says unto you, "Live;" the Spirit is willing to be your guide; the door of the ark is not shut against you as yet. Pray, then, unto Him who works in man both to will and to do of His good pleasure, that He will remove your unbelief, and will, with the desire to be saved, conjoin the determination to seek salvation in God's appointed way.

But to those who know and feel that they are the people of the Lord I may say, What a cordial ought this precious text to be unto you! I care not what your external condition is. You may be as destitute as Lazarus, whose couch was the green sod, and whose covering was the blue canopy of heaven; you may be as much racked with bodily pain as Job, who was made to possess nights of weariness and months of vanity; you may be doomed to see hope deferred, and every cherished wish frustrated; yet still the bow is visible in the cloud, and proclaims, if only you will hear the voice, "The Lord's blessing is upon thy trial." Be not faithless, then, but believing; add no sorrow to that blessing to which the Lord has declared that HE will add none. So shall you

be happy when man would only have anticipated misery; and see those things which to untaught mortals seem to be against you, turning unto your salvation, and working for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

17

THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS.

I TIM. iii. 16.

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh."

HE cherubim, which overshadowed with expanded wings the mercy-seat, are represented as having their eyes bent downwards, as though intently gazing upon it;

and St. Peter, in allusion probably to their attitude, when speaking of the salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ, says, "Which things the angels desire to look into." And can we wonder that these glorious spirits, though possessing a knowledge so far surpassing our own, should feel not only admiration, but curiosity, when they saw Him who was rich in the favour of the Father, and in the glory and happiness of heaven -Him whom cherubim and seraphim, and all the glorious company of heaven, worshipped and adored, emptying Himself of all, and for us men and for our salvation voluntarily making Himself poor, and even stooping so low as to take upon Him our nature? Truly it could not but have been astonishing to them to behold the almighty power of the Godhead joined to the weakness of the man, and even to that of a babe;-to see Him, who stretched out the heavens, wrapped in swaddling clothes,-Him, to whom all things were naked and open, growing in

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wisdom as in stature-Him, who is Lord of life, becoming obedient unto death.

And if angels, moved with astonishment and admiration, carefully ponder these things, can we, who are so much more nearly interested in them, be indifferent to them, and turn our thoughts to earthly vanities of which angels would be ashamed? Let us learn from them. They look up to the Deity with continual admiration; but they look down on God manifested in the flesh as another and a mysterious. wonder. And no doubt it is so; for does not an inspired apostle say, "Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh ?"

Let us contemplate, first of all, the great truth set forth in these words, namely, "God was manifest in the flesh." To whom do these words apply? The passages which follow throw some light on this point; for they teach us that He who was manifested in the flesh was the same "who was justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Of whom can these things be affirmed but of Jesus Christ? To the reality of this claim the Spirit bore witness, not only by descending upon Him in the form of a dove at His baptism, but also by descending upon His followers, according to His word, in the similitude of cloven tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost. Was He not also seen of angels during His temptation in the wilderness, in His agony in Gethsemane, on His resurrection from the dead, and when He ascended up on high, leading captivity captive?

Did not His disciples, going into all the earth, preach both to the Jews and to the Gentiles, seeking "to turn them from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God"? And did not many of the Gentiles hear, become obedient to the faith, and cast their idols to the moles and to the bats? And did not Jesus himself, after His ascension from Mount Olivet, enter into glory, and sit down at the right hand of God, angels, principalities, and powers being put into subjection unto Him? It is clear, therefore, that He who is here spoken of as "God manifest in the flesh" is Jesus Christ.

From the passage under consideration it is manifest that Jesus Christ has two natures, the divine and the human: the divine, inasmuch as He is God; the human, for He was manifested in the flesh. The testimony of St. Paul to the divine nature of Christ is fully borne out by St. John when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God;" and his testimony to His human nature by that of the same apostle when he says, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." That prophecy assigned these two natures to the Messiah or Christ cannot be doubted. That He was to be man is clear from the very first prophecy delivered respecting Him; for it declared that He should be the seed of the woman,and that which is born of woman must be human. The same is manifest from those predictions which declared that He should be the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David; and also from that of Moses,-"The Lord thy God will

raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me;" for if the Israelites were His brethren, then must He be a man like unto them. That He was to be God is no less clear; David addresses Him in these words,-" Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever;" Jeremiah calls Him "The Lord our righteousness;" Zechariah, "The Man who is My fellow," that is, fellow of the Lord of hosts, for He is the speaker; Isaiah speaks of Him as "Immanuel," "God with us," and again, as "The mighty God."

That the two natures were united in Jesus Christ is equally capable of proof. Of His human nature I need not speak, it is fully admitted; but of His divine I may. St. John continually affirms it. In his Gospel he says of Christ as the Word, "He was God;" and in his first epistle, "This is the true God, and eternal life;" whilst St. Thomas said unto Him, "My Lord, and my God." These were men inspired by the Holy Ghost; and their words prove that Jesus Christ is God.

That two natures, the human and the divine, were united in Jesus Christ, I have shown; but when we affirm that Jesus Christ has two natures, we do not ascribe to Him a double person, for the two natures make but one Christ; and the human nature of Jesus Christ never subsisted separately and distinctly by a personal subsistence of its own, as it doth in other men, but from the first moment of conception it is subsisted in union with the second Person of the Godhead.

Now concerning the two natures thus united