The Incarnation

“Grod was manifest in the flesh.”

“The Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.”

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, is God and man; God of the substance of the Father, begotten before, the world; and Man of the substance of his mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect Man; of a reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting; equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood. Who, although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ.”

* New York, February 11, 1849.

These are formulas which some will not pronomice, who nevertheless vamit their belief of “God in Christ.” Our present task is not to prove or even to illustrate the Incarnation, but only to look at one of its aspects, to wit, the manifesting of God. In plainer terms, the question is, How God’s becoming man brings God any nearer to our understandings and our hearts. And in this inquiry we shall be led to the result, that by the humanity of Christ the Divine Nature is brought more within the reach of our understanding and our affections. But as these two branches of the subject are large and distinct, they may be properly treated in succession. Accordingly, our first topic is this, that by the Incarnation God is brought near to our understanding; and the second, that, by the Incarnation, God is brought near to our affections.

I. By the Incarnation, God is brought near to our understanding. We know more of God, by this means, than we could ever have known without it. We are no more able than before to grasp the infinite, or comprehend the incomprehensible, or peasiire the immense, or see the invisible; yet these divine and unapproachable perfections are brought into such connections with humanity as to furnish us with some steps by which to climb up towards the height of these glories; to acquire some ideas, though inadequate, of what would otherwise entirely elude our research. All creatures together could not by searcMng find out God, yet one may know more than another; and many, more at one time than at another; angels more than men; saints more than sinners; and every believer much that he could not have discovered without this gracious intervention. Look at it as we may, there is a wonderful mystery in God’s willing to be known of creatures. The whole creation is fruit of such a will. God might have spent eternity in blissful sHence, in the all-satisfying glory of his own perfections. But his infinite benevolence chose to impart this excellence, which is what we mean by God’s declarative glory or his glorifying himself. This is the key to all the successive manifestations of God, and especially of the creative manifestation. In the work of the six days, including all the beauties and utilities of the earth and all the regulated immensities of heaven, Jehovah was only giving us a sparkle of his grandeur; and when we now look at the heavens and the earth in their vast generahty, or, taking any one particular, as an insect or a leaf, descend into its infinitesimal minuteness of detail, we are studying just so much of God. The common expression is just, we read the Book of Nature. But no external manifestations could ever bring us to the chief of what we need to know of God, his moral perfections, his mercy and his love; and God had regard to this, in making man. I do not mean merely that it was necessary to make a rational creature, in order to see and know God’s glory, which is true indeed; but over and above this, that the creature, thus rational, should be so made as to have within himself some facilities for knowing his Creator; some analogy, some resemblance to him, some ray of Godhead which might guide him back; some image and likeness of the Invisible; and therefore in this image and likeness was he made. If man had been made without this conformity, I do not see how he could ever have come to any understanding of the Divine perfections. Unless man were intellectual he could have no notion of God as truth; unless man had conscience, he could have no notion of God as righteousness; unless man had volition, he could have no notion of God as power; and unless man had affections, he could have no notion of God as love. But because he is made in God’s image in these respects, he is able to gain glimpses of the Divine attributes, of which he gets the best ideas when he removes all limits from his own powers, and conceives them as enlarged to infinity. !For example, if a being were found, with intellect, memory, will, and affections, but with no moral faculty, we could never, even by centuries of reasoning, convey to such a being the slightest notion of virtue or holiness, or of God as morally pure or holy. And there is no absurdity in supposing that there are in God a thousand perfections, of which the very kind is unknown to us, because, among all endowments, we have none even generically resembling these perfections. Lower animals, possessed of but one sense or of but two, can by no possibility arrive at the sensations of higher senses; no absolutely blind man can conceive of colour, or deaf

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man of sound. There are animals probably which possess senses unknown to us; and among higher created spirits there are angels who possibly have faculties of mind as inconceivable to us as colours to the blind. But what shall we say of Divinity? AU comparison is lost in the boundless glory! Yet immeasurably as God transcends our powers, he has placed in us certain germs of resemblance, whereby we may come to know him; and this was gloriously true of man in his primitive integrity. But why, you will be ready to say, does the preacher go back to the original creation of man, when the subject is, the manifestation of God by Jesus Christ? Por this reason, brethren, that the original man was the first Adam, and that Christ is the second Adam; for this additional reason, that in the wonderful paraUehsm between the first and the second, there is a common element of humanity in both, by means of which, as like to God, man is able to come nearer to God, than would have been possible otherwise. Just as the image of God in Adam placed him in a situation to know his Divine exemplar, just as in humanity we see somewhat of divinity, so in the perfect and more glorious humanity of Christ we are enabled to know more of God than by all other means, even when we consider it as mere humanity; but infinitely more when we consider it as the containing tabernacle of the Godhead. For, be it ever remembered, we are not to hold that the only divinity revealed in Christ is his godhke humanity; but that this humanity, thus like God, and more like God, than that of the first Adam, affords a vehicle for divine communications, and a channel for divine revelations, infinitely suitable and complete, when the Godhead becomes one with the manhood. Here, therefore, is an analogy between the first and the second Adam, which might otherwise escape us. An additional reason for the communication by Christ is found in the dreadful fact, that since the fall man has in a great degree lost this image of God, though certain broken traces undoubtedly remain, so as to form the basis of further knowledge.

Let us proceed, then, to the appUcation of these principles to the case of the second Adam. We at once perceive his infinite superiority to the first. Even in Christ’s humanity, the divine image shines with a splendour unknown in paradise. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.” The wisdom, power and holiness of Adam were unimpaired, but limited. They did not attain even that mark which they would have reached, if the covenant had been so fulfilled as that Adam should have been confirmed in perpetual indefectible goodness. For Adam, though erect, was not established -, though not an infant, in Eden, as Socinianizing divines teach, he was but infantile as compared with the Lord from heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ was possessed of glorious perfections, even in his humanity, altogether unknown to our first progenitor. He was the medium of conveying divine wisdom. The Spirit was

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given him without measure: He was not only sinless, but insusceptible of sin, and thus immeasurably sublime. Though we cannot comprehend the union of the ever-present Deity with the man Christ Jesus, yet we perceive at once that it must have exalted every power; and that, while humanity was still humanity, and there was no confounding of the two natures, the human was all glorified by the indwelling of the divine, even as a globe of crystal, by an internal fire, is made all light. Nor can we think of the infinite God as united personally to a manhood which was other than sublime. O, my brethren, what marvels dwell within that Son of man! Even as the tabernacle in the wilderness was a homely structure, without presenting a rugged covering of the skins of beasts, but within was radiant with gold, and inhabited by the visible glory, between the cherubim above the ark, so under that body which was worn with weariness and pain, and within that face which was “marred more than any man,” there abode the subUmated glory of humanity, in a divinely-sustained knowledge, holiness and power. Sometimes these rays shot forth. “We beheld his glory; the glory of the Only-Begotten of the Father.” In authority over tempests and evil spirits; in power to heal; in creative miracles; in searching of the heart; in amazing endurance, forgiveness and love; we behold more of God than all the universe beside reveals; and the point is, that it is re-, vealed to man by man. Perhaps you inquire, how this is a revelation of divinity, since the subject of these excellencies was truly man? How can the excellencies of a man, however exalted, show ns the excellency of God? My dear brethren, this is a hard question, and there are difficulties in it which I should dread even to approach; yet we may coast around a continent which we dare not penetrate and cannot survey; and there are some fixed points here, where we may take our position amidst a sea of uncertainty. This is more remarkably true of the moral perfections of God. In respect to these I would offer two remarks, intended to show that the revelation of the excellency in Christ Jesus is a revelation of God.

1. Virtue and holiness, with lowly reverence be it spoken, is the same in God as in man. Virtue is not simply a relation of temporal things, but an eternal quality; because it is a quality of the Eternal God. His command of virtue does not derive its excellence from God’s mere power or arbitrary order, but from his eternal nature. God is himself the foundation of virtue. Could we believe the grovelling doctrine of expediency, or that there is nothing in virtue but its tendency to produce happiness, we might think otherwise. But then we might also believe that the highest happiness of God and the aggregate happiness of the universe, require our vice and misery. No, my beloved hearers, it is a fixed point, equally in morals and divinity, that holiness in God, though infinitely removed above hoHness in man, is still one and the same holiness. The

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truth of God, the righteousness of God, the mercy of God, and the love of God, are not dijfferent qualities called by the same names, but the same quahties existing in their highest power. So that when, in the God-man, Jesus Christ, we observe the beautiful and touching manifestation of feelings, habits and volitions, residing in a human subject indeed, but in a human subject personally one with the divine, we are really beholding the very excellencies which reside ia God. And by this means we are brought higher in the scale’ of morals and nearer to a contemplation of divine hoHness, than would be possible by any or by all other means. In every word, act and gesture of Jesus Christ, we see the invisible Godhead breaking forth.

