed 
 our nature, and submitted to our infirmities, 
 that we might be more certainly assured of his 
 sympathy, we can have less excuse than Israel 
 had. If, therefore, we be visited with severe 
 trials, let us not hastily say with Jacob, " All 
 these things are against me," for, if our dis- 
 trust do not lead us to take improper means to 
 escape from them, we shall find that all these 
 things are, in reality, working together for our 
 good. 
 
 Another duty which we owe to our King is, 
 to preserve the peace of his kingdom. The 
 subjects of Christ's kingdom are commanded 
 to love one another, and that even as Christ 
 has loved them. Had this law been always 
 acted upon, it is not easy to estimate the hap- 
 piness of the effect that would have been pro- 
 duced. And the miserable effects that pro- 
 ceed from the dissensions among Christ's sub'
 
 THE INCARNATION. 105 
 
 jects, and the weakness that has been intro- 
 duced into his kingdom, by its being divided 
 into so many different parties, need not be 
 pointed out. Christ's kingdom has thus been 
 rent, and its peace destroyed by the pride of 
 men, who, having exalted their own opinion, 
 upon some indifferent matter, into an article 
 of fundamental importance, have renounced 
 the communion of all who refuse to adopt the 
 same notion. And whenever communion 
 among Christians is broken off, a heavy 
 weight of guilt attaches to that party which 
 causes the schism. In order to avoid this guilt, 
 every disciple of Jesus ought to be very cau- 
 tious in refusing to hold communion with a 
 fellow- subject, lest, when both parties stand 
 before their King, this refusal be decided to 
 have proceeded from no sufficient cause. 
 Even the errors of Christians afford no just 
 ground of separating from their communion, 
 excepting in one of these two cases, either 
 when they err fundamentally, and by so doing, 
 cease to be Christians ; in which case their 
 communion is in reality no communion, and, 
 in renouncing it, we make no schism ; or 
 when, supposing their errors to be of a less 
 important nature, they require us distinctly 
 and formally to profess our approbation of 
 those errors, against our own convictions ; in
 
 106 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 which case we cannot hold communion with 
 them, without being hypocrites, and are bound 
 to separate from them ; but the guilt of the 
 schism rests with them. But to separate from 
 the communion of men whom we believe to be 
 true Christians, merely because, on some points 
 of inferior moment; they maintain opinions dif- 
 ferent from our own, while they do not re- 
 quire us to adopt or profess these opinions, 
 is a degree of presumption and arrogance 
 which it is hard to reconcile with the spirit of 
 genuine Christianity. Surely he has much 
 need to inquire what he can offer to his Judge 
 as an apology for his conduct, who has burst 
 asunder the Redeemer's perfect bond of char- 
 ity, and cast away that cord of love, by which 
 the great Head of the church has united all 
 the different members of his mystical body in 
 the closest intimacy ; who has, by his conduct, 
 declared, that unless he himself be the head, 
 he will be no part of the body ; and who, re- 
 fusing to acknowledge the disciples of Christ 
 as his fellow-subjects, has renounced their com- 
 munion, unless they would renounce every 
 opinion which he does not approve, and adopt, 
 on his authority, terms of communion which 
 Christ never appointed. 
 
 Another duty which we owe to our King, is, 
 to extend his kingdom. That this is our duty
 
 THE INCARNATION. 107 
 
 hardly needs to be proved. We are com- 
 manded to exhibit in our conduct the excellence 
 of the principles of Christianity, in such a man- 
 ner as to allure others to cultivate them, to 
 make " our light so to shine before men, that 
 they may see our good works, and glorify our 
 Father who is in heaven." We are soldiers 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as good soldiers, 
 should do every thing in our power to promote 
 the designs of our leader. To rescue an im- 
 mortal being from the dominion of sin, and 
 make him a subject of the King of kings, is a 
 nobler victory than any that the historian has 
 recorded, or the poet sung. If ever enthusi- 
 asm be amiable or useful, then surely it is so 
 when it regards the noblest object that ever 
 awakened the desires or called forth the exer- 
 tions of any human being ; and the Christian 
 may be permitted to indulge no ordinary de- 
 gree of ardour in the prosecution of a design, 
 for the accomplishment of which the Son of 
 God did not hesitate to die. If, then, we re- 
 gard either the authority or example of our 
 King, if we would wish, when our days are 
 at an end, to say that they have not been spent 
 in vain, and that we have not been useless mem- 
 bers of his kingdom, nor careless of its pros 
 perity, if we wish to associate at last with 
 the glorious men who have instructed the
 
 108 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 church by their wisdom, adorned it by their 
 holiness, and cemented its foundation with their 
 blood, then let us exert ourselves, by example, 
 by instruction, by every means in our power, 
 to promote the prosperity, and extend the limits 
 of that kingdom into which we ourselves have 
 by the grace of God been brought. For " they 
 that be wise, shall shine as the brightness of 
 the firmament, aud they that turn many unto 
 righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever." 
 
