CHISM OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES ADDRESSED TO YOUTH.

LECTURE XXVI. _

The Humiliation of Christ. "Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time."

Christ's humiliation, in general, consisted in his condescending to have that glory which he had with the Father before the world was, veiled for a time; by his coming into this lower world "in the likeness of sinful flesh," to be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." You will be careful to observe, that this humiliation was, in the highest degree, voluntary, on the part of Christ-He yielded to it by no constraint. It had no other source but his own, and the eternal Father's self-moved, undeserved LOVE to lost mankind.

Let us now consider the several steps of Christ's humiliation, as they are mentioned in the answer. He was born, and that in a low condition." It had been an unparalleled condescension in Christ, to assume our nature in any imaginable circumstances. How asVOL. V.-Ch. Adv.

was the eternal Son of God, happy in the bosom of the Father, the Creator and the Lord of all the angelick host, and receiving their profoundest homage-to become the Son of man, and be made, as to his human nature, of a woman! Had he made his entrance into our world with all the state, and pomp, and splendour of royalty, that condescension had still been ineffable. But how are we to conceive of it, when, in place of external grandeur and respect, we consider the low condition in which he was actually born! His mother, as well as his reputed father, were, it is true, of the most honourable descent-They traced their lineage to David and to Abraham; and the descent of Christ, according to the flesh, is particularly recorded in the New Testament, to show that the promises of God to those ancient saints, that the Messiah should proceed from them, had been strictly and remarkably fulfilled. But, at the time of our Redeemer's birth, his mother, although of royal ancestry, was reduced to such a state of obscurity and poverty, that in nature's most trying hour, she could procure no admission to an inn. With the cattle of the stall she was obliged to seek a refuge. The Son of God was born in a stable, and laid in a manger-There it was that he who made the worlds, G

became an infant of days!-That he whose arm upholds the universe, was wrapped in swaddling bands! This was humiliation indeed. While this is recollected, never let a poor disciple of Jesus either blush or complain. Thus low did the Redeemer stoop, to lift up sinners out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, into which their sins had plunged them. How can we proceed, without stopping, for a moment, to admire "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes, became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich;" that we by faith might claim a relation to him as our kinsman Redeemer, and say, "unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given-he is our Immanuel, GOD WITH US!"

Our Redeemer, it appears, after this, was subject to his parents according to the flesh, during the whole period of his minority. He was bred to a laborious occupation. He was called the carpenter, and the carpenter's son. Let honest industry never be ashamed of its toils, for it is employed only as the Redeemer of the world has set the example.

But the answer states that another part of our Lord's humiliation was, that "he was made under the law." The law, here principally referred to, was certainly the moral law. Christ indeed yielded obedience to all the divine institutions, ceremonial and political, as well as moral; because the former of these, while they lasted, had the same author as the latter, and were therefore equally obligatory; and he declared to his forerunner that it became him to fulfil all righteousness. But the ceremonial and political institutions of the Jews were temporary: the moral law, on the contrary, is of eternal and unceasing obligation. It was to this that he was made subject, as our surety. This was the law given to Adam at his creation; and was that on which

the covenant of works was founded, when he dwelt in paradise. By the breach of this law, as a covenant, all mankind were brought under the curse. When therefore it is said by the apostle (Gal. iv. 4, 5,)" God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law," we must not only understand the moral law to be chiefly spoken of, but spoken of specially as a covenant of works. We have just seen that the object of Christ's coming was to redeem them that were under the law ;— that is, to answer its demands in their place. He did answer its demands in their place, considered as a covenant of works; and thus the second Adam repaired the ruins of the first. The law has no longer any claims upon his believing people in the form of a covenant. But he never fulfilled it for them as a rule of life, in any other way than as giving them a perfect example of obedience to it. If he had, then Christians would be under no obligation to render a personal obedience to the moral law. This indeed the gross Antinomians have, in terms, affirmed. But it is only a monstrous and impious inference of their own, made in direct contradiction of the words of Christ himself "I came not," said he, "to destroy the law, but to fulfil it." That it was the moral law of which our Saviour here spoke is evident; because he did actually destroy or put an end to the ceremonial and political laws of the Jews; so far as they were separable, as in most cases they were, from the principles of the moral law.

It is justly represented as a striking part of Christ's humiliation, that he was made under the law; because it was a most amazing condescension, that the great Lord and lawgiver of heaven and earth, should become subject to the law which he had enacted for humble and inferior creatures;-espe

cially when he did it to fulfil that law in the place of those very creatures, after they had transgressed it and incurred its penalty. If you will meditate seriously on this fact, you will find it calculated to fill you with astonishment. It may also show you the miserable state of sinners who have not, by faith, committed their souls to Christ; because, of course, they have to answer to God, in their own persons, for their whole debt to the law, both of obedience and of punishment. And, in contrast with this, it shows the unspeakable happiness of true believers in Christ, whose whole debt is cancelled, by his being made under the law, in their room and behalf.

Another item of our Lord's humiliation, mentioned in the answer before us, is his "undergoing the miseries of this life." When our blessed Redeemer assumed our nature, he took no exemption from any of its sinless infirmities, but a large share of them all. It is recorded of him that he was weary, that he hungered, that he wept, that he sighed, that he was sorrowful; but never that he smiled, and but once that he rejoiced. He was, as characteristick of him, "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." It was prophesied of him, that his "visage should be marred more than any man's." Probably this took place, in a considerable degree, even before his agony. When the Jews said to him, "thou art not yet fifty years old,"-the expression seems to denote clearly that they took him to be farther advanced in years than he was; for he was then but little more than thirty-And it has been well remarked, that the cares and griefs which he bore, probably gave him the appearance of an age which he had not reached. In short, he endured, as already said, hunger, and thirst, and weariness, and sorrow, and grief; he also submitted to poverty and want, and had not where

to lay his head; he submitted to the contradiction, reproach and persecution of an ungrateful and wicked world; and he even humbled himself so far as to endure the assaults and temptations of the devil-He did this, that he might extract the sting from all the afflictions of his people, and know, even by experience, how to sympathize with them. "We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin."

But the sufferings we have hitherto mentioned, though not small in themselves, were the least of the miseries which our Redeemer endured, in his humiliation, while he lived on earth-The answer we consider states, that he also underwent "the wrath of God." By this we are to understand that he endured the awful expression of God's holy and righteous displeasure against sin. His human nature, as we have heretofore seen, could not have sustained this, but for its union with the divine, which upheld it.

But, my children, when you hear of Christ undergoing the wrath of God, you are by no means to suppose that there was ever a moment of time, in which Christ ceased to be the object of his Father's infinite love. Never was he more the object of that love and complacency, than in the midst of those bitter sufferings which arose from the wrath of God due to our sins. Those sins which he was bearing were the object of the Father's infinite hatred; but the glorious person bearing them, was then, as at all other times, his well beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. That God should thus please to bruise his Son and put him to grief, and that the Saviour should cheerfully consent to sustain it, is just that view of the infinite love and compassion of God and Christ to mankind sinners, which astonishes,