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this is an experience of the human soul of Christ, and proves a human soul distinct from the divine. But this explains neither the fact nor the import of the Saviour's temptation. The fact revealed is not that a certain man Jesus was tempted, but that a divine being, the Word made flesh, came under these human conditions. And the divine significance of this fact is that God claims no exemption from the law of duty on the score of his omnipotence and divine immunity from evil. The temptation of Christ shows the identity of divine and human virtue, or that God requires no more of man in the way of obedience and resistance to evil than he is willing to do and encounter himself. This, at least, is part of its divine import. Another part is that given by the Apostle: "For in that he himself,-this divine being,-hath suffered, being tempted, he is able also to succor them that are tempted:" able to succor them out of his own experience, as well as divine power.

The temptation of Christ has also a human significance, which is that sin is no part of human nature, or necessarily involved in a true humanity. Christ in his human aspect, or the divine humanity of Jesus, differs from our common humanity in this, that he presents in his person the true and ideal man which is sinless and perfect, while we present the actual man which is fallen and depraved. Hence he is styled the second Adam, in contradistinction from the first, or humanity in its actual and fallen state. As the first Adam was subjected to temptation, that he might develop a virtue which should be his own, and which could not be created or imparted, so the second Adam was subject to a similar but severer trial, that he might develop a divine virtue under human conditions, and by his victory over evil break the power of evil over humanity, and prepare the way for its complete and final redemption.

Again, as regards the sufferings of Christ, it is easy enough for logic to argue, that because the divine nature is impassable, therefore Christ suffered only in his human nature, and so to quite vacate. this great tragedy of the cross of all its divine and real import, as the expression of God's real feeling in re

gard to sin, the revelation in time of what the heart of God suffers in eternity from the sins of men, bearing them in his pierced bosom as Jesus in his pierced and tortured body;-the revelation also of the patient and self-sacrificing love of God towards the sinner, and what he will do and suffer in order to uphold his law and reconcile its transgressors to Himself. But if we can once attain to a true conception of the unity of Christ's person, and of the Divine Humanity therein embodied, all logical reasonings and inconsistencies will melt away under the light and power of the Cross, as all speculations about matter and spirit vanish beneath the tearful gaze of one we love.

We anticipate two objections which may be urged against the view of Christ's person here presented, and these of a diametrically opposite character: one, that it denies his real divinity, the other, that it denies his true humanity. In asserting a single spiritual nature in the person of Christ, if that nature be divine, it will be said, it cannot be human if it be human it cannot be divine. But this is a logical inference drawn from words, and based on a denial of the identity of the divine and human in his person. On the contrary, we maintain that the nature of Christ is both more divine and more human in this view than in the common theory of two natures severally distinct and only locally united. For here is only a conjunction of Deity with humanity, and all below the line of junction, or rather division, is a mere man. Jesus is divine, not in his whole person, but only in a part: while in this view he is wholly divine in all his attributes, and not the less so that he is truly human.

Christ differs from all other men in two respects: first, in the origin and nature of his humanity, which is eternal and divine, a humanity existing from eternity in the bosom of Deity, and only manifested, not originated, in time: secondly, in the spiritual presence and oneness of God with him in a more perfect degree than was possible for a mere man, or for the constitution of a creature to sustain. He is "the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father;" one with the Father. God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him:

for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. This can be true of no other than a being essentially divine, exalted by an infinite distance above all mere created beings. If any say that Christ was less really human, because his humanity was not derived, like his body, from his human mother, but generated directly from the eternal fountain of being, this is the very distinction we claim for him above all other sons of men. They exhibit humanity in its actual, depraved and partial aspect. Christ, as the Son of Man, exhibits its ideal and perfect divine type as the true image of God on earth. And this could not be, if he had derived it from human parentage, but only as he brought it forth in unstained purity from the bosom of the Father.* That declaration of Christ to the Jews, "Ye are from beneath, I am from above; ye are of this world, I am not of this world," was spoken and is true, not more of his divinity than of his humanity. Herein the humanity of Christ excels that of all other men, in that it is from above, a divine humanity, as it needs must be to possess any elevating and transforming power. For it is not that Jesus even in his human character is the perfectest product of the race, the consummate flower of a fallen humanity, (for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? or a perfect thing out of an imperfect?) but that a Divine Man has descended, and inserted himself into the race, that he might lift it to a hight of glory and perfection beyond that from which it has fallen, and far exceeding what it is in itself to attain or to be. As it is written: "The first man, Adam, was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy: THE SECOND MAN IS THE LORD FROM HEAVEN.”