 We have thus traced our Saviour in the 
 discharge of all his offices of Prophet, Priest, 
 and King. For the discharge of all of them 
 his death, and consequently his incarnation, 
 was essentially necessary. He discharged the 
 the duties resulting from these offices from the 
 beginning. He discharged them all during his 
 sojourn on the earth, and we have seen that in 
 his death he gave the most complete exhibition 
 of each of his offices. Christ is not and never 
 was divided. When speaking of his different 
 offices, we ascribe, and properly ascribe, one 
 action or characteristic, to one office more pe- 
 culiarly than to another ; yet ought we never 
 to forget that, in his one person, the three 
 offices were inseparably combined, and, 
 throughout his life, were manifested together. 
 For what is it that gives to his every prophe-
 
 THE INCARNATION. 109 
 
 tic act, by which he manifests the Father, so 
 high a claim upon our reverential regard ? Is 
 it not this, that his every prophetic act com- 
 bines with it all the sacredness of his sacerdo- 
 tal character, and all the authority of his re- 
 gal power ; so that, if we refuse to be taught 
 by him, we cut ourselves off from all partici- 
 pation in his sacerdotal grace, and expose our- 
 selves to be crushed beneath the weight of 
 that iron rod by which he will dash his ene- 
 mies to pieces ? Hence it is said that " the 
 people were astonished at his doctrine, for he 
 taught them as one having authority." And 
 when he performs any sacerdotal act, as when 
 he said to the sick of the palsy, " Thy sins be 
 forgiven thee," is it not also a prophetic act, 
 manifesting the grace and the power of the 
 Godhead 1 and is it not an efficacious act, sim- 
 ply because what, as a Priest he has grace to 
 promise, as a King he has power to bestow ? 
 And his every regal act is performed for the 
 the purpose of giving power and efficacy to his 
 prophetic revelations, and to his sacerdotal 
 grace. And the offices, thus united in him 
 through his whole life, were not separated at 
 its close. His sufferings in the garden and on 
 the cross, not only constituted a perfect satis- 
 faction to divine justice for our sins, but form- 
 ed at the same time, by far the most impres- 
 10
 
 110 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 sive and instructive portion of his prophetic 
 manifestation of the divine character, and also 
 the most victorious and triumphant exhibition 
 of his regal power, when the serpent's head 
 was bruised, and principalities and powers de- 
 feated and triumphed over. 
 
 There remains but one view of the subject 
 to be presented, and that I cannot better give, 
 than in a comment on the following passage of 
 Scripture. 
 
 " Forasmuch, then, as the children are par- 
 takers of flesh and blood, he also himself like- 
 wise took part of the same ; that through death 
 he might destroy him that had the power of 
 death, that is, the devil j and deliver them, who, 
 through fear of death, were all their lifetime 
 subject to bondage. For verily he taketh not 
 hold of angels ; but of the seed of Abraham 
 he taketh hold. Wherefore in all things ifc 
 behooved him to be made like unto his bre- 
 thren ; that he might be a merciful and faith- 
 ful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to 
 make reconciliation for the sins of the people." 
 Heb. ii. 14-17. 
 
 In the sixteenth verse I have followed the 
 marginal reading. I have done so, because it 
 is the literal translation of the Apostle's words j 
 because it appears to be necessary to his chain 
 of reasoning ; and because the received reading
 
 Jjf 
 
 THE INCARNATION. Ill 
 
 seems to involve an unmeaning tautology. The 
 fact, I conceive, which the Apostle meant to 
 state is, that he undertook to help not angels, 
 but men, " wherefore," he adds, u in all things 
 it behooved him to be made like to his bre- 
 thren" like, not to angels, but to men. 
 