2. Although the nature in which obedience was rendered is the human nature, yet it is human nature IQ such union with the divine, that the two constitute but one Person; and this adorable Person is divine. Therefore the moral states and acts of the Lord Jesus Christ, even when proceeding from a human will, are nevertheless, so far as we are concerned, the moral states and acts of God. To which we must add, that the human and the divine will, though not confounded, as though there were a divine agent in a new human form, are in perfect consonance; there is no diversity, or struggle. In this sense it is but one and the same Will; and thus the revelation of excellency in Christ Jesus is a revelation of God.

In contemplatiag the character of Jesus Christ, we observe one class of virtues, which you will join me in regarding as most affecting, and most fully showing the need of an Incarnation. These are the suffering virtues; or those which are evolved under trial and pain. The first Adam, remaining sinless, would have remained as painless as God himself. There would never have been a sigh or a tear in Eden or in Heaven. But after the introduction of sin into our world, a new class of affections entered; and sin has been, by God’s mighty wisdom, wrested against its own nature, to show forth the loveliest aspect of the Redeemer’s glory. “For it became him,” says the apostle, “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.” * Dear Christian brethren, could we allow ourselves to be robbed of these dehghtful, heart-affecting shades, in the picture of our Lord’s life, or could they have existed without an Incarnation? These tender, gentle excellencies of Christ, are so numerous that they fill your memories of his ministry. His lowliness, his meekness, his fortitude, his fear, his grief, his patience, his pity, his forgiveness. “Which of these Hneam’ents would you dash out of the picture? See him among the sick and suffering; at the house of Peter, the gate of Nain, the plains where he fed thousands, the bereaved dwelling, and the grave of Lazarus. See him weary at the well. See him not having where to lay his head. See him in the upper chamber among the twelve.

* Heb. ii. 10.

See him in the garden, at his trial, and on the cross. Observe the benignant, yet sorrowing ldrtues and graces of these hours, marked with tears and blood, and say, even though they tell of human weakness, which of these would you rehnquish? Yet, none of them could have been manifested to us, unless because “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” And, on the principle already laid down, these excellencies are not merely human but divine. The glory of the godhead shines out, not only in the raising of the dead, and the pardon of sins, but in the tears and sighs of compassion, and in the unexampled cry, “Not my will, but thine be done.” We may therefore affirm with confidence, that all the human character of Christ, as shown in his ministry on earth, is really a bright disclosure of the character of God, such as could be made only by the Incarnation.

But the mention just made of suiBPering, leads us most naturally to consider the summing-up of those sufferings in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the manifestation of God in that complication of agonies. By the Cross, I mean here the whole series of events in the close of Christ’s ministry as a sujfferer; his “Cross and Passion,” as going to make up one oblation. And let it be specially noted that we are not now surveying this, in its primary intention, as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, but in its character of a manifestation of God in the flesh; such a manifestation, moreover, as could be made only in the flesh, or by the assmnption of humanity. The Son of God looked steadily to this one termination. In eteraal covenant he devoted himself to manhood and the curse. In his own divine intention he was “the Lamb slain, from before the foundation of the world.’’ All the lines of type and prophecy are seen to converge on this one point. When he became a human being, every step was towards this consummation. And at this accursed tree, as at a focal point, all the manifestations of God concentre with a burning effulgence. It is often said, and nothing was ever said more truly, that all the divine attributes harmonize in the plan of redemption, and therefore in the death of Christ. It is not necessary to show this by a formal and laboured catalogue of these perfections. They are all there, as the hues are all in the rainbow; but they are there as constituting a single luminous ray. All there is of God seems to pour down on that spot of earth; and the channel by which it is conveyed is indicated by these words, “God is Love.” There, in that bleeding spectacle, all that we behold is in one sense humanity; in another, it is godhead.

” Here his whole name appears complete;
Nor wit can guess, nor reason prove,
Which of the letters best is writ,
The power, the wisdom, or the love.

Here I behold his inmost heart,
Where grace and vengeance strangely join,
Piercing his Son with sharpest smart,
To make the purchas’d pleasures mine.”