We have now finished the argument for the divine human

Hence it is that Christ entered the world not as other men by natural generation from two human parents, as he must have done if his humanity was merely human, consisting of a human soul and body, united to Deity, but by & divine generation, and from only one human parent, deriving his body from the mother, and his soul from God his true Father, according to the laws of physiol ogy. Hence, too, the soul of Christ was free from the taint of natural depravity, which it could not have been, if it descended, like other human souls, from Adam.

ity of our Lord. Whatever weight or impression its reasonings may have, we earnestly desire that the comfort which this view of Christ's person has imparted to us, and the light it has thrown over the entire Gospel, may be shared by our readers. If it be a truth, it is a great and blessed truth, whose practical influence cannot but be inspiring and comforting in the highest degree. Let us, in closing, indicate in the briefest manner a few of its practical bearings.

1. And first, the unity of Christ's person is here restored to faith from the duality and division in which it has been held by the reason. The doctrine of a human soul distinct from the divine, has been a source of endless confusion and distraction to faith, and not less to any intelligent understanding of his life and actions. Practically, we have had not one Lord but two, between whom our love and reverence has been divided, and the several acts and attributes of his person have been parceled off and labeled, this as human, and that as divine; so that the question has been pertinent, "Is Christ divided?" The true answer to this which we have endeav ored to verify, is that which every Christian really believes in his heart, whatever his creed may be-no. "There is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Whatever mysteries may be hid in that wonderful person-and mysteries unfathomable there must be in him in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily-yet it is something to believe, as we may, that there was but one will, as there was but one character pervading and actuating all his manifestations, whether of doing or suffering.

2. With the restoration of the unity of Christ's person, his divinity is extended downward to include those acts and demonstrations which are most intensely human; while at the same time his humanity is extended upward to include those which are most divine.

Not the least disastrous effect of the division of Christ's person, has been the practical separation of the divinity and humanity of his life; calling his miracles divine, and his ordinary actions human. But the eating and drinking of Jesus

Christ was not less divine than his raising of Lazarus from the dead; and this miraculous display of divine power was no less human in him than the former; for this, like all his other miracles, was an act of humanity, and was invested with the most humane and tender sympathies. If such demonstrations are above the reach of our humanity, they were not above his, any more than weeping with the bereaved sisters of Bethany, or washing the feet of his disciples, was below his divinity. Nay, they are not above our possible humanity: for Christ himself has declared, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to my Father."

And here we almost feel as if we had wasted words to prove what every Christian reader of the gospel must have felt in his contemplations of the Saviour's life. We might appeal from the reasonings of logic, as embodied in creeds, to the truer intuitions of the heart. We feel, when we approach nearest to Jesus Christ, that he is one person-one mind and one heartand that every act and word and expression of that wonderful being is both human and divine;-human, because it finds us in the deepest and inmost places of our human soul, and awakens a sympathy there; divine, because never man spake or did like this man; because no merely human demonstration could so penetrate and subdue and awe the soul; because the nearer we approach the humanity of Jesus, the more does it recede from all mere or human humanity, and declare itself to be superhuman and divine.

3. Our doctrine reveals the identity of the divine and human in Christian character. Christ is an example to us not only in his human but in his divine character; and since these are identical in him they should be so in us, so far as we can be followers of Christ, or partakers of him. The divine and human are too much separated in our life and character, and hence our human character is not patterned after that of Christ, but after the world and its maxims, after the flesh and its lusts. It should be understood and never forgotten that true manliness is Godliness, and that true Godliness is

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