and graciously espousedst us to thyself, and receivdest us into thine own bosom. 'Lord, what is man, that thou art thus mindful of him; and the son of man, that thou thus visitest him? Oh, what are we, in comparison of thy once glorious angels? They sinned and fell, never to be recovered; never to be loosed from those everlasting chains, wherein they are reserved to the judgment of the great day. Whence is it, then, O Saviour, whence is it, that thou hast shut up thy mercy from those thy more excellent creatures, and hast extended it to us vile sinful dust? Whence, but that thou wouldst love man because thou wouldst ?

Alas! it is discouragement enough to our feeble friendship, that he, to whom we wished well is miserable. Our love doth gladly attend upon and enjoy his prosperity; but, when his estate is utterly sunk, and his person exposed to contempt and ignominy, yea to torture and death, who is there that will then put forth himself to own a forlorn and perishing friend? But for thee, O blessed Jesu, so ardent was thy love to us, that it was not in the power of our extreme misery to abate it; yea, so as that the deploredness of our condition did but heighten that holy flame. What speak I of shame or sufferings? hell itself could not keep thee off from us; even from that pit of eternal perdition didst thou fetch our condemned souls, and hast contrarily vouchsafed to put us into a state of everlasting blessedness.

SECTION III.

How yet free, of us that were professed enemies. THE common disposition of men pretends to a kind of justice, in giving men their own; so as they will repay love for love, and think they may for hatred return enmity. Nature itself then teacheth us to love our friends; it is only grace that can love an enemy.

But, as of injuries, so of enmities thereupon grounded, there are certain degrees: some are slight and trivial, some main and capital. If a man do but scratch my face, or give some light dash to my fame, it is no great mastery upon submission to receive such an offender to favour; but, if he have endeavoured to ruin my estate, to wound my reputation, to cut my throat; not only to pardon this man, but to hug him in my arms, to lodge him in my bosom as my entire friend, this would be no other than a high improvement of my charity.

O Lord Jesu, what was I, but the worst of enemies, when thou vouchsafedst to embrace me with thy loving mercy? How had I shamefully rebelled against thee; and yielded up all my members as instruments of unrighteousness and sin!' how had I crucified thee, the Lord of life! how had I done little other, than trod under foot the blessed Son of God; and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing! how bad I, in some

The pious writer must be supposed to personify mankindthe human race in general-as in a state of rebellion against God; not to apply the whole force of his language to the case of every individual.—En.

U

sort, done despite unto the Spirit of grace! yet, even then, in despite of all my most odious unworthiness, didst thou spread thine arms to receive me; yea, thou openedst thy heart to let me in. O love, passing not knowledge only, but wonder also! O mercy, not incident into any thing less comprehensible.

SECTION IV.

The wonderful effects of the Love of Christ-His Incarnation.

BUT, O dear Lord, when, from the object of thy mercy I cast mine eyes upon the effects and improvement of thy divine favours, and see what thy love hath drawn from thee towards the sons of men, how am I lost in a just amazement! It is that which fetched thee down from the glory of the highest heavens; from the bosom of thine eternal Father to this lower world, the region of sorrow and death. It is that which, to the wonder of angels, clothed thee with this flesh of ours; and brought thee, who thoughtest it no robbery to be equal with God, to an estate lower than thine own creatures.

O mercy, transcending the admiration of all the glorious spirits of heaven, that God would be incarnate! Surely, that all those celestial powers should be redacted to either worms or nothing, that all this goodly frame of creation should run back into its first confusion, or be reduced to one single atom, it is not so high a wonder, as for God to become man: those changes, though the highest nature is capable

of, are yet but of things finite; this is of an infinite subject, with which the most excellent of finite things can hold no proportion. Oh, the great mystery of godliness; God manifested in the flesh, and seen of angels! Those heavenly spirits had, ever since they were made, seen his most glorious Deity, and adored him as their omnipotent Creator; but, to see that God of Spirits invested with flesh, was such a wonder as had been enough, if their nature could have been capable of it, to have astonished even glory itself; and whether to see him that was their God so humbled below themselves, or to see humanity thus advanced above themselves, were the greater wonder to them, they only know.

It was your foolish misprision,' O ye ignorant Lystrians, that you took the servants for the Master: here only is it verified, which you supposed, that God is come down to us in the likeness of man, and as man conversed with men.

What a disparagement do we think it was for the great monarch of Babylon, for seven years together as a beast to converse with the beasts of the field! yet, alas! beasts and men are fellow-creatures ;2 made of one earth; drawing in the same air; returning, for their bodily part, to the same dust; symbolizing in many qualities, and in some mutually transcending each others': so as here may 1 Mistake.-ED.

2 The bold language of Young

"Midway from nothing to the Deity"

more correctly expresses the union of the natural and the supernatural in man. It is only by wilfully yielding himself to the modifying influences of a corrupt nature, out of which it is his duty to seek emancipation, that man sinks so near to the beast as is here represented En.

seem to be some terms of a tolerable proportion; since many men are in disposition too like unto beasts, and some beasts are in outward shape somewhat like unto men: but for him that was, and is, "God blessed for ever,' eternal, infinite, incomprehensible, to put on flesh, and become a man amongst men, was to stoop below all possible disparities that heaven and earth can afford. O Saviour, the lower thine abasement was for us, the higher was the pitch of thy divine love to us.

SECTION V.

His Love, in his Sufferings.

YET, in this our human condition there are degrees: one rules and glitters in all earthly glory, another sits despised in the dust; one passes the time of his life in much jollity and pleasure, another wears out his days in sorrow and discontentment. Blessed Jesu, since thou wouldst be a man, why wouldst thou not be the king of men? Since thou wouldst come down to our earth, why wouldst thou not enjoy the best entertainment the earth could yield thee? Yea, since thou who art the eternal Son of God wouldst be the son of man, why didst thou not appear in a state like to the King of heaven, attended with the glorious retinue of angels? O yet greater wonder of mercies, the same infinite love that brought thee down to the form of man, would also bring thee down, being man, to the form of a servant! So didst thou love man, that thou wouldst take part with him of his misery, that he