Imatges de pàgina
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This last is the method of the text, which I shall a little open and explain; but so as to conform myself to the Apostle's purpose in giving a brief collective view of Christianity, that, the whole of it being seen together, we may be the more sensibly affected by it.

1. This great mystery of godliness opens with-GOD MANIFEST IN The flesh.

When the scheme of man's redemption was laid, it was not thought fit that an Apostle, a prophet, a man like ourselves, no nor an Angel or Archangel, should be the instrument of it; but that the word of God, the Son of God, nay God himself (as he is here and elsewhere called) should take this momentous office upon him that heaven should stoop to earth, and that the divine nature should condescend to leave the mansions of glory, inshrine itself in a fleshly tabernacle, should be made man, should dwell among us, and die for us.

If you ask, why may not a man, or angel, have sufficed to execute this purpose of man's

f For which reason it is not necessary for me to enter into the controversy, that divides the critics, concerning the authentic reading of this part of the text.

salvation; or, if only this divine person was équal to it, why he did not rather assume a glorified, than our mortal body; why it was necessary for him to inherit all our infirmities (sin only excepted,) and yet be conceived, in so extraordinary a manner of the holy Spirit; nay, and why he should be so conceived, and born of a virgin (a miracle of that peculiar sort as scarce seems capable of proof, and, in fact, is only proved indirectly by the subsequent life and character and history of this divine person): If you ask these, and a hundred other such questions, I answer readily and frankly, I know not: But then consider, that my ignorance, that is, any man's ignorance, of the reasons why these things were done, is no argument, not so much as a presumption against there being reasons, nay, and the best reasons, for so mysterious a dispensation. Consider, too, that these mysteries no way contradict any clear principle of your own reason: all that

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appears is, that you should not have expected, previously to the revelation of it, such a design to be formed; and that, now it is revealed, you do not understand why it was so conducted. But we are just in the same state of ignorance, with regard to almost every part of the divine conduct. This world, so unquestionably the work of infinite wisdom and goodness, is not,

in numberless respects, what we should expect it to have been; of many parts we see not the use and end; in some, there is the appearance of deformity; in others, of mischief; in all, when attentively considered, of something above, or beside, our apprehension.

Such then being the case of the natural world, why may not the moral have its depths and difficulties? You see God in the creation: why not in redemption? In the former, he condescends, according to our best philosophy, to manifest himself in the meanest reptile, all whose instincts he immediately prompts, and. whose movements he directs and governs: why then might he not manifest himself in man, though in another manner, and by an union with him still more close and intimate?

But I pursue these questions no farther. It is enough that, admitting the fact, on the faith of the revelation itself, we see a wonderful goodness and condescension in this whole procedure: that we understand the importance of having such a saviour and guide and example of life, as God manifest in the flesh; that we are led to conceive, with astonishment, of the dignity of man, for whose sake the Godhead assumed our nature, and, at the same time,

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with consternation, of the guilt of man, for the atonement of which this assumption, with all its consequences, became necessary.

God manifest in the flesh, is then the first chapter of this mysterious book: and yet, as mysterious as it is, full of the clearest and most momentous instruction.

2. The second is, that this wonderfully compounded person was JUSTIFIED IN THE SPIRIT: that is, by, or through the Spirit: another mystery, which, however, acquaints us with this fact, that a third divine person ministered in the great work of our redemption.

And his ministry was seen in directing the ancient prophets to foretell the Redeemer's coming; in accomplishing his miraculous conception; in assisting at his baptism; in conducting him through his temptation; in giving him the power to cast out devils, which is expressly said to be by the Spirit of Gode; in raising him from the dead, by which event he was declared the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness; in descend

a 2 Pet. i. 21.

c Matth. iii. 16.

← Matth. xii. 28,

Matth. i. 18,

d Matth. iv. i.

f Rom. i. 4. 1 Pet, íîì, 18,

ing on his disciples on the day of Pentecosts; in bestowing diversities of miraculous gifts ↳ upon them, for the confirmation of his doctrine, and the propagation of it through the world; and lastly in sanctifying and illuminating the faithful of all times and places.

In all these ways (and if there be any other) Jesus was justified, that is, his commission was authenticated by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Here, again, many curious questions may be asked: but what we clearly learn is, the awful relation we bear to the Holy Ghost, as co-operating in the scheme of man's redemption; and the infinite dignity of that scheme itself, the execution of which required the agency of that transcendantly divine person.

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Hitherto the mystery of godliness has been doubly mysterious, being wrapped up in the incomprehensible essence of the Deity. It now stoops, as it were, through this cloud of glory, and gives itself to be somewhat distinctly ap prehended by us.

€ Acts ii. 4.

h I Cor. xii. 11.

1 Cor. vi. 11. John xv. 26.

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