 In order to render my view of this passage 
 as clear as possible, I would direct the atten- 
 tion of the reader to a principle that is often 
 exemplified in Scripture. I refer to the fre- 
 quent preference of the younger to the elder. 
 Of the two first-born of men, Cain and Abel, 
 the younger was chosen and the elder rejected. 
 Of the three sons of Noah, the second pro- 
 genitor of mankind, Shem, the youngest, was 
 chosen as the heir of promise. Of the two 
 sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, though 
 Abraham had repeatedly prayed, " Oh that 
 Ishmael might live before thee," it was said, 
 " in Isaac shall thy seed be called." Of the 
 two sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob, before they 
 were born, it was said, " the elder shall serve 
 the younger." Of the two sons of Joseph, 
 Ephraim the younger was preferred to Manas- 
 seh the eider. Of the sons of Jesse, David 
 the youngest, and whom his father did not even 
 think it worth while to present to the prophet, 
 was chosen to be king of Israel. And to 
 name no more, of all the sons of David, So-
 
 112 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 lomon was chosen to build a temple to the 
 Lord. 
 
 Now, a fact of this nature so frequently 
 occurring, and so sedulously recorded, must 
 be considered as pointedly intended to direct 
 our attention to the principle involved in it ; 
 and the Apostle Paul, in expounding one of 
 these instances, has taught us how to under- 
 stand all the rest. They are intended to mani- 
 fest the sovereignty of the Lord. to show that 
 he seeth not as man seeth, nor chooseth as man 
 would choose, to show that all power and all 
 excellence are from God alone. And, there- 
 fore, "God hath chosen the foolish things of 
 the world to confound the' wise ; and God hath 
 chosen the weak things of the world to con- 
 found the things that are mighty ; and base 
 things of the world, and things that are despised 
 hath God chosen, yea, and things which are 
 not, to bring to naught the things that are." 
 And why ? " That no flesh should glory in his 
 presence," that all should own that whatever 
 grace, or goodness, or excellency is in them, 
 it is not from themselves, but from God. and 
 that, if they differ from others, it is God who 
 makelh them to differ. This principle, there- 
 fore, which is involved in the preference of the 
 younger to the elder, and to which our atten- 
 tion is directed not once nor twice, but many
 
 THE INCARNATION. 113 
 
 times, is seen in all the dispensations of God, 
 that his own sovereignty may be manifested 
 in them all. 
 
 While every thing in the works of men has 
 a tendency to degenerate, God has from the 
 beginning manifested that his works have a 
 very different character, and are continually 
 going on from good to better in endless pro- 
 gression, and that one dispensation only pre- 
 pares the way for, and gives place to another 
 that is more perfect. Thus the patriarchal 
 dispensation prepared the way for the Jewish, 
 the Jewish for the Christian, the present state 
 of the Christian for its millennial state, and 
 that for something still more glorious. And 
 thus when the Gospel was first established, it 
 was not by the wisdom, or the wealth, or the 
 power of man, but by feeble means in oppo- 
 sition to all these. The treasure was com- 
 mitted to earthen vessels, that the excellency 
 of the power might be seen to be of God. 
 
 But these instances, and many others that 
 might be added to them, the preference of the 
 younger to the elder in so many cases, the 
 choice of the Jews to be God's peculiar people, 
 when they were the fewest of all people, the 
 choice of the fishermen of Galilee to build the 
 church, while they all exhibit the sovereignty 
 of God, are but very obscure, and partial, and 
 10*
 
 114 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 limited exhibitions of it, compared with that 
 universal and glorious manifestation of it re- 
 ferred to in the text under discussion, where 
 the choice lay not between one individual and 
 another, nor between one nation and another, 
 but between two lost WORLDS. There stood 
 before God two fallen families, fallen angels 
 and fallen men. Alike they were doomed to 
 wo for their sins, and unless an almighty arm 
 should lay hold on them, alike would they both 
 have sunk in remediless misery. It belonged 
 to God alone to determine whether he w r ould 
 save one or both of these families, or leave them 
 both to perish. And when he had announced 
 his determination to save one of them, that the 
 work of redemption might afford a new mani- 
 festation of the divine perfections, and give a 
 more clear and a more glorious revelation of 
 these perfections than his creatures could ever 
 otherwise have seen, it still remained with him 
 to determine which of the two fallen families 
 should be chosen as the objects in whose sal- 
 vation this manifestation should be made. And 
 O let our souls rejoice that here also the prin- 
 ciple, to which our attention is so carefully 
 directed in Scripture, and so carefully di- 
 rected just for the purpose that we might not 
 overlook it, or fail to see it here, was acted 
 upon. The younger was preferred to the
 
 THE INCARNATION. 115 
 
 elder, though carnal judgment would pro- 
 bably have made choice of angels, the ori- 
 ginally nobler family, and have left the meaner 
 creature of clay to perish. 
 