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The Christianity of all ages has beheld in the human sufferings of a Divine Person, a manifestation not so much of man as of God. That one thing which was wanting in the first Adam, namely, suffering, is here prominently set forth. This sight of Jesus Christ is the nearest view we can ever have of God. His unapproachable glories forever elude our search, and even though in pursuit we fly on the wings of the morning, we behold the radiant throne forever flying before us; but in the wounds of Christ, and in his dying countenance, we read the great lesson of manifested divinity. The Word was made flesh; called the Word, as being the Revealer, and in this dying scene, revealing more than in all ages previous: “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which, from the beginning of the world, has been hid in God.” Hence, Eph. iii. 19, to “know the love of Christ,” is to “be filled vdth all the ftJness of God.”

The Son of God, then, by becoming incarnate, has made a manifestation of the Godhead, more complete than the universe has ever knovm. It is not merely, as even Unitarians and Deists may believe, that a certain good man, called Jesus of Nazareth, has taught more clear, and full, and accurate doctrines concerning God. This is true, but infinitely more is true. This Jesas of Nazareth, very God and very man, possessing the two natures in one indivisible divine person, has, in human guise, and with a human body and soul, so lived, so spoken, so felt, so acted, and so suffered, as to reveal the divinity through the manhood, as it was never revealed before; and so as to present those attributes vrhich were otherwise invisible and remote, in near, palpable action. Henceforth, it is not merely Truth, Wisdom, Power, and Love, in distant abstractions, but Incarnate Truth, and Wisdom, and Power, and Love. Suppose, my brethren, that we were to remove out of the Scriptures all that knowledge of God, which has come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, what would be left! How would our Christianity be shorn of its brightest rays! No; when we would behold divinity, we look for the light of his glory as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead, bodily. So he taught his disciples that the sight of himseK was the sight of God. “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou, then. Show us the Pather?” John the Baptist knew this, and testified it in his last recorded speech. His morning-star “paled its ineffectual fires” before the rising sun. “He that cometh from heaven,” said he, “is above all; and what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth.” All the time that Christ was upon earth, he did not cease to be in heaven with God. “No man hath seen God at any time; the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Hence, the Apostle John, in language otherwise unintelligible, speaks of the Word of God, as if subjected to the scrutiny of the senses, 1 John,

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i. 1; “which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life.” It is Christ who is the great Revealer, even to our understandings; and no man cometh unto the Father, even intellectually, but by Him. He is not simply the Teacher; he is the Word. He is God himself in revelation. And, as incarnate, he is God in the flesh: the mirror, the luminous manifester of God; the “brightness,” or radiant effulgence, or outshining of his glory, the express image, or sealed character of his subsistence.

Remembering that it does not become us to intrude into those things which we have not seen, we must not undertake to say by what methods God will reveal himself to us in the future world. We know that Christ will still be Immanuel, God with us. We know that he will still bear our nature, forever, in heaven. We know that the absolute perfections of the Godhead will never cease to be inaccessible. We know that our Redeemer will still possess that same love which has led him to make all previous manifestations. We know that our own human nature shall then be brought unspeakably nearer to the human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, than it has ever been on earth; since it will be freed from all sin and imperfection; and since we can scarcely form ideas too high of what the Lord shall confer on our souls, when he shall change even” our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his

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glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” Phil. iii. 21. And hence, it is surely within the modesty of Christian conjecture, that when our humanity shall be brought so much nearer the glorified humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall enjoy communications from his divine nature, proportionably surpassing all that has fallen to our lot here.

In this world, therefore, and in the other, we know more of God, by the Incarnation, than we could ever have known without it; and this is the first point to be established.

11. By the Incarnation, God is brought near to our Affections. This, my brethren, is a part of the subject which involves less of theological argument, but which comes home more nearly to our hearts. Religion dwells much in the affections, and all intellectual views are important as tending towards emotion and action. Stoical philosophy tried in vain to expel human passions. Our very life is made up of them, and so far as we succeed in banishing them, we reduce existence to a condition such as that the world would be, if all colour were removed from the objects of nature. But, thanks be to God, it is in a very small degree that we are capable of destroying sensibility. Though, by so doing, we prevent some pain, we still more certainly prevent all pleasure; and God has wisely constituted us so as to fear, to hope, to desire, to love, to rejoice and to grieve.

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Who is there that needs to be instructed in the power of human domestic aflPections? These it is, which make the charm of home. A hundred pictures rise to your mind, the more dehghtful, because they are the product rather of memory than imagination. There are some things of which fancy may brighten the hues, and which may be loveher in fiction than in real life; but it is not so with the affections of warm hearts. The attempt would be

“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
“To throw a perfume on the violet.”

The love of parent to child, of children to parents, and the conjugal affections from which these spring, are beyond description. Dwell a moment on that which was first named. See the young mother, hanging over her babe, with a new and overmastering affection, which has changed her within a few short months from the buoyant maiden, swimming in the dance of pleasure and admiration, to be the doting, fearing, indefatigable, watching parent, whose whole soul is treasured up in that cradle, and who lives a new life in this experience, which no one could have described to her, and which she cannot hope to make credible save by those who have borne the same burden. Suppose affliction and illness should come, there is bitterness infused into the cup; but the passion has not lost its strength. What picture is more lovely or more familiar than that of two parents gazing upon the little ones whom they have

1X0 THE INCARNATION.

consigned to sleep, as the unconscious objects of their love lie locked in each other’s arms? And often have we been called to see the same affection chnging to the languishing and dying child, and hanging over the dead; a faithful watch-lamp among the tombs. Nor are these the only instances of strong attachments: I trust there is not one within the sound of my voice, who is not himself the subject or the object of such love, which goes beyond the lines of bloody and dignifies the field of sacred Mendship. Think not, my hearers, that I have alluded to these acknowledged evidences of feeling for purposes of embelhshment or entertainment. They serve another and more important end; they bring strongly before your minds the great part which is occupied by the affections, and remind you how much the happiness of life is dependent on them. Staunch the well-spring of love, and what is left of existence that would be worth saving? We might have intelligence, purpose, and animal appetite, but we could have no elevation, and no happiness. No, my brethren; next to the love of himself, God has given us nothing better than the love of one another, as it flows forth in all the mutual relations of society. But, lest you think I wander from my topic, let me hasten to trace out the connexion of what has been said, with the loftier topic which engages us. I have instanced in a single afiection, that of love; but while brevity demanded this, I would beg you to observe, that most of what has been offered, has equal application to such other emotions as

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may terminate on a good object. We are now therefore prepared to remark, that God has brought our feelings within the circle of religion; and this in two respects. He has sanctified these affections by his grace. He has turned these instincts into duties; and has made feelings which are dehghtful in themselves part of our tribute to himself. He has, with his own finger, inscribed on the second table of the Law, the household names of husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, servant, and neighbour, and thus made them sacred. He has proposed to us to receive payment of duty in the shape of affections and their fruits, which are themselves a reward. He has enlarged the circle so as to take in all mankind; and has said of good bestowed on the suffering, “Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me.” Christianity has seized upon these natural affections, and enlarged, purified, refined, and sanctified them. The theme is inviting; but I must go on to state a second respect, in which God has brought our affections within the circle of religion; for He has, wonderful to declare, permitted these affections to terminate on himself. This is more amazing than at first appears. God suffers creatures, lately condemned for their sins, to look up to him with hope, desire, pious sorrow, joy, and love. That we can thus feel toward fellow-creatures, we know; we experience it every day, to om* solace, relief and enjoyment; but towards God! how is it possible? Surely the thought were impious. Jehovah

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is too high to be reached by such affections as ours; and such a flight were too daring and presumptuous. Enough were it for us to stand at the foot of Sinai, and look upwards to the distant Majesty, with another class of emotions, with reverence, dread, admiring awe, and solemn fear. Sufficient were it for sinners to know that God will not consume them with a blaze of his wrath. And such indeed are the views engendered by the Law. It can go no further. But ye are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; but ye are come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God. The whole relation is so changed, that we approach no longer as servants, but as sons, and are permitted to pour into the bosom of God the very same affections which we bestow on beloved human creatures, only with a greatness of volume in the tide, such as could not reasonably end on any thing finite. God, in infinite condescension, permits us to look on him with a genuine and personal affection. And it is this which brings the whole matter clearly within the scope of the present argument; since our proposal is to show that by the Incarnation, God is brought sufficiently near to be the object of these affections. We have seen how the same glorious event brought the divine perfections within the range of our. mental vision; but to stop there, would be but the half of religion. It is not the cold contemplation of certain attributes, even though divine, vrhich accomphshes our work. The first and chiefest commandment, yea, the sum of all, is Thou shalt love. But who can love a metaphysical abstraction; even when named by the name of God? Who can draw nigh to a Deity so abstruse and distant? No contemplation of the glories of nature can do more than excite admiration, and per haps a modified thankfulness, of the vaguest and coldest sort. It is the Gospel which brings God nigh. We do not deny that in the Old Testament there are many representations of God as a Father, and many views of his character, as long-sufiering and of tender mercy, and forgiving transgression, such as awaken tender emotions towards him. But all these are so many anticipations of the Christian era; Christ, my brethren, is in the Old Testament as well as in the New. His name was on every altar, laver, pillar, vail, and censer, on all the golden imagery, and all the cunning work of the tabernacle; but it was there in hieroglyphic device and cipher, such as required a key, and a practised eye; and these were read backwards by the legalists of Israel, for want of the knowledge of Christianity. When the Messiah came, he found them with this law in their hands, yet devoid of all generous, melting, loving affections towards God. A yoke of galling, intolerable formalism lay on the necks of the whole people. The general aspect of the Old Testament unquestionably wears a frown, not in its real intention, but as appre-# hended by those whose hearts were veiled as to its real

