shall ye hear." Then David, of whose stock and lineage it was promised Messiah should arise, sang of Him in varied strains, setting forth one while His sufferings as man, His piety, His holy teaching; at another His glory in the work of our salvation as God. David it was who, looking forward to the times of the Messiah and the receiving again of God's people, cried, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Isaiah prophesied that a Virgin should be His mother, and that in Him God should be with man, for He should be called Immanuel. Micah shewed that He was to be born at Bethlehem; and in like manner Jeremiah and all the prophets spake of Him. And what was still more wonderful, they foretold the fortunes of His life; nay, the very accidents by which His life and death were marked, in order that men might know Him when He came; this belief being by the will of God to every one of us the condition of salvation.

For as faith, i. e. belief in the Word of God, was the principle of the knowledge of God and obedience to His command, whereby our first parents stood, while they yet stood, in goodness and the perfection of the Divine image and likeness in which they were created, for observe, they fell not from their obedience till they had first fallen from their belief, for the Word of God had said, "The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," whereas they listened rather to the lying spirit who told them otherwise, that they should not surely die, but that they

themselves should become like gods, knowing good and evil; had they not fallen from their faith first, they had never fallen from their obedience; -in like manner faith, or believing, is now again the means and the condition of eternal life. For what is that our Lord said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned?" Is it not faith, or believing, that leads men to desire and receive the holy rite of Baptism? while, on the other hand, there needeth no other cause for the sentence of condemnation but unbelief.

But believing what? what is the faith required of us? That which the apostles preached and the angels witnessed, saying, "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to you and to all people, for unto you is born this day a Saviour which is Christ the Lord." What preached the apostles? what believed they? That "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God." This confession is the rock on which the Church is built.

Now behold what this faith implies, that the seed of the woman, He that was born of a virgin, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the Son of God, one with the Father, one God; in all things, therefore, to be heard, in all things to be believed; that He is the propitiation for our sins; that the union of God with man in His Person gave sufficiency to the sacrifice which He offered in His own Blood as a satisfaction for sin, for the sin of our first parents, which is the original sin in which all we are born; and not for that only,

but for all things in which every one of us so born of them in the natural way have since offended, and cannot but offend.

Hear the testimony of the Scriptures on this great point, the truth of the two several natures, God and man, in the Person of Christ. We are evidently taught that the Person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ consisted of two natures,-of the manhood, wherein He was born of a woman, of the Godhead, in which He was one with the Father by an eternal generation. Thus it is written, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" "God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh," to fulfil all those things for us which the law could not fulfil; Christ, "being in the form of God, took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Again, "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." And in another place, "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." These places of Scripture plainly testify of the two natures, God and man, in the Person of Christ; and with these agree the prophets by whom He is spoken of at one time as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," at another as "the everlasting God."

Let us now consider His life and actions, and, in conclusion, His death and resurrection and His ascension into heaven. He always shewed Himself as man to man conversing in the world. He hungered, and was athirst, and was weary; He

ate, drank, slept, and rose again from sleep; He preached to the people, wept at the grave of Lazarus, and over the city of Jerusalem, doomed, as He saw it was, to destruction; He paid tribute for Himself and Peter; was arraigned as a criminal, condemned as guilty of death, crucified, slain, buried. What shewed all these things, but that He was altogether man as we are? On the other hand, in working miracles beyond all human power to perform, casting out devils, healing the sick, restoring the blind and the lame, and even raising the dead to life; in that He shewed Himself to know the thoughts of men's hearts, commanded the elements of nature, the winds and the sea obeying His word; in that He walked on the water, and after He had been three days in the grave, rose again of His own power and ascended into Heaven,-what did all this shew but that He was very God, and confirmed His words to the uttermost wherein He said that He and the Father were one, and, "I am in the Father and the Father in Me," "He that hath seen Me hath seen My Father also;" all which He said as touching the Godhead, in which He is equal to the Father, "in glory equal, in majesty coeternal;" but of the human nature in Himself He said, "The Father is greater than I."

Necessity, moreover, did require such a Mediator and Saviour as under one person should be a partaker of both natures. For as the transgression came by man, so it was meet the satisfaction should be made by man; and as death was the

punishment of the transgression, therefore death was the satisfaction required. Wherefore the Mediator must needs be man, that He might die; and having so suffered, in that He rose again from the grave and in the flesh ascended up into heaven, what did He but shew that all those who believe in Him shall likewise come after death to the same place whereunto He our chief Captain is gone before?

And it is requisite also that He should be God, as it is manifest that no creature could do more than die; no creature could have power to destroy death, to give life, overcome hell, purchase heaven, remit sins, and give righteousness. Wherefore it is apparent that Christ, whose proper office all this was and is, should be not only full and perfect man, but also full and perfect God, to the intent that He might fully and perfectly make the satisfaction and redeem mankind. Whereas God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," we are to learn that Christ appeased and quenched the wrath of His Father, not only as He was the Son of man, but much more in that He was the Son of God.

On this day, brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem in Judæa of the blessed Virgin Mary His mother, to be our Saviour, God and man. "This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." This day was the beginning of the end, wherein our sins are forgiven and heaven set before us in hope, if we hold fast our profession unto the end en