 This is the glorious and happy truth so clearly 
 expressed here by the apostle, " He taketh not 
 hold of Angels, but of the seed of Abraham he 
 taketh hold." He plainly declares the unspeaka- 
 ble majesty of the Divine Sovereignty in choos- 
 ing fallen men as the objects of that work of 
 redemption, which, beyond all things, reveals 
 his own glorious character, rather than fallen 
 angels, who, to the eye of sense, might perhaps 
 seem to have a better claim. And with this 
 view of the Divine Sovereignty, he combines 
 the equally astonishing view of the unspeakable 
 condescension of the Divine love. Of one of 
 two fallen families, who are alike in his hands, 
 and not one word in favour of either of which 
 might any created being venture to speak, he 
 saith, " Let them be reserved in chains of dark- 
 ness to the judgment of the great day ; " while 
 of the other he saith, "Deliver from going down 
 to the pit, I have found a ransom." Here is his 
 sovereignty. And what is the ransom for the 
 race to be redeemed ? The eternal Son be- 
 comes man, takes upon him flesh and blood 
 similar in all respects, sinfulness excepted, to 
 the creatures of clay whom he came to redeem, 
 10**
 
 116 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 and dies in their stead that they might live. 
 Here is the depth of his love. And if it was 
 a great proof of the free and sovereign goodness 
 of God, that he chose Israel when they were 
 but "few men in number," "the fewest of all 
 people," how much more illustrious a display 
 of the same grace did he give, when he chose 
 men in preference to angels, as the objects of 
 redemption, when these creatures of clay were 
 few indeed, when the whole race consisted of 
 only two individuals. Any created judgment 
 would have said, What are these two feeble 
 individuals that they should, for a moment, be 
 put into the scale with a multitude of angels 1 
 Of what consequence can be the loss of two 
 earthly creatures, who may be so destroyed that 
 none shall ever spring from them, compared 
 with the loss of so many superior creatures ? 
 But God determined in a different manner 
 ' He took not hold of fallen angels, but of fallen 
 men he took hold.' And why? "Even so, 
 Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." 
 
 From this we see what it is that constitutes 
 at once the danger and the dignity of man. 
 God has permitted rebellion to be raised against 
 his authority, that in the progress of putting it 
 down he might give a manifestation of his per- 
 fections which otherwise could not have been
 
 THE INCARNATION. 117 
 
 given, and our world is the field on which the 
 powers of light and of darkness draw out their 
 forces in hostile array, and in that awful con- 
 flict which so deeply engages and interests the 
 attention of the whole universe, the post of dan- 
 ger and of glory, the van of the battle is assigned 
 to man. Everywhere is the contest carried on. 
 The human heart is itself the principal scene 
 of strife, and the soul of man is the victor's prize, 
 and man himself the chief gainer or sufferer by 
 the result. Angels go forth as ministering spi- 
 rits to minister to them that shall be heirs of 
 salvation, and doubtless delight to promote, as 
 far as may be in their power, the work of our 
 salvation. And cheering and animating as it is 
 to know that holy angels do go forth to our aid, 
 and doubtless do render us essential support, 
 though at present we can neither know the ser- 
 vices that they do us, nor the means by which 
 they do them, yet can we not forget that they 
 mingle, not as principals but as auxiliaries in 
 the strife ; that ours is the danger in the war, 
 and ours is the gain of victory. 
 