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meaning. The doctrine of the New Testament was needed to expound the Old. All which is strikingly confirmed, when we survey the condition of the modern Jews, in their rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their service is slavish. With the Old Testament in their hands, and read daily in their synagogues, they nevertheless approach God with attempts at a hard routine of ceremonies, which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. The grand defect in all their services, and which they have no means of supplying, is the want of spiritual fihal love. The total absence of this among the heathen, is a striking fact in their history. Even while their poets say, “Por we are also His offspring;” none of their books make any part of religion consist in affectionate regard for their deities, even the chief. No moral duties are referred to any attachment to the gods, as their motive; no law says. Thou shalt love Jupiter or Neptune, or all the gods, or any of them. Whereas, when we turn to the New Testament, or even to the Old as explained by the New, we observe this exercise of the affections on every page. And wherever true religion enters a soul, it works as strongly as do the natural impulses within us towards a beloved circle.. The believer looks on God with as real and as personal affection, as on his children, or his parent, though with a purer and higher flame. He is not content with the impersonal Deity of the philosopher; the mere power of Nature, or Soul of the Universe, which “Warms in the sun, refreslies in the breeze, “Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,” Lives through all life, extends through all extent, “Spreads undivided, operates unspent.”

Though these words may be taken in a good sense, the

believer craves more than this. He asks for a personal God, to whom his soul, as an individual person, may come. My brethren, I am uttering what may seem a truism; but the age demands clear views on this point. The giant heresy of the age is that which makes the Universe God. Many years ago, the greatest female mind of the day said, “The pubUc secret of Germany is Pantheism.” That which began in Germany has spread over Prance and surrounding countries, and has appeared among ourselves, in the extravagant teachings of the transcendental infidelity. And there is a dreadful tendency in such opinions to gravitate from the schools of philosophy downward to the masses, in the grosser form of downright Atheism. These opinions have mingled themselves to a large extent with the po-Htical revolutions of the continent. Let me cite one of the latest indications: At one of the great conventions in Germany, lately held, the Hessian delegate, Professor Vogt, used the following language: “I am for the separation of Church and State; but only on condition that what is called the Church be annihilated. The National Assembly must recognise a church of unbelief. The time has come, when a man may have permission in Germany to be an Atheist.” * Such are the tendencies of modern philosophy; and they spread more widely than is thought; among professed, and even among real Christians, their taint is felt; and, where they cannot destroy faith, they succeed in disturbing it. Thus, a celebrated Christian author of Prussia said to a friend of mine: “O, that I had your views of God! O, that I could say thou to him, as to a personal God!” My brethren, the believer can approach his God as a person, and with a real, personal, individual affection, as when a man comes to a friend or father. But in order to this, there must be that approach through a Mediator, which is our principal subject. When Luther said, “I cannot have an absolute God,” Nolo Deum absolutum, he expressed a great fundamental truth. As he meant it, the doctrine is, that as a God of Justice, Jehovah cannot be approached by sinners, save through a propitiation. But it is true in another sense: we cannot come to God with a tender, bursting, filial affection, until we behold him manifested in the Son. He is distant, towering, abstract; the object of awful dread, and marvelling admiration, but not of confiding attachment. God must be brought nigher. Those attributes of heavenly fearfalness must be translated into the language of the heart. The immaterial and evanescent perfections must be presented in some tangible form. In the former division, we saw the provision made for

* KirchenfreuncI, Feb. 1849.

this, in regard to the intellect; the same provision is equally available in regard to the heart. “God was manifest in the flesh;” manifest first to the understanding, which we have considered; and, secondly, to the affections. The problem being, Plow is human love to such a being as God possible? the answer is. We love God by loving Christ. In these simple words is contained a lesson of religious experience which would, if properly acted upon, change our whole life. It is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we behold that aspect of God, which awakens tender affection. No man cometh unto the Father, but by him. Till this faith arises within us, God is seen far off, in clouds of angry justice. Faith manifests him as full of love, and ready to pardon and adopt; and all this through Jesus Christ.

But here the question presents itself, whether we may encourage our affections to go forth to Christ, as to a personal object of love. This does not seem difficult to one who has in memory the New Testament narrative. In those scenes, Jesus moved among his creatures as a man, and was the object of tender and generous affections, which are recorded in the book, and are reproduced in ourselves while we read. Is there any believer who reads the four gospels, who does not feel his heart going forth perpetually and increasingly toward the individual character of the Lord Jesus? He who knows nothing of this, in my judgment, knows nothing yet as he ought to know. It is a sympathy

118 THE mOARNATION.

with those who surrounded the Son of God when he “was manifest in the flesh.” In that narrative, if anywhere, he is “altogether lovely.” The eye singles him out from among all the scriptural characters, as he walks by the sea of Galilee; as he opens his hps upon the Mount; as he heals, and feeds, and comforts; as he fasts, and prays, and sighs; as he prepares the disciples for his departure; and as he finally dies upon the cross. It is this “historical Christ,” a term used in contempt by Strauss, and his imitators in America, whom we love; even after his resurrection, when he appears to Mary, to Cleopas, to the Apostles, and when he is caught up from among them into heaven. Now, we have only to reflect, that though in heaven, he is unchanged, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever,” to satisfy us, that as truly as he was loved by disciples on earth, so truly he may be loved by us; and this, not with a vague approval or admiration of abstract virtues, but with a strong and moving individual affection. And this is not contradictory to the spirit of Paul’s words, 2 Cor. v. 16: “Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more /’ for here the apostle means to condemn and repudiate his former carnal expectation of Messiah, as a temporal prince. In this very connexion, Paul is so far from condemning a spiritual affection of the Redeemer, that he exclaims;” Whether we be beside ourselves it is to God;” that is,” if as our enemies say, we are transported out of ourselves by enthusiasm.

SO as to seem deranged, let them know we are animated by a zeal for God; for the love of Christ constraineth us;” or, as the word means, ’ bears us away like a strong and resistless torrent.’ It is therefore possible and lawful to look on the person of our Redeemer with a strong individual regard; loving him for every bright virtue, and gentle word, and beneficent act of his human pilgrimage; and ascribing to him the same excellencies, now that he has ascended into heaven. And experience testifies that this love of the Lord Jesus Christ is as true and distinct an emotion, in the Christian’s mind, as any which he cherishes towards children or fi-iends. But here the question meets us, How, or in what sense is this the loving of God? How are we hereby brought any nearer to the Great Supreme? In replying briefly to this, I must recall to your mind what has been said under another head. That which we love in Jesus Christ, is not his exterior form, of which the Scriptures wisely give us no details; but the lineaments of his spiritual nature; the moral features; the virtues and graces of his inner life; his humility, faith, devotion, gentleness, meekness, longsuffering, fortitude, courage, benevolence, and truth. These internal beauties are manifested by his words, his works, and his sufierings. The whole Gospel narrative is a record of them, and as we read, we love. We muse upon them when the book is laid down, as we do over the letter of our dearest friend; nay, we must open it once again, and look at the very words. The picture is formed in

120 T^^ INCARNATION.

our mind, and rises before us, as that of a distant husband to the affectionate wife; but it is a moral image, and the sum of the traits is holiness. Now, these spiritual attractions, though manifested to us through a human soul, are nevertheless divine; because Divinity shines through that manhood. The Godhead, yea, the whole undivided Godhead, has its union there with human nature. Nowhere else in the universe is so much of God presented for our adoration, as in the Lord Jesus Christ. With every thought, emotion, and volition of that holy human spirit, there is a present and consenting holiness of the Divine Nature. These virtues and graces have two sides: one toward us, and one toward heaven. Toward us, all that our eyes behold, is human; toward heaven, is the equal and coincident will of divinity. Not only so: while Christ Jesus, as a man, is manifesting toward us these perfections and attractions, he is one with God. Though there are two natures, there is but one person: the glorious person who is named Christ. The constitution of this adorable Person, was for the very purpose of manifesting God. As has been fully said, we behold more of God in the face of Christ, than elsewhere in all the universe. Is not the question answered, then? When we love Christ, we love God. We cannot in any way so intelligently love God, as when we love Christ. And therefore, we need not be afraid to let our thoughts and powers go out with all their fulness toward the Son; we need not be apprehensive lest we defraud the Father of his glory.

THE mCAKNATIOlir. 221

Christ is God, in human manifestation. The Word was made flesh. God is incarnate, and as incarnate is made ours: the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Pather, He hath revealed him. The reverse method is not so safe. There are some who are full of high expressions towards God, in general, but who make little of Christ. Having not come by the only way, such persons have no true apprehensions of God. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him.’’” He that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life.” This is a great mystery to the world; but it is understood by the people of God. It is indeed the great principle of Christianity. But it never could have entered into human minds to conceive it. How new and impossible to be foreseen! This is the reason it is called a mystery, that, having long been hidden, it is now made known. How influential! Religious views are no longer cold and inoperative. They are brought within the circle of our heart-affections. The Lord Jesus Christ, so to speak, sits by our fireside. All our natural emotions are brought in as auxiliaries to our love of Christ; and in loving him, we are performing our great duty to God. And then how delightful! Here it is, in the love of Christ, that the chief happiness of religion consists. Loving God is no longer an impossibility or an abstraction. We are bound to him by ties of humanity, as by the “bonds of a man ;*’ for, “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.”

“The great proof that this view is correct, is derived from an inspection of the New Testament; for there we see it to be the view of the early Christians. If, on looking at these records, we had found it to be otherwise; if, for example, we had found, either that the Redeemer was spoken of as one to whom no tribute of affection could properly be paid, because he is only a deceased man; or, that the Son of God is too highly exalted, and too far removed, for us to visit him with our affection; then, indeed, we should have had good cause to reject all the doctrine which has been proposed. But this doctrine meets full confirmation in primitive experience. “Our fellowship,” says the Apostle John, “is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” “Whom, having not seen,” says Peter, “ye love.” He addresses himself to the body of Christians in many countries; it was the common experience of the age. They loved the unseen Christ. They looked for “that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” And it was so radical a distinction between the Christian and the world, that Paul, in his zeal, declares, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let Mm be anathema maranatha.” And after apostohc days, this personal love to the Lord Jesus was the characteristic of disciples. The expression of the martyr Ignatius is celebrated, in its Latin version: Amor meus crucifixus

THE INCAKNATION. ]^23

EST! I must go further, my brethren, and say, that this is the great lesson of evangelical Christianity. Wherever vital piety decays, this decays. It takes its flight long before the alteration of creeds or the denial of doctrines; for there may be an age of cold orthodoxy unenhvened by one beam of love to the Redeemer. But when this affection has fled, sound doctrine soon prepares to spread its wings likewise. For a time there may be accurate metaphysical discussion, controversy about tenets, and even persecution for differences. But by degrees the Cross is thrust into a corner; and at length the propitiatory work of Christ is extenuated or forgotten. The Atonement being tarnished or exploded, the Godhead of Christ is soon found to be superfluous. There is no need of a divine Redeemer under that easy system of liberal Christianity in which every man is his own saviour. This may account for the known fact, that among those who reject the Trinity, small account is made of personal love towards the Lord Jesus Christ. The too frequent allusion to his double nature and to his redeeming blood becomes offensive, and the people are in a fair way to forget that there ever were such spots as Gethsemane or Golgotha. Whereas, in direct opposition to this, whenever vital piety revives, there is a marked revival of love to Jesus Christ. It was so at the Reformation, and it will be more gloriously so in the centuries of light which are to come. Wherever a genuine convert is made from heathenism, his heart is expanded with a

I24i THE INOAKNATION.

new affection, love to the crucified Redeemer. In their best moments, Christians of every age and countryhave risen in love to God manifest in the flesh. This is witnessed by the thousands of hymns and spiritual songs in which Christian affection has poured itself forth in all the languages of Christendom. We need not except the Greek and Latin hymns of the early church, before the rise of papacy: some of which have providentially been retained even among many corruptions. The lyric effusion of some favoured moment of unwonted transport in an individual saint, being consigned to the care of poetry and music, thus became part of the worship of the whole church. At the Reformation, songs in an unknown tongue were suddenly exchanged for those in the vulgar tongues, and thousands of hymns to Christ burst forth over Gennany, Switzerland, Holland, France, and Britain. The piety thus reviving continued from century to century, and for the same object. So far from shunning the death of the Lord, it was Christ on the cross that, above all things, attracted their hearts, because it was here that most was seen of God manifest in the flesh. How many a night of afiliction has been brightened by this vision! How many a dying Up has made the name of Jesus its last articulation!