GHOST at His Baptism; and that of the Docetæ, who taught that He was man only in appearance, and a His acts false impressions on the senses. The former denied not that He was in the flesh, but that He came in the flesh; that He had any being before His birth: the latter denied not that He came from heaven, but that He had come in the flesh; conceiving Him throughout His life what the Apostles, till they handled Him, believed Him after His Resurrection. (S. Luke xxiv. 37.)

O how hardly do we bring ourselves to believe the mysteries of GOD! How unreasonable is much that we call reason! We reject things plainly revealed, because we do not understand them; and take refuge in follies which none can understand, explain, or reconcile. Man will believe any thing, if only man invents it. He will worship any idol, provided he may set it up himself. These two sects are an instance. They would not receive what the Church taught or the Incarnation :

"Unus utrique

Error, sed variis illudit partibus."

The stumblingblock was the union of the two natures —an ineffable mystery, no doubt, but therefore no contradiction. We do not disbelieve, because we cannot, that "the reasonable soul and flesh is one man;" yet this truth lies quite as much out of our scrutiny as the mystery of the Incarnation. Unless we would make GoD a liar, we must equally believe the truth that "GOD and Man is one CHRIST." (1 S. John v. 10.)

This the ancient heretics would not do; what they could not understand, they denied. But their folly was self-contradictory. For if our LORD was man only, He was not even a prophet-for He had claimed to be more (S. Mark xiv. 61, 62; S. John v. 18; viii. 58; x. 30, 33;) and a true prophet could not make a false claim. The Jews, with far more consistency, condemned Him as a blasphemer. And if His life were only a shadow and a dream, what proof could we have of anything? how could we know that anything was real? But man will not see his own follies; enough for him if they shut out what he has resolved not to see.

mercy, have not folWe profess and pro

We, my brethren, by God's lowed either of these errors. claim that "it is necessary to everlasting salvation to believe rightly the Incarnation of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. For the right faith is," &c. (Athanasian Creed.) This faith, however, is no matter of boasting, but of thankfulness and humility. Let us hold it fast; pray to be kept stedfast in it, that neither Satan, nor his emissaries, nor our lawless speculations, deprive us of all pure motive and solid hope. (Col. ii. 8, 9.)

Let us approach the ever-blessed doctrine of this day in a spirit at once reverential and practical. We have spoken of the LORD's human sympathy with us, (Outlines for Christmas-day and Sunday after;) of the exactness of His atonement, being paid in the same nature which transgressed; (Outline for Fifth Sunday in Lent) of the virtue of His resurrection, as the pledge of our own. (Outlines for Easter-day and

Easter Tuesday.) Let us now take a less frequented path amid the wonders of this exceeding mystery, and educe, under the blessing of our Incarnate GOD, the Scripture doctrine concerning the body and material things.

The Gospel, it is said, is a spiritual religion. Most true; yet only part of the truth. GOD is a spirit; yet CHRIST is GOD, and He took on Him a material body. (S Luke xxiv. 39; Heb. ii. 16.) The Gospel is religion for man, and man is corporeal as well as spiritual. He is not perfect without the body; he does not attain his perfection in Paradise; he must wait till he receives his body to be perfect.1 Had man not fallen, he would have passed to heaven in the body. Those whom GOD took without death, He took in the body. They who lose sight of the spirituality of Christianity, and make everything consist in outward things, resemble the Cerinthians; those who make everything consist in spirituality and individual feeling, commit the error of the Docetæ, act as if the whole life of the SAVIOUE were a shadow, and man a disembodied spirit. Both views are antichristian. Holy Scripture treats us as having bodies as well as souls: (Rom xii. 1; 1 Cor. vi. 13-20; 1 Thess. iv. 4; v. 23:) and our Church, in one of her Communion Collects, prays that our hearts and bodies may be governed and sanctified, &c.; and in the Communion Service, we present our spirits, souls and bodies, &c. (See Collects for Second and Fifth Sundays in Lent, and Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.)

1 Heb. xii. 23, does not allude to perfection of nature, but purity from sin, or completion of the Christian course.

In reference to this subject, let us consider

I. How the Incarnation affects us individually. This has been adverted to in the Outlines for Christmasday and First Sunday after. We are commanded to take GOD for our example. (S. Matt. v. 48; S. Luke vi. 36; Eph. v. 1; 1 S. Peter i. 15, 16.) Now this we could not so much as attempt, were not His perfections inscribed on a human model. By the body of CHRIST all our infirmities and wants are sanctified. Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we may do all to the glory of GoD, (1 Cor. x. 31) because we see how He did these things. Of suffering and temptation the pure Godhead could not afford the smallest analogy; but the Incarnation gives us a perfect authority in cases sure to be our own, and hallows them by having gone before.

II. How the Incarnation affects us collectively. This is the groundwork of our union with CHRIST and with each other. Though this union be spiritual, (1 Cor. vi. 17) it is effected through visible and material means. It is called a marriage; (Cant. passim ; S. Matt. xxii. 2; xxv. 10; 2 Cor. xi. 2; Eph. v. 32; Rev. xix. 7; xxi. 2, 9) a figure especially taken from our present corporeal state; (S. Luke xx. 35) and we are called members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, (Eph. v. 30.) The Church is even called His body. (Eph. i. 22, 23; Col. i. 18, 24, and many other places of Scripture.) We are grafted into Him separately indeed, and spiritually; but yet through His outward visible Church, and by an outward visible sign. "For our GOD, JESUS the CHRIST, was conceived by Mary according to the dispensation

of GOD, from the seed of David, but of the HOLI GHOST; Who was born and baptized, that by this submission,1 He might purify the [element of] water." (Ignat. ad Eph. xviii.) And the life imparted by this Sacrament must be maintained by the other, which is the very expression of His Incarnation. Without that, indeed, it could have no meaning or existence; for it is the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. "They" (the Docetæ) "abstain from Eu charist and prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, which suffered for our sins; which the FA THER raised by His goodness." (Ignat. ad Smyrn. vii.) "He took bread and distributed it to His dis ciples, and made it His Body, saying, Body; that is, a figure of My Body.

'This is My But it could

not have been a figure unless the truth [which it represented] had possessed a body. For an unsubstan tial thing, which a phantom is, could not admit & figure." (Tertull. adv. Marc. iv. 62.) Both sacra ments, indeed, proceeded from His Body. (S. John xix. 34.) To the Incarnation too we must refer all those special blessings which belong to the ministers and officers of the Church, over and above those granted to individual devotion. (S. Matt. xviii. 20; Acts i. 15; ii. 1; xii. 5; S. James v. 14.)

III. The sanctity which the Incarnation gives to bodily acts in religion. These it solemnizes, while it sanctifies the bodies in which we offer them. Forms

1 T doel. This rendering seems more agreeable to the con text than "by His Passion." The "deos" would seem to be His submission to His servant's Baptism.