able to see Him as He is. When He came on earth He hid His glory, and even His blessed Mother could but ponder in her heart things concerning Him which she did not yet understand. His disciples knew Him first as Man, before they were aware of His infinite glory, and, more than once, His presence was, in a manner, too much for them, even before He left them. And since that, when He appeared to His beloved disciple, the sight at first overpowered him.

He would spare us this, and He would give us the blessing of those who have not seen and yet have believed. Only let us not neglect Him because He is thus unseen, but seek Him where we know that He is hidden,—in His Holy Sacraments, for our healing and nourishment; in our brethren, to receive the proofs of our love in acts of kindness; in our joy, to sanctify and to increase it; in our sorrow, to relieve and to bless it; in life, to be our example, our guide, our helper, and defender; in death, to be our stay, our Life, and our everlasting gain.

Again, let us think Who He is, and what a meaning is given to our being made "sons of God," by His having become "the Son of Man."

"If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together."m

To Him, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour, might, majesty, and dominion, now and evermore.

m Rom. viii. 17.

SERMON V.

CHRISTMAS.

S. John i. 14.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

God is not far from every one of us, nor Idid He ever leave Himself without witness in the world; yet the world has been far from seeing Him, and has lost itself in sin and misery for want of being well aware of His ever-present power. Man, left to Himself, has run into all manner of abominable idolatry, and with it into all manner of wickedness, and hardness toward his own kind. We sometimes complain that things go ill amongst ourselves, but truly we do not see how bad they have been elsewhere, and in other times. Yet even the wrongs, and unkindnesses, and bitter words, and spiteful and unjust deeds, that we know of in our own experience, are enough to shew us what man will do if left to himself. He

can know but little of human nature who does not see that man stands in need of having some great thing done for him to set him right.

Blessed be God, we know what He has done for us; yet so it is, that He has done it in such a manner that those who believe and obey can see and understand it, while the unbelieving and ungodly stand by and cannot perceive. The thing He has done is great and glorious beyond our utmost thought, and yet men hear of it, and see even something of the effects of it, and remain such as they were, or even the harder in their wickedness, because they hate to be reformed. God did not undertake or purpose to restore the whole race of man in this world, but to take to Himself a people from among them, and to glorify Himself in them, and in them renew His work and His image.

And this He was pleased to do by means at once most wonderful and most suitable.

Most suitable,—for how could man be so effectually renewed as by bringing into his very nature the Present Godhead; into his very society and fellowship the Divine Holiness, Power, and Love; into the throne of dominion and judgment, and into the throne

of love and fear in every heart, the very Son of God, made Man ?

Yet most wonderful,—for how can we conceive of Him by Whom the worlds were made, Who is everywhere, and before and beyond all time, born as a little child, and partaking all human infirmities save sin?

The more we think of it the more wonderful does it appear that Very God should become Very Man, as truly Man as one of ourselves. And yet the more we think of it the more fitting does it appear that He Himself should give life to His own Image, and dwell even Personally in a Spirit of that kind which He had made for communion with Himself.

This day we are called upon to think Who it is that is come down to us, and that has taken to Himself our flesh. The Gospel for the day begins with the glory which He had before all worlds, and comes down to His becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Sometimes He is called the Son of the Father, but here He is called the Word, that it may be understood that He abides ever in the Father, and is His perfect Image and Likeness. For the name "word" used be given not only to a spoken word, but to also to the word of thought within the mind,