the Father of all can forgive sin. This, then, you will bear in mind that the incarnation of his Son is the way by which God revealeth that more ten-der aspect of his being, called grace-that part of the Divine substance which could not otherwise have been made known. And therefore the Gospel is called a mystery, because it was long hid to all, and is yet in a great measure hid unto all, being still only in the act and progress of unfolding itself. Abraham had a distant prospect of it, and Moses had a material model of it, the Psalmist a royal foretaste of it, and the Prophets a national manifestation of it, which yet themselves understood not, though they believed; and our Lord verified Abraham's distant view, substantiated Moses's shadow, answered part of the predictions of the Psalms and the Prophets, prepared the way of the Spirit to open the mystery more perfectly to the Apostles, and promised that he would come again to manifest, clear up, and accomplish what still lay shrouded in the mystery: and this we look for him to accomplish against the dispensation of the fulness of the times. And to this agree the words of the Apostle, when speaking of the insight which had been given unto him, as you find in Eph. iii. 4-6: “Whereby when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ; which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel." And further, in verses 8-11; "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should

preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see, what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Upon which word "now," I remark, that we, that the principalities and powers in heavenly places, that all created beings, shall have no other revelation than we now possess in the church concerning the manifold wisdom of God; though, as it opens more and more, and is by the Lion of the tribe of Judah unsealed more and more, it shall be more and more discovered what treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in Jesus Christ, in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell, according as we find it written in the 7th verse of the iid chap. of the same Epistle; "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus."

Take this, therefore, my beloved brethren, for the true principle of the work of the Incarnation, that it was a purpose which God purposed in himself, to make known by Jesus Christ, and by all who shall honour and cleave to him, the riches of his grace and mercy to the chief of sinners. And taking this for the true account of the matter, be comforted and strengthened and edified, in knowing that there is nothing accidental nor circumstantial in the work of your redemption, but that it is complete in him in whom ye believe and trust;

that as the men are carried safe who cleave unto the life-boat, while the men that rashly commit themselves to the billows are dashed to pieces; or, to keep to the sacred emblem, as the souls who believed Noah and took refuge in the ark were saved, while all the rest perished, so you have nothing to fear if ye cleave to Christ, and resign yourselves to the shelter of his brooding wings. Oh, our fathers knew the comfort of this doctrine. of the unconditional, uncircumstantial, unaccidental, the substantial, eternal, and unchangeable election in Christ Jesus; and, receiving it, they grew into his similitude, and were strengthened to do works worthy of his holiness: but we have confounded the security of the Divine purpose which includeth the church, and embraceth every spirit which believeth in Jesus, and which is the argument for believing in him, that we may be so kept in safety for ever; this have we confounded by looking continually at the varieties of the moods and frames of the natural man, and changing conditions of the visible church, which have no more to do with the constancy of that purpose in which we are wrapped up with Jesus, than this changing atmosphere, and cloudy canopy over our heads, hath to do with the fixed stars of heaven, and the constant light and heat of the glorious sun.

So much have I to say in the general way which one topic of a discourse can contain, concerning the first and great cause of the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: and now I pray you to observe these two things, which naturally flow from what hath been said:First, In order that God might not be the cause

of sin, and so all ideas of good and evil become confounded, it was proper, as from his own essential goodness it was necessary, that every creature which his finger framed should be made perfect in its kind, fit to shadow forth some portion of the Creator's worthiness, and to execute some part of his all-consistent and all-gracious will. Wherefore, every creature being framed obedient to a good law and blessed in the obedience of the same; it must follow that if any creature fall from its primitive condition and frame of righteousness, it must do so by positive transgression of that ordinance under which it was placed by its Creator, and therein held by strong obligations and inducements, yet by no means so strong as to preclude a fall, which were infallibility itself and unchangeableness;—a state of being which pertaineth, as I conceive, at present to God only, but unto which all the redeemed are working their way, with all those heavenly and earthly things which, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, are in Christ Jesus to be gathered together into one. I mean to say, that we have no tidings, nor records, nor, as I think, ideas of any unchangeable but the one unchangeable, the I AM, and therefore we ought not to wonder that angels and mankind should fall, or impute their fall unto God the Creator, because he had foreseen the occurrence thereof, and taken measures that there should thence redound glory to himself in the highest, peace on earth, and good-will to the children of men, new faithfulness and delight to the morning stars and the angels of God. The fall of the creatures therefore involveth guilt, and that of the deepest die, if indeed there be deeper and deeper dies of

guilt; which, though it be a true idea to a creature already in a fallen state, is not so, as I take it, to a creature who hath not fallen, in whom any insurrection of the will, or disobedience of the act, doth constitute the very essence and substance of sin, which may afterwards be varied by particular accidents, but cannot, as I take it, be changed in its essence. Now, brethren, when guilt had been incurred, as it appeareth that it must occur in the fall of any creature, how is that creature to be delivered from under the state of guilt? How is the Almighty in shewing forth his love and mercy to the unfallen, and revealing that other aspect of himself, to approach this guilty creature who hath flown off to wander in the evil and erroneous maze of an independent will. This is the question which ignorance and presumption and wickedness findeth no question, but resolveth into God's indiscriminate mercy; but which wisdom, and righteousness, and modesty, findeth the mystery of mysteries, the perplexity of perplexities;-insomuch, that the very wisest of the heathen did say, he believed God would, in the time he judged best, send forth some one from himself to teach mankind that mystery of mysteries, how a holy God could pardon sin. If it can be done, it can be declared, but the difficulty lieth all in the accomplishment of it. For it would ill answer either the end of the Creator or the wellbeing of his creatures, that he should make known that new and tenderer aspect of his character, which is grace, at the expense and obliteration of that other, which is righteousness. This would make the Father of lights to be a changing and revolving light; whereas he is the Father of lights, in whom there is no