'bers must follow whither the Head has

gone

be

fore, therefore the assurance which Job had by inspiration will be found true, that in our flesh we shall see God; making trial of human temptations, being touched with the feeling of our infirmities, that He might become a merciful and faithful High-Priest in our behalf; enduring human afflictions and sympathizing with human sorrow, that He might be able to comfort His brethren, as one who hath taken part in the same woes and troubles; bearing in His flesh all cruel pains for us, and having that heavy load of the world's sins laid upon Him, which forced from Him as man that mysterious and bitter cry, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" bringing us very near to God by our incorporation with Himself, bridging over the great gulf that lay between God and man, accomplishing that for which Job uttered his longing cry, “O that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat," and fulfilling the desire of the Church of old, uttered in the words of Solomon, "O that Thou wert as my brother." In such ways then should we think of Christ as the son of man. Nor only so, but as the Son of God also; emptying Himself for our sakes of the might and majesty which

He had with the Father before the world was, making Himself lower, not only than angels, but man also, as He saith in the Psalm of His Passion, "I am a worm and no man, a very scorn of men and the outcast of the people;" loving us with an everlasting love, and ever seeking in the wilderness of the world those who have gone astray, that He may gather them in the arms of His mercy, and carry them in His bosom; making upon the Cross that infinite atonement for the sins of the world which only an infinite God could make; overcoming him that had the power of death, and leading captivity captive, as only the Lord of life could do; daily helping us with His grace, pouring His benefits upon us, and blessing us with all spiritual blessings; and, at last, coming again in the clouds of heaven as the anointed Judge of man, "when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." Thus then ought we to think of Him who is very God and very Man, “equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood; who although He be God and Man, yet He is not two but one Christ."

Again, the Pharisees seem to have used in their own private sense, the words of Holy Writ

which truly described the Messiah as the Son of David, without coming to see whether the meaning that they attached to it was one which would hold with their intimations of Scripture. They formed their own idea of what the coming Deliverer should be, and so long as this was in accordance with any one passage in God's Word they took no thought of its repugnance to others. And this is an error into which we may likewise easily fall. We may take up sacred sayings and the words of faith, and use them without considering whether we understand them or not, or whether we are employing them in their right sense. And we may adopt one-sided and imperfect views, resting on a partial examination of Scripture; we may find many passages which seem to coincide with what we already imagine, or are disposed to imagine, is true; and then without staying to see whether our interpretation holds its due relation to the proportion of faith, as revealed in other parts, without attempting to reconcile it with other places in the Bible which may appear to oppose it, without asking what is the explanation given by champions of the faith who have pondered deeply on the mysteries of God's Word, or without being inclined to

submit our own private and individual opinion to the judgment of the universal Church from the beginning, we may rise up from our perusal of the Bible with mistaken and inconsistent views, exclusively relying on some parts and ignoring the rest. Nay, we may even go the length of men who when they have found that some of the inspired writings could not be reconciled with their own errors, have therefore wished to reject those parts from the book of Revelations. Surely in acting in any degree in this way, we shall be imitating these Pharisees, who when asked of the Sonship of the Messiah, could only say of Him that He was the Son of David.

In the second place, from believing in the Messiah in this imperfect way, they learnt only to look for the establishment by Him of a temporal kingdom; and expected great blessings for themselves, not to be won by any acts or exertions on their own part, but simply on the ground of their being the covenanted and chosen people. of God. And this twofold error of the Pharisees may be ours likewise. Our thoughts of Christ may be dictated by worldly motives; we may see how in many ways God's servants are blessed in this life, and may therefore pay some outward

observance to His laws, because it will promote our earthly prosperity, procure us esteem and credit, and secure our own personal comfort. But then we shall be thinking of Christ simply as a ruler of this world: we shall be seeking to have our good things only in this life, with no care for aught beyond; and then it may be to our eternal loss hereafter should what we desire be granted to us. Or again, we may indeed look forward to Christ's everlasting kingdom in the heavens, but it may be as to an inheritance unfailingly secured to us by our admission into covenant with God; and we may forget that our inheritance may be forfeited, a covenant may be broken, and that even our baptism may but increase our condemnation. Surely then this is a question we should seriously ask ourselves; Are we living on in carelessness and self-indulgence, dreaming of heaven as of something certainly awaiting us hereafter, even without our daily doing anything to win it? Christ has procured for us the promise of heaven, but it is as a crown for those conquerors who have fought the good fight, and finished their course in victory. We must gain our kingdom by battling with the powers of darkness here, and escaping the snares