SERMON XX.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION.

I JOHN iv. 1—3.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

No subject of our holy religion has more exercised the ingenuity of unstable minds, than the doctrine of the incarnation of our blessed Redeemer. He that delights in the exercise of an humble and affectionate reliance on the name of the Son of God, who took part of our nature that he might be an all-sufficient Mediator between God and man, does not willingly enter on the review of those numerous heresies on this sub-ject, which sprang up in the visible church during the early ages of christianity. But the student in divinity, or the watchful minister of Christ, cannot be altogether spared this painful task. The

employment will prepare him to meet with greater confidence the attempts, which are daily making, to start new theories on the subject of revealed religion. His surprise, and perhaps his consternation, if he feel himself somewhat unacquainted with such speculations, will be considerably abated, when he discovers that precisely the same extravagant notions have been maintained and abandoned in distant ages, which are again resumed by individuals, who need not be suspected of having recalled them from the records of antiquity.

To an enlightened mind, the essential truths of christianity present themselves with a testimony peculiarly their own. Their influence easily takes hold of the understanding, as soon as received, and there is a fixedness in the contemplation which matures the judgment, and fits it more and more for that range which gradually opens before it. But airy speculations on this, more than on any other subject, pervert the powers of the mind and it is surely no inconsiderable proof of the truth and reality of divine revelation, that while other sciences have been benefitted by such speculations, and have been pushed forward by them towards perfection; and though the wildest theorists have added something to the general stock of knowledge, true religion has at all times risen above, and easily detached itself, as well from the most ingenious systems of human invention, as from the wild reveries of the mere enthusiast.

It is a remark, which a more general review of theology will probably justify, that every extravagant or defective system of doctrine has been characterized by some unscriptural theory, as to the person or office of Christ. There are those who own a sort of subjection to the claims of revelation, who yet profanely speculate on the allowed mystery with which the incarnation of the Saviour is involved, and thus betray the spirit with which other truths of the gospel have been perverted, in order to their accommodation to a preconceived theory. The Apostle marks out the subject of the incarnation of Christ, as the most decisive criterion by which to try the spirits. It was one satisfactory mark of a disciple of Jesus, in the first publication of the gospel, to confess him at all; and when the profession of christianity became more general, the same mark was still recognised, in order to distinguish false prophets, by a reference to the person and offices of Christ, with which the incarnation has a close and necessary connection.

Faithfully to set forth Christ in those offices, as they are unfolded in scripture, is the sum of all christian teaching, and the criterion of a true prophet-a criterion so important, that the Apostle in another place makes it paramount to every other: "Some preach Christ, even of envy and strife; and some also of good will. What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached: and I therein do rejoice, and will rejoice." And whatever may be

the development of the mystery of antichrist, we are warned by St. John against every deviation from the scriptural account of Christ's coming in the flesh, as an evidence of that spirit of antichrist, whereof he adds, "ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world."

The name of antichrist seems to point to some false system of religion, substituted for the true one, and thus opposing itself to the best interests of the church of Christ. This may perhaps be allowed to be the general interpretation of the word; and if so, it will combine the two ideas. conveyed by the preposition dì, and account for the necessity of the Apostle's warning to the church to try the spirits; inasmuch as this leaven was to be expected in the visible church, till the son of perdition was revealed, and a more open apostacy followed. Perhaps there is a sense in which this is yet to be fulfilled, and it is of deep importance in the mean time that we should understand clearly this criterion: that our knowledge of it may rest on the undoubted authority of the word of God; and that the understanding and judgment being fortified by this warrant, we may be the better able to survey the character of any rising heresy, and be more alive to its tendency.

Of all the heresies which have respect to the person of Christ, such as relate to the doctrine of the incarnation are the most dangerous; because,