prove the correlation of the Incarnation to humanity. Not only is there no other life, there is no other series of facts, from however wide a space gathered, which has this universal power. They involve the widest and most sublime doctrines which can possibly engage the understanding of man; yet the lowest human intellect can accept them in all their moral and spiritual power. In the form in which the lowest receive them, they contain, in germ, a power of refinement and culture which can raise to a still higher elevation the most exalted human character. Therefore we are warranted in saying that we have in the Gospel the only means by which the individual and the community can attain to full development.

It is evident that when a man has been drawn back to God by the knowledge of redeeming love to himself, that the bond by which he is united to God is a love which, according to the measure of his nature, is proportionate to the love which has been shown in his recovery. And that as his apprehension of the Divine love becomes more distinct, and as in the process of his personal recovery it extends, his love to his Divine

Redeemer will grow in like measure; and as both the object and the increasing power of perception are immeasurable, we plainly have here an inexhaustible power of increase to the love. We can only think of love to God from man as fervent adoration, trust, docility, submission, and obedience. In the constant increase of these dispositions of mind, as the glories of the Divine nature, whence they spring, are more adequately perceived, there is a guarantee of the fulfilment of all duty to God; while every perception of Divine excellence by faith, transforming as it does the subject into the same image, gives equal proof of the highest human refinement. Here, therefore, is a moral power adequate to the full restoration of man to the moral image of God, who at the beginning breathed into him the breath of life.

When we consider the moral influence of the Incarnation on individual man in his relations to the community, we find equal adequacy. We have seen a love of the same nature as the Divine produced in man by an apprehension of the Divine. But the love of God to man is evidently paternal; He is the God and the Father of the spirits of all flesh.

Such a love seeks in the most effectual manner the well-being of its object. This is its primary and its essential characteristic. His law to every man is, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' This law, the love of Christ in the human soul constrains its possessor to keep, even to the laying down of his life for the brethren; after the example of Him who is the firstborn among many brethren, and to whom the whole family must be conformed. A love of this kind is awakened in every man who receives from, and in, the incarnate God, the Spirit of life. Here therefore we have the promise and the potentiality of every duty to man, of everything which can promote his welfare. This is a real sociology, resting not on vague and shadowy fancies of our relation to past and future generations, as do the theories of Comte, and which can never produce a true altruistic life, but on certain perceptions of present relations and duties to which the strongest spiritual instincts prompt.

Under such a real inward law, written upon the heart, every means of human well-being will be used, while everything which can in any way injure or degrade will be carefully

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avoided. This full force of improving and recovering love may not be, is not shown in every case in which the new life in the Redeemer and Saviour is experienced, because the life is not fully developed. But in every case the possibility of a full development exists; and in its feeblest state it is a real power of benevolence which surpasses all other. Thus, in the Incarnation, we not only have a power operating on individual man, capable of raising him to the highest moral excellence, but also of making him, by his spirit, his example, and his counsel, a means of like improvement in others. And, all this being only the natural manifestation of a spiritual life, it is effectual.

It may be objected, that if the power of the revelation be as above described, and the inward quickening light universal, before this time all men should have received and lived by it. To this we reply, that in few cases is the Gospel presented to unprejudiced minds. The influence of infantile training, to which we have already adverted, develops the individuality to intense selfishness, and so produces a habit of mind which is diametrically opposed to Christian love, and thus arms the soul

against the Gospel by an antagonist disposition, and by diminishing the power of judgment concerning the value of the evidence and the force of the obligation. It must also be remembered that the Gospel is not only the revelation of an Infinite Being over and beyond the visible universe, but also and especially revelation of the Supreme King, who claims immediate and constant obedience to His law, which every man has the power of disregarding. Hence from pride and selfishness the clearest and strongest evidence is neutralized, and in the teeth of it men follow their own way; for the proclamation of the Gospel does not destroy the power of volition in man.

Just as in the earliest times men did not choose to retain God in their knowledge, and as a consequence became vain in their imaginations of Him, thus lost the moral power of His recognised presence, and therefore fell into unnatural and degrading crimes, so also has it been since the Gospel was preached. Many have retained the Christian name, while the religion which they have manufactured out of the leading facts of the Gospel has as effectually destroyed all the moral power of its truth, as the multiplied minor gods of Egypt excluded