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at; a sign to be spoken against, said old Simeon; a sign profound, from the deep abyss of God's mercy. Behold the heavens are the work of his fingers: yet he suffered himself to be fashioned in the womb of a virgin, digested into members, knit together with sinews, built up with bones, covered with flesh, inveloped with skin, raised up to the perfect similitude, drawn down to the low condition of his creature. He would be any thing but sin to rescue man from sin, and to save him. He would descend as low as death and the grave, to raise man to a capability and hope of heaven and immortality. A wonderful condescension! a wonderful fall; from his throne to the womb; from his dwelling place on high, to dwell with flesh; from the song of angels, Glory to God on high;' to the shepherds' declaration, We have seen him in the manger;' from the seraphim's Holy, holy, holy, to the Jews' Come down from the cross: this was a wonderful descent! Nor could we think that God could do it, but that we know he can do more than we can think. Where was that hand that made and fashioned us, that meted the heavens, that measured out the waters, that weighed the mountains in scales! Where is that voice that thundered on Sinai, that mighty voice! Where is that God who was from everlasting? Do we not gaze, and put on wonder? Do we not tremble to say it? And yet to say it aright, is salvation. Majesty lay hid in humility; that power was in frailty; that voice in an infant not able to speak. The God of spirits was incarnate in flesh; he that was invisible was seen; he that could not be touched was handled. He that was from everlasting had a beginning: he that was the Son of God was made the Son of Man, like unto his brethren.

We cannot put on too much caution and reverence when we speak of God. Majesty is at such an infinite distance from us, that it is far safer for us to worship and adore it, than to discourse of it. The Christian world hath been too daring and bold with him, to speak of him what they pleased, and then to teach him to speak; to make a language of their own, and say it is his, although the words be such as were never heard from heaven, nor can be found in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ. If we be his disciples, when we speak to him, or of him, let us use his own words; for then he will better understand us, and we shall better understand one another. For, when we set up a mint of our own, aud take to ourselves the royalty of coinage, whatsoever we work out, we send abroad as current, though the character and stamp present more of our own image than of his. When we will be over-witty, commonly we are overseen. God is made like man: words which, if they were not his, we should not dare to speak them. But, as he descends so low as to take our likeness, he also takes this language in good part, and is well pleased to hear these words from us, because they are his own:

a Man of Sorrows; a Worm, and no Man; a despised, rejected Man: he will have us call him so; he hath put such words into our creed, and counts them no disparagement. He set a time for it, and when the appointed time came, he was made like unto us; and all generations may speak it, to his glory, to the end of the world. Before, he appeared, darkly wrapped in types, veiled in dreams, beheld in visions: to shew us that he appeareth in the likeness of our flesh; that he speaketh, and suffereth in our flesh, is the high prerogative of the Gospel. And here he publisheth himself in every way of representation. He is a Shepherd, to guide and feed us; a Captain, to lead us; a Prophet, to teach us; he is a Priest, and he is a Sacrifice for us; he is Bread, to strengthen us; a Vine, to cheer us; a Lamb, that we may be meek; a Lion, that we may be valiant; a Worm, that we may be patient; a Door, to let us in; and a Way, through which we pass into life. He is any thing that will make us like him. Sin, error, and the devil, have not appeared in more shapes to deceive and destroy us, than Christ hath to save us.

Lastly, never was righteousness in its perfection but in him. Among all the heresies the Church has had to cope with, we read of none that called his holiness in question. And all this for our sakes that in his meekness, we may shut up our anger; in his humility, destroy our pride; in his patience, check our forwardness; in his compassion and bowels of mercy, melt our stony hearts; and in his perfect obedience, beat down our rebellion. He appears under no other covert, than that of our flesh, so like us, that we may take a pattern by him.

This, indeed, may seem an indignity to God: and, in all ages, there have been some who have thought it so; but shall his honour be the less because he hath laid it down for our sakes? Shall he lose the esteem due to him because he stooped so low for our advancement? Or, can we be afraid of that humility which purchased us glory, and returned in triumph with the keys of hell and of death? He made himself a Shepherd, and laid down his life for his sheep; and shall we make this an argument that he is not a King? No: to us his humility is as full of wonder as his majesty. And, when we see him born in a stable, cradled in a manger, wrapped in swadling clothes, poor and despised, and hanging on the cross, we are not ashamed of him, but wonder heightens our joy, and joy raiseth our wonder: we cry, with St. Augustine," Ah, prodigy! Oh, miracle of mercy! Oh, the strangeness of this new birth!" With the wise men, we open our treasures, and present him gifts, and worship him as a King, though we find him in a manger. And this is a sign from the depth, from the low condition of our flesh; as saith the apostle, made like unto his brethren; or, as David speaketh, a body hast thou prepared me: so like unto us, that the devil him

self took him for no other than a man, and was entrapped with the outward garment or veil of his flesh: venturing upon him a man, he found him a God: and striking at him as the first Adam Fas overcome by the second, beat down, and conquered with that blow which he levelled at him.-But, as Christ hath taken our desh, must he take our soul too? May not his Divinity supply the place of our better part? Shall we not free him from those passions and affections, which, when they move and are hot within us, our common apology is, that we are but men? No: for Christ's incarnation will draw together and unite both body and soul. Christ came to save both, therefore he took both, that he might free the body from corruption, and the soul from sin; refine our dross into silver, and our silver into pure gold; raise our bodies to the immortality of our souls, and our souls to the purity of angels. He is "perfect God, and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting." And now, having taken from man what constituteth man, why may he not receive the same impressions of love and joy, grief and fear, anger and compassion -even those affections which are seated in the sensitive parts? Behold him in the temple, with a scourge in his hand, and you will say he was angry;--go with him to Lazarus's grave, and you will see his sorrow dropping from his eyes;-mark his eye upon Jerusalem, and you will see the very bowels of compassion;follow him to Gethsemane, and there he began to be grievously troubled. Tertullian saith," Behold, here is this whole trinity in our Lord: first, the rational part; for he teacheth what he had learnt; disputeth with the Pharisees, and instructeth the people in those ways which reason commendeth as the best and readiest to lead them to the right end. Second, the spirit which breatheth itself forth in woes and severe invectives against the Scribes and Pharisees. Third, the ardency of his appetite: he desired, he earnestly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples. We may be bold to say it (and it is not blasphemy to say), angry he was; and rejoice he did: he breathed out his desires, and grieved, and feared; and he that, as God, could have commanded more than twelve legions of angels, as Man had need of one to comfort him. He was like us in all things; but with this great difference; in him there was no disorder; not the least stoop from reason; there was no storm in his anger; no excess in his joy. He was like unto us in his passions, but not misled by his passions like us. We are never long the same men; but one passion or other riseth in us, troubleth us awhile, and so maketh way for another. Such a perplexed medley, such a heap of contradictions is man! Thus it is with us; but our Saviour's passions were like straight and even lines, drawn to the right centre. His anger was placed on sin; his love, on piety; his joy, on the great work he had to do. His fear was his jealousy lest we should

fall from him; when he grieved, it was because others did not do so; when he seemed most moved, he was in better temper than we are when we pray. All our qualities he had, which implied no defect of grace, nor detracted from his all-sufficient, satisfactory righteousness. He had those affections which might make him sensible of smart, but not obnoxious to sin. And, in him, they were not passions, properly so called, but natural operations, which did shew him to all the world (as if saying), Behold the Man! And thus he condemned sin in the flesh, in those punishments which his flesh endured. The blow for sin was fastened in his own side, when sin touