likewise, if, when his dear Son, his Beloved before all ages, took upon himself our nature, his holiness should pursue him as man, as flesh, with what awful severity it pursueth sinful flesh; if, when he was found within the accursed realm and blighted barren region of sin, the most direful scourges thereof should seize him, and smite him, and cleave to him even as unto others; if, against him, the law should stand up in all its offended majesty, and measure him without abatement at every point; and if satan also and the powers of darkness, and if death also and the grave, and if hell also and its legions, should combine against Him, even as against any other of the children. Which being truly fulfilled in the manifestation, as every one of you, communicants, is this day to testify, the holiness of God was, in a most marvellous way, illustrated in the midst of his love; yea, and over his love. Yes, I will say over his love; for holiness is the column of the Divine majesty and power, the root and trunk of that tree, of which goodness and wisdom, mercy and love, are the various branches, flowers, and fruits. Which holiness, I say, is more illustrated and honoured in the incarnation of Jesus Christ than it would have been in the destruction of a thousand worlds, fallen, forsaken, and abandoned because of sin. So that, on the part of the Father, unchangeableness is preserved, hatred of sin is preserved, the stability of righteousness is preserved, while love, and grace, and mercy find their proper manifes

tation toward sinful men.

Let us now turn and consider how this great act affects the condition of the Son; for ignorant men take upon them to scoff at this great work of

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the Incarnation, as if it were a substitution of the innocent instead of the guilty, against all reason and justice, and to the subversion of all reason and justice in the breasts of men. Thus they speak in ignorance, not understanding what they say, nor whereof they affirm. But first, I pray you to observe, that there was no necessity, to speak after the manner of men, obliging God to find an atonement for sin;-which is manifest from the condition of the angels who kept not their first estate, and are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Their case was passed by, while ours was chosen for the manifestation of grace and truth: which is, therefore, devoutly to be contemplated as an act of sovereignty in the midst of mercy; for there must be sovereignty in all God's acts, else he were no longer gracious; and it is to be ascribed to no other cause than his own electing love, which is an ultimate fact and principle that cannot be passed beyond. It needed to be shewn that God could punish sin unchangeably; or, in other words, that the proper nature of sin is to propagate and increase itself for ever. There must be a monument of all the Divine attributes, and this of the fallen angels is the monument of his unextinguishable hatred of sin. The earth shall be redeemed, and the spirits of just men shall be made perfect, who shall thenceforward be the monument to all the universe of grace. And where is the monument of God's justice and severity against sin for the universal host to contemplate? Hell with her prince of darkness, her rebel angels, and all reprobate men, shall be that monument for ever and ever. "They shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men who have trans

gressed against me; for their worm dieth not, neither shall their fire be quenched." It is thus that every attribute of God shall have its proper manifestation, or be realised in some object which his creatures may behold and admire.

Bearing this in mind, that the great object of the Incarnation, whereof we discourse, is to bring into visible manifestation and real being the monument of God's grace and mercy, and that the Father worketh nothing but by the Son, it is clear that it properly became Him, who created angels and men, and all things, and thereby gave the demonstration of God's creative attributes of power, wisdom, goodness, &c.,-Him who is at last to judge all things; and by constituting hell, to give the demonstration of God's attributes of justice and holiness, abhorrence of sin, &c.; that same one it did become to give the intermediate demonstration of God's mercy, and grace, and forgiveness in recovering, redeeming, and regenerating the earth, and in constituting its blessedness for ever. And besides these three great demonstrations of the Godhead, creation, redemption, and judgment, no others are known unto me.

Now, with respect to the part which the Son bore in this great covenant, made and sealed before the foundation of the world, I pray you to remember what I observed above, that the essence of sin is spiritual, in the will; and that the inward darkness and trouble, the outward suffering and sorrow, are only the consequences, and I may say the accidents, which cleave unto a will or spirit which hath cast off the authority of God, and become a law unto itself: therefore the work which the Son had to perform was to redeem the

will of man from its bondage to sin and satan; or rather, I should say, from the curse of God, declared in paradise against transgression. Which deliverance to accomplish, he must come into the very condition of that which he would redeem; become flesh, and take up into himself the very conditions of a human will, or human spirit; that is, become very man, and himself wrestle therein against flesh and blood--against principalities-against powers-against the rulers of the darkness of this world-against spiritual wickednesses in high places. If it pleased him to undertake this, no one will say that he was hindered from undertaking it. If he had love strong enough to make the sacrifice, there was no unrighteousness, there was no dishonour-unless mercy, and love, and grace be a dishonour. For the suffering which it caused him; first, the hiding of the light of the Divinity; secondly, the being subject unto a law, being himself both the Lawgiver and the Law; thirdly, the encountering his own creatures, and being under their continual malice and persecution; fourthly, the presence and very close communion in which he dwelt with all manner of sin, touching, tasting, hearing, seeing, feeling it, and being in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin; lastly, the undergoing of death and burial;-these things, which I cannot now handle particularly, are but the outward accidents and apparent attendants of that humiliation into human nature which he underwent. The merit of the act lay not in these outward visible things, nor is by them to be appreciated: even as the heinousness of sin is not thus to be measured, but standeth in the reprobate will; so the righteousness of Christ.

is to be appreciated by the willingness with which he undertook humanity, and underwent the fiery proof; and if you would have apparent proofs of that willingness, they are to be found in the meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, and forgivenness with which he endured it.

And that this is the highest view of the Lord's work, the reasoning of St. Paul upon the fortieth Psalm doth verify. Verse 6: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required." He rejects the Jewish, or rather the ceremonial, form of the work, even as I have endeavoured to raise your views above it, to the higher view of it which is contained in the following verses. Verses 7, 8: "Then said I, Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart; "-in which the true end of his advent or incarnation is declared to be to do the will of God, and to have his law written on his heart; or to give the example of a man who, as man, should overcome all the enemies of man, and re-obtain the possession of that dominion of man which had been lost in the fall. Now let us observe St. Paul's reasoning upon this text. Heb. x. 8, 9: "Above, when he said, Sacrifice and offerings, and burnt-offerings, and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second." It is in the active obedience of Christ, in the perfect submission and obedience which he yielded, in the doing without any failure all the will