man, of things in heaven and things in earth; the justification of the faithful, the absolution of sinners, the calm of the dying, the rest of saints. What a title is Saviour! dear to each one, as he knows the depth of his own fall. If we realise what sin is, and death: the eternal weight of guilt, the anguish of defiled hearts, the torment of temptation, the judgment to come, the undying worm, the everlasting flame, the loss of God; if we know, each one, what our life has been in childhood, youth, and manhood, its sins and sorrows, its wounds and sicknesses, its inward darkness and deceit and unless we know these things, we do but take this Name in vain :-if, indeed, we know all this with a living and thrilling heart, then there is no "name under heaven given among men” so full of healing, calm, and joy. It will be to us exactly what we are in ourselves: to the impenitent an empty word, to the penitent life and pardon to any measure of penitence, dear as the sorrow is deeper; dearest to those who are self-accused and convicted, guilty in their own eyes above all, sorrowing and alone, not for want of kind hearts around them, but because the kindest and nearest heart is all too far away to soothe the affliction of a contrite spirit. alone can enter into the quick of our grief.

One

One

alone can heal a wounded heart. One only Name has power to save.

2. But there is a deeper meaning still. The name Jesus is His name as our kinsman. It is His name as man-the name of His humiliation, given on the eighth day, when, for our sakes, He humbled Himself. He is very Man, in all the truth of our humanity. He took our true manhood-not of a like substance with us, but of the same; the one substance of mankind. By regeneration, we are "of His flesh and of His bone," who by incarnation is of ours. He entered into human relations. He shared our kindred, and placed Himself in the order of our consanguinity. The Spirit of prophecy, speaking in the person of the Church, cried of old, “ Oh, that Thou wert as my brother." And this desire He has granted. He is made our brother: "He is not ashamed to call us brethren." "Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father." He has, therefore, taken upon Him all the affections of kindred. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." As He is the faultless and perfect Son, so He is the loving and perfect Brother. As human nature has its perfection in

1 Cantic. viii. 1.

3 St. Matt. xxv. 40.

2 St. John xx. 17.

His person, so human kindred has its perfection in His heart. His love, tenderness, and sympathy as a Brother, are as perfect as His patience, lowliness, and sanctity as Man. The name Jesus is the name of a brother in blood, who thereby binds Himself to us with the natural bonds which unite us to each other. It pledges to us His sympathy in all sorrows of body and of soul,-in poverty and straits, in weariness and fasting, in fear and anxiety, in temptation and desertion: all these He shares with us, by the perfect sympathy and perfect affection of a brother. Let us dwell upon this thought, as it is revealed to us in the mystery of the Incarnation. There are two spheres of being; the uncreated, where from everlasting the eternal Son dwelt with the Father and the Holy Ghost; and the created, into which, by His incarnation, He came down to dwell with us. In the higher sphere, He still received the adoration of the heavenly court as God, while, in the lower, angels ministered to Him as man. And now, exalted in our manhood to His Father's throne, the Lord Jesus, very Man as very God, receives the homage of all worlds, while, as our brother, He is united still with us.

Here is the line at which the faith of many fails. They believe His Godhead, and profess to believe His manhood; but they shrink from

the divine mysteries of our living incorporation with His perfect humanity, our very and true participation in His divine nature. Therefore, to them, sacraments are figures of an intellectual food; the Church an union springing from our individual will; the sympathy of Christ a fancy, or even an irreverent approach. And for the same cause they cannot understand the blessed reality of His human affections, of His heart as man. They shrink from it, as something presumptuous, or enthusiastic; or as lowering, and, as they say, humanising the spiritual and divine. What, then, would they have said of the Incarnation itself, if they had not unconsciously received it before they began to judge as a condition to believing? The mystery of the Incarnation is, indeed, a humanising of God, as it is also a deifying of man; for in Him the Godhead and the manhood are alike perfect and indivisible. The name Jesus speaks to us through His human heart, like ours in all things, sin only excepted.

3. But there is, if possible, a still deeper and more precious meaning of this name. "There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." When He was on earth, He had, if I may speak after our common way, His particular friendships. Beside the kindred of blood which He contracted

1 Prov. xviii. 24.

with all, there is a spiritual kindred, which is even nearer still. "Who is My mother, and who are My brethren? Whosoever shall do the will of My Father in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him." He has told us on what this special love is founded. It rested on the zeal of Peter, the ardent love of John, the diligent service of Martha, the yearning devotion of Mary; and yet their love was but the reflection of the love He first bare to them-the faint return of that love wherewith He had loved them eternally. Nevertheless, we here may learn a great law of His kingdom, that He has particular friendships, and a special love for those who love and live for Him. To them this Name is a depth of sweetness, as the harmonies of a perfect strain. It is "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb." It sheds abroad in them a consciousness of heavenly love. It has been to them as a hymn of praise, a prayer of power, a litany of pleading, a meditation all the day long. "My meditation of Him shall be sweet." This has been the musing of saints. Their words and their writings, their acts and their prayers, their public labours and their solitary hours, their

1 St. Matt. xii. 48; St. John xiv. 23.