 And who is he who mustereth the armies of 
 the Lord of Hosts ? Who is the Captain of sal- 
 vation by whose strength they are made strong, 
 in whose might they are enabled to conquer? 
 Who makes them to triumph over principalities 
 and powers, over the rulers of the darkness of 
 10***
 
 118 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 this world, over spiritual wickedness in high 
 places '} Who is he who so fully accomplished, 
 under circumstances of incalculably greater 
 difficulty, that which the first man had failed to 
 accomplish ? Was he one to whom the terms 
 fallen, sinful could with any propriety be ap- 
 plied 1 No. God calleth him " Mine elect in 
 whom my soul delighteth," "My beloved Son 
 in whom I am well pleased." Could language 
 like this be applied to one who himself needed 
 to be reconciled to God before he could recon- 
 cile others ? No. When man was made, Satan 
 had come into the world, boasting that he had 
 led principalities and powers into sin ; and shall 
 this creature of clay stand'/ And the easiness 
 of his conquest, and the completeness of his 
 dominion, seemed to leave for a time the wisdom 
 and power of God in doubt. He had found one 
 man in whom he had nothing, but soon im- 
 planted sinfulness in him and made him an easy 
 prey. He is compelled now to meet, on the 
 field of his own conquered and polluted world, 
 the Second Man, coming in all the untainted 
 sinlessness of the First Man, but surrounded 
 with difficulties and exposed to trials of which 
 the First Man, had he retained his innocence, 
 could have had no experience, and yet so 
 mightily upheld by the Godhead dwelling in 
 him, that Satan and all his powers could find
 
 THE INCARNATION. 119 
 
 nothing in him, and could implant nothing in 
 him, with which they might claim alliance, else 
 assuredly had he also become their prey. And 
 when Satan had tried him and found nothing in 
 him, then did he stir up his agents to plot his 
 destruction, not knowing that the destruction of 
 Christ was the appointed means of his own ; 
 that when Christ gave a life which he did not 
 owe, and which could not be taken from him 
 by force, the life of a world dead in sin was re- 
 stored, --that when he entered voluntarily into 
 the dominion of death, that dominion was for 
 ever broken. 
 
 And if the events of any war are calculated 
 to arouse our attention, and interest our feel- 
 ings, surely much more is that war calculated 
 to do so, where more than blood may be spilt, 
 and more than empire may be lost or won. 
 When our own countrymen are abroad in the 
 field, when the interests of our country are at 
 stake, with what anxious expectation are the 
 news of every day waited for ; and when they 
 inform us that the hostile armies are approach- 
 ing each other, with what palpitating eagerness 
 are they read ! And when the day does come 
 that brings their power to actual trial and de- 
 cision, with what feelings do we read and re- 
 read the minutest details, and dwell upon every 
 incident, and find every thing, however trifling,
 
 120 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 possess a deep importance from its connexion 
 with such a scene ! They are our countrymen, 
 our friends, our brothers, whom we view arran- 
 ged upon the " cloudy edge of battle ere it join," 
 and who under our eye, are passing into the 
 fatal contest. We hear from afar the " thunder 
 of the captains and the shoutings." We place 
 ourselves side by side with the warrior, as he 
 advances to the shock, where point to point, 
 and man to man, the embattled squadrons close 
 in deadly strife ; and while life and death hang 
 in dreadful suspense, our feelings are just the 
 warrior's own, and our very nostrils become 
 expanded with the intensity of a sensation that 
 hardly permits us to breathe, and every pulsa- 
 tion of our hearts bounds in perfect unison 
 with his. We can scarcely at such a moment 
 enter upon a discussion of the goodness or 
 badness of the cause, or to philosophize on 
 the manifold crimes and atrocities of war. 
 When we have imbibed the very spirit of the 
 warrior, when we are glorying, exulting in the 
 view, in the very feeling of an energy which 
 no toils can weary, of an ardour which no dif- 
 ficulties can abate, of a courage which the mul- 
 tiplication of dangers only arouses to a greater 
 intensity of daring ; at such a moment the cold- 
 ness of our moral calculations is melted away ; 
 the voice of reason and of philosophy is
 
 THE INCARNATION. 121 
 
 drowned; and ''the raptures of the strife "are 
 all our own ; and to no voice can we listen, till 
 the " earthquake voice of victory " bursts upon 
 our ear. I ask not if this be a Christian or a 
 righteous feeling. I am merely stating a fact 
 of which every man must be conscious, that 
 on such an occasion, such are our feelings. 
 Nor is the art of the poet or the orator requi- 
 site to awaken them. The interest lies in the 
 facts themselves, and the dry details of a des- 
 patch, or the prosaic insipidity of a gazette, 
 has doubtless often been read with an intensity 
 of interest which the most animated poetry 
 never excited. 
 
