SERMON II.

On Luke xxiv. 39.

"Behold my Hands and my Feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a Spirit hath not Flesh and Bones, as ye see me have."

FAR be it from me, my brethren, to disparage the infinite God, by attributing humanity to his divinity; and equally far be it from me, to deify a mere created being, as Christ must be, if essential divinity be not his right. But the whole of the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelations, conspires to shew us, that man was first created in the image and likeness of God, and that God was most mercifully pleased to appear on Earth, in the image and likeness of man, to restore him to his long lost holy and happy state.

Therefore, I now pass on to observe, that our Saviour's Resurrection body,

although substantial, and visible, was at the same time, spiritual and divine. Because he could come in when the doors were shut, and in a moment vanish away, and his divine omnipresence is essential to his eternal deity; which is thus authenticated, viz. "Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the world, amen. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you, where two, or three are gathered together, in my name, there am I in the midst of them," &c. And,

A faint image of the divine omnipresence, like the other attributes of his Creator, is in man; who, as to his mind, can travel ten thousand miles in a minute, and who is now living in two worlds, [the spiritual and the natural] at the same time:

Man is not man, merely by virtue of his material, or outward form, or by reason of his having the human countenance, or even because he possesses the spiritual faculty of reason and intelligence; for if his will be not animated by heavenly love, as well as his understanding illumi

nated by heavenly light; his form after Death, when external fallacious appearances are stripped off, will be then manifestly seen to be a monstrous and hideous one. But, on the contrary, if divine love and truth now pervade the affections and thoughts of our souls, then our forms, or our spiritual and immortal bodies will, like Christ's Resurrection Body, be truly human, beautiful, and glorious to all eternity.

The body of man is only a correspondent effect, proceeding from his soul. For the spiritual principle invests itself with the natural, as man does himself with a garment. The form is derived from the essence, not the essence from the form. And no essence can exist without a form, nor any form without an essence. Therefore,

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Besides and in addition to all the usual and splendid arguments, to establish our belief in the unchangeable and eternal divinity of Jesus Christ, we find that there is one MORE, which it might be reasonably hoped, if any thing could convince predetermined and long confirmed unbelief,

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This is

would prove still more effectual and irresistible, viz, that the humanity of our Saviour is only a consequence of his Divine nature, and by no means a contradiction to it, as Arians, and Socinians, Jews, and Deists have vainly imagined. For, an unmanifested, or an impersonal God (as Lavater observes) is no God at all. And the Godhead cannot be manifested to us, but only by suitable mediums of vision and approximation. true of our Lord, both before, and after, his plenary manifestation in our nature. Of him therefore, it may be supremely said, however strange the language may sound to mere grammatical critics, that his divinity is human, and that his humanity is divine. For in him, as Martin Luther teaches, "Man is God, and God is Man." Also to adopt the excellent language of our liturgy, "when he took upon him to deliver man, he did not abhor the virgin's womb. And when he had overcome the sharpness of Death, he opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers." And in the express dialect of inspiration, “He rent the Heavens, and

came down. He ascended up where he For no Man hath ascended

was before.

up to Heaven, but he that came down from Heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in Heaven. He was glorified with the glory which he had before the world was." And God the Father, does not through' the Son, send to us the Holy Spirit, but the Son sends the Holy Spirit to us, out of himself, from God, the Father, see John xvi. 7, &c. which is a circumstance of very great and considerable distinction to us, on this subject, although perhaps, not sufficiently, nor very frequently adverted to. For the idea that God the Father sends the Holy Spirit through Christ, makes Christ a mere machine'; but the latter idea, that Christ sends the Holy Spirit himself, from God the Father, comports with his selfsufficiency, divine love, wisdom, liberty, and equality. Such is "the great mystery of Godliness." But there is no mystery at all in God sending a created Ambassador, or Prophet. Neither are there three Gods, nor two Gods; nor one unmani