CHAPTER VII.

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST.

1. "What is your chief aim in the present chapter ?"

To shew that according to a promise made four thousand years before, and continually renewed 'at sundry times and in divers manners', a Divine Personage assumed the human nature, and did and suffered all that was expected of him both according to the above plan of redemption, and all that had been prophesied of him in words, or prefigured of him in types.

"And how did he assume our nature?"

By being born of a pure virgin, without the cooperation of man, as had been intimated when, at the fall of man, redemption was first promised; for the promise is included in the denunciation of the Tempter's punishment, 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.'

"What do you infer from the assumption of our nature without the co-operation of man?"

1. A justification of womankind from the guilt of having been the first in the transgression, or the one who first brought sin into the world: for she not only led the way, but was instrumental in seducing her husband. Her condition, therefore, has ever been greatly inferior to man's, her wretchedness always in a twofold degree. But the honour of introducing the Saviour into the world, independent of man, shews with what an eye of tenderness the Creator regards her. The very helplessness of her case in child bearing is promised as an atonement for that guilt which she incurred more than man in the original transgression.

2. It points out that allurement by which Adam fell. Hence, as Magee asserts, child-bearing is a sin, because in the Mosaic institutions piacular sacrifices are appointed. Every man born in the common course of nature partakes of Adam's corrupt nature, the original sin. But Christ was not so brought into the world; he was of the same nature of Adam before the fall, without sin, and so he continued.

66 Are you aware how infidels sneer at what they call the absurdity of God becoming man ?”

Yes, I am well aware that they first create difficulties and then place them in an absurd light, with the avowed intention of getting rid of the

subject by a sneer. But is this acting like honest men? When the subject is properly stated, every part of it is the very reverse of absurd. It is highly probable, solemn, and awful: it is more, it is truth itself.

"Let me hear you state it."

To do so I must refer to the creation of the human race. And in doing so, shall first inquire of what and how man was first created. "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (or lives temporal and eternal) and man became a living (ever living) soul." In this account are two original parts of human nature, the dust of the ground and the breath of life.

"What of the first part, the dust of the ground?"

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". The word rendered "created", means "created from nothing". Man's material part, therefore, was made from that dust of the ground which the Lord God had made from nothing. From first to last, then, it is, if we may not call it the substance, the production of the Lord God. And as to the rational and immortal part, the Lord God breathed it, breathed it from himself; this is its origin. Man, therefore, body and soul, is the

workmanship and substance of the Lord God: and in a far more intimate sense than any article of manufacture is said to be the workmanship of man, or a child the substance of its parents.

"This seems plain enough; but who is the Lord God?”

In the conclusion of the last chapter I have shewn what we understand by the Trinity. In this place we have all the persons of the Godhead; each person separately, and all conjointly is, or are the Lord God. With respect to the words Lord God, Jehovah Elohim, it must be remembered that the first and chief purpose of Moses was to guard the Israelites against belief in the Great Father of the Heathens, by whom they were surrounded. Previously to the writing of this, it had been answered to him at the burning bush, when inquiring by what name God would be called, since the names by which he had been known to the forefathers of mankind, were at that time applied to the false Gods, "I AM THAT I AM," or Jehovah. This name implies existence, or spiritual essence, distinct from matter in whatever form. Now, every name of the Heathen gods, besides referring to the original name of the Deity, had attached to it some form or attribute of matter, as taken from their Pantheistic history of the Great Father. But Jehovah was simple, and

void of all idea even of the incarnation: because the incarnate God, the redeeming and helping God, were titles of the creature, Noah, worshipped as the Creator.

"From man being thus created by the Lord God, you will infer that God must be thoroughly acquainted with man's nature; to what purpose will you apply it?"

That when man fell by the instigation of the devil, the Lord God his creator best knew how to restore him and repair the damage. For since the Lord God could create man and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, it was neither more difficult to do, nor is it more absurd to suppose, that when the first man who had been raised up the head of the human race, was set aside from bringing all his children to glory, another should be raised up from the seed of the woman by the same spirit, without the intervention of man.

"I see no more difficulty; but the testimony?" 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him' (John i. 2). "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' (Luke i. 35). And the