 But while there are few who do not in some 
 degree experience these feelings, there are 
 many who are totally dead to the feelings that 
 should naturally be awakened by a much more 
 important and eventful war, that moral and 
 spiritual war which is carried on around us 
 and within us, where more than mortal powers 
 are opposed, and more than mortal interests are 
 at stake. But whatever we may be, the angels 
 who have become acquainted with the character 
 of God, through the work of man's redemption, 
 are not insensible to the progress of that work. 
 They surround the throne of the Most High, 
 with golden harps ; and the events which awa- 
 ken these harps to heavenly harmony, and pour
 
 122 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 from their strings that melody to which God 
 condescends to listen, and which mortal ear 
 may never hear, are just the triumphs of " the 
 redeemed of the Lord" over the influence of 
 that " other lord 1 ' who has had dominion over 
 them ; and whose chains they have been ena- 
 bled to burst, through the power of him, who 
 amidst all the weakness of human flesh, and 
 under all the weight of the guilt of a lost 
 world, and all the deadliest efforts of Satan's 
 power, never fell, and never felt one unholy 
 desire or emotion. And " the spirits of the 
 just made perfect," clothed in the spotless robe 
 of a Redeemer's righteousness, feel it their 
 glorious privilege to tell of the toils which they 
 have been enabled to sustain in fighting the 
 good fight, of the hardness which, as good 
 soldiers of Jesus Christ, they have been 
 strengthened to endure, and of the energy 
 which they derived from the consciousness 
 that when (: Christ was formed in them the 
 hope of glory ;'' their hearts were enriched 
 not only with an uncorrupted, but with an 
 incorruptible seed, a principle which Satan 
 could not subvert, nor death itself destroy. 
 And can we hope to partake with them in their 
 raptures, to unite with them in singing the 
 song of triumph and of praise, if we can con- 
 template the mighty warfare that is going
 
 THE INCARNATION. 123 
 
 on between the powers of light and darkness, 
 with the most perfect apathy, as if we had no 
 personal interest in the matter ; and while we 
 have an ear open to the most trivial news of 
 the day, have neither an ear to hear, nor a 
 heart to be interested in the events of this 
 mighty war, but listen to any mention of it, as 
 if it were a matter of less importance than the 
 savage encounters of ferocious hordes of bar- 
 barians, on the banks of the Danube or the 
 shores of the Euxine. 
 
 I have but one additional remark to make. 
 It is this ; that for man no middle fate is pre- 
 pared, but happiness or misery in the extreme 
 must be his. The selected instruments of 
 carrying on that war which God wages with 
 sin ; the weak vessels of clay chosen to con- 
 found the mighty, through the power of him 
 who was incarnate for the purpose of securing 
 even to us worms of the dust the victory over 
 death and him that had the power of death, 
 if wearied with the toils of the warfare, or in- 
 sensible to the glory of the victory, we desert 
 to the enemy, and continue his willing and 
 unresisting slaves, then do we sink into con- 
 demnation under the weight of a criminality 
 which even fallen angels could not contract, 
 for they at least have never treated the offered 
 mercy of God with contempt. And well may
 
 124 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 they wonder to see in the human heart, a blind- 
 ness, a perversity, a madness which despises 
 even the offered friendship of God, and the 
 glories of heaven. And, on the other hand, 
 they who through faith in Christ enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven, enter there, the admiration 
 of angels, purchased with a price which for 
 the fallen portion of their own order was never 
 paid, and rescued out of dangers to which they 
 themselves were never exposed ; and therefore 
 do they glorify God in his saints, and admire 
 him in all them that believe. 
 
 Human nature is at this moment the highest 
 of created natures, and more intimately united 
 to the Godhead than any other ; and where our 
 Head is, there, in due time, shall all his mem- 
 bers be. Whoever then thou art who readest 
 this my page, my message to thee is, remember 
 that in a few short years, thou must occupy 
 that place to which angels may look up with 
 admiration, or that on which devils may look 
 down with the conviction that they have been 
 less guilty. Higher than heaven is the fate of 
 him whom the Sovereign of the universe be- 
 came man to redeem ; and lower than hell must 
 be the fate of him who, even at such a price, 
 refused to be redeemed. This awful yet ani- 
 mating consideration, may well arouse us to 
 hasten our escape from " the wrath that is to
 
 THE INCARNATION. 125 
 
 come," and to " resist even unto blood, striving 
 against sin." How powerfully does it enforce 
 the admonition of the Apostle, " Therefore, my 
 beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, 
 always abounding in the work of the Lord, 
 forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not 
 in vain in the Lord !"
 
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