you" are substance and reality;

they are spirit,

and they are life." What is an unsubstantial spirit but no spirit? an unsubstantial life but no life at all? or an unsubstantial presence but an unreal presence a very and true absence? What is an unsubstantial regeneration but a word, a figure, and an empty sound?-a worthy doctrine only for those who believe in an unsubstantial incarnation, a figurative resurrection, a metaphorical creation. O the dreaming shallowness of the reason of man! O the depth both of the power and of the spirit of God! Let us hold fast what we have, that no man take our crown. The law had "a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ." We have entered into the order of the spiritual world, where shadows are not; where all things are real and eternal. Let us trust in Him who is "the Amen," the very and true Life, the giver of life, the multiplier of all creatures, the Maker and the Healer of the substance of our manhood, first in Himself, and then in us who by faith are His.

SERMON XI.

THE BODY OF CHRIST.

HEB. X. 5.

"Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me."

HE parable of the True Vine sets before us

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the great spiritual mystery of which these words, spoken by the Messiah in prophecy, plant as it were the root. In that parable we see the perfect outline of the Incarnation, or Christ mystical in all fulness: the root, the stem, the branches, the stately perfection and the exuberant fruit of the elect vine. It describes by anticipation the life, growth, and fruitage of the Church, and reveals also the source and channels through which the quickening life passes into all its structure and farthest sprays.

These words of the Psalmist, quoted by St.

Paul, are therefore a prophecy of the Incarnation. In the fortieth Psalm, as it stands in the Hebrew, the words here quoted by St. Paul run, "But mine ear hast Thou opened;" that is, as the ear of a servant was pierced by his master, in token of perpetual service. But the Septuagint, which St. Paul here follows, reads, “A body hast Thou prepared me, or "fitted to me." These two readings are one in substance. The form of a servant which He took upon Him was our humanity; and the boring of the ear is a still more vivid prophecy of the Incarnation of the Word made flesh, who became "obedient unto death."

This prophecy, then, plainly declares that the everlasting Son, who created the world, and ministered in divers appearances to the saints of God, would, in fulness of time, of His own free and loving will, humble Himself still more deeply, and take upon Him the body of our flesh. God had prepared for Him in His foreknowledge, in love and wisdom, by His election of grace, a body of the substance of a virgin, chosen to bear the Son of God; and this predestination has in it a wonderful depth of mystery, an abundant and eternal fruitfulness. May He who foretold His own humiliation for us, lead us by His Spirit, so far as is for our good, into the knowledge of this stupendous work of love and power. Let us, then, see

what is this "body" which was prepared for Him of God.

1. First, it plainly means the natural body, which He took of the substance of the Blessed Virgin His mother. This was a very and true body of flesh, even as our own. And here let us observe, that as, in speaking of men, the word of God uses to speak of our noblest part, and puts the soul for our whole nature; so in speaking of the humiliation of God, as if more openly to express His abasement, it describes His whole manhood by its lowest part: "A body hast Thou prepared Me." We must not, however, fall into the Apollinarian or Eutychian errors, and imagine that the Word took only a body of flesh and blood, as if the divine nature were the quickening mind and soul; or that the spiritual nature of man was absorbed in the divine. In the mystery of the divine Incarnation two whole and perfect natures were united in one person; the Godhead, with all attributes and perfections, infinite and eternal, the manhood, with all its properties and powers of body, soul, and spirit. "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ." All that makes up the natural perfection of man as a moral and reasonable intelligence, together with a passible and mortal body, He assumed into the unity of His person.

It is only by bearing the whole truth in mind that holy Scripture can be rightly understood. This being the mystery of the Incarnation, we should be prepared to find two distinct currents of language, one relating to the divine and infinite, the other to the human and finite nature. And these, so far from being contradictions to be explained away, are confirmations of the mystery, which rigidly demands a twofold language. We read, for instance, of the

Son, "All things were made by Him ;”1 and again, "He was crucified through weakness." How can these be understood of the same person? How could the Creator be crucified, or one that was crucified create all things? At one time we read that He is in heaven, one with the Father; in the Father, and the Father in Him;5 at another, that He increased in wisdom and stature, was

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subject to His parents,' was weary, and was less than the Father. These things, which seem to cross each other, do indeed attest the union of two natures in one person. If we did not read them, heresy would have somewhat to say; because we do read them, it has only somewhat to pervert.