SERMON II.

THE END OF THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION IS THE

GLORY OF GOD.

JOHN Xiii. 31.

And God is glorified in the Son of man.

THE incarnation of the Son of God, by which the glory of the Son of man was procured, is the grandest mystery into which angels or the sons of men can inquire. If you regard the eternity of its purpose so constantly declared to have been before the foundation of the world, before the world began, the Incarnation stands before us as one of the original projects (if I may so speak) of the Creator's mind, in order to the completion of that mighty work of creation which he was about to undertake; not an expedient to meet an accident, but an original intention, more ancient than creation itself, and to which the creation of being, and the permission of sin, were but, as it were, the necessary preparations. If you regard the awful mystery of the manifestation of this purpose, that the eternal Word of God, the uncreated substance of the eternal essence, did take into consubstantial and eternal union with himself the substance of fallen Adam, or, I may say, the very substance of the fallen earth, even the dust of the ground, to be united with it to redeem and glorify

it, and for ever and ever to be manifest therein to all the universe of God; it transcendeth all utterance, and passeth all comprehension; so very great is the mystery of God manifest in the flesh. Or, thirdly, if you regard the profound humiliation and most exquisite suffering in body and in spirit, which that Man endured, in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, while the Word was made flesh and tabernacled amongst us; this endurance and humiliation, as we shall endeavour to set forth in our next discourse, is beyond all comprehension. Or if, fourthly, you regard the exaltation far above all principality and power, and every name that is named in heaven or on earth, into which the Son of man, the woman's Seed, the glorified dust of the ground, hath ascended up on high; for ever and for ever, to manifest in himself, and in his church, in like manner humbled, and in like manner to be glorified, the manifold riches of the grace and glory of God: I say, in whatever respect you consider the work of the Incarnation, in its purpose, in its manifestation, or in its completion, it is without all controversy, the mighty power and work of God; undertaken and undergone for far higher ends than are commonly discoursed of; for far higher ends than the redemption of the elect church, who, I may say, are but the lively stones with which God buildeth up the work: but the work itself is no less than the manifestation of his own glory, and the eternal blessedness of all his obedient and dutiful creatures. Wherefore our Lord, contemplating in the text, and in various other passages of Scripture, the great crisis and turning point of this mighty work, his death, burial, and descent into hell, by which the

lowest depth was sounded, and the foundation of the eternal glory laid upon the unremoveable rock beneath the waters of sin, which are to be baled out; he ever speaketh of it as if it had been the commencement of his Father's glory, saying, "Now is my Father glorified;" "I have glorified thee upon the earth;' "Father, glorify thy name;" and other such expressions, which surely signify to us that the glory of the eternal Godhead was in some remarkable way to receive increase and enlargement from the work, in the accomplishment of which Christ was travailing. It is of this subject,-the glory accruing unto the Father, or invisible God, from the work of the incarnation and death of Christ, that we are now to discourse, and for which, dear brethren, we have sought to prepare ourselves with much meditation, converse, and prayer these several weeks; and we do now publicly ask your prayers, that in times of such spiritual famine, the Lord would be pleased, for your sakes, and for the sake of his church, to give us good store of wholesome and nourishing food, to the enlargement, enlivening, and edification of our souls, in the common faith.

To this great subject of the glory which was brought unto the invisible God from the incarnation of the Eternal Word, we would make our way by reverently inquiring from the Scriptures, in order to find in how far, and in what manner, the Holy Spirit connecteth these two things, the Incarnation and the Glory of God, with one another. And we begin with the song which the multitude of the heavenly host sung over the birth of the child in Bethlehem: "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good-will to the children of men."

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This song of the Nativity, which is after the nature of a prophecy, embraceth the consequences of that birth under three heads, of which the first and noblest is, "Glory to God in the highest;" that is, not in the highest degree merely, but in the highest places and regions of being;--in the highest places, as distinguished from the inferior earth, upon which is pronounced the benediction peace; and in the highest regions of being, as distinguished from the children of men, unto whom the rich inheritance of God's good pleasure is bequeathed. But into the regions of hell or of the pit, where the fallen and reprobate spirits have their place, this prophecy of the Nativity entereth not; because they had no right nor inheritance of hope therein, but on the other hand, an inheritance of fearful expectation and fiery judgment. This word, "highest," is commonly used of God," He shall be called the Son of the Highest;" and in ascriptions of praise to God,— "Hosannah in the highest ;" and in the passage before us it doth certainly denote that in the supereminent dignities of being, in the utmost elevations of created intelligence, and in the chief manifestations of God's power and strength, there was to come a glory, an exceeding great glory, from the birth of the Son of the virgin. And that great gathering of the heavenly host to look upon the scene, their earnest zeal to celebrate the act with ascriptions of praise, doth manifest that they were interested in no ordinary degree in that which then began to be accomplished upon the earth. And moreover, because it is revealed that the angels desire to look into the mystery of the Incarnation, as it unfoldeth its first fruits in the redemption of the

church; and that they are diligently employed in ministering unto those who shall be heirs of salvation; and that when God shall the second time bring the Only Begotten into the world, he shall say, Let all the angels of God worship him and above all, because it is one constituent part of the mystery of godliness, that "God was seen of angels," we conclude that the relation of all the heavenly intelligences towards the Godhead is in some way dependent upon, and hath in some way been greatly affected by, the incarnation of the Son of God; that there hath been opened to them something of which they stood in eager expectation, and some glory of the invisible Godhead discovered, whereby their blessedness hath been greatly enhanced; a new defence cast around the habitations of their being, and a new spirit inspired into their services, on account of which they sing first in order and in dignity, Glory to God in the highest." But a still higher view of this subject will present itself, if we take into consideration another passage of this same Evangelist, where it is recorded in the xix th chapter, that as he descended the Mount of Olives, to enter Jerusalem, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and to praise God for all the mighty works which they had seen; saying, "Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord; peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." Here is connected with the coming of Christ our King, not only peace on earth, but peace in heaven; of which, I think, the best interpretation is to be found in the xiith chapter of the Apocalypse; where it is revealed that, after the man child which is to rule the earth with a rod of iron had been caught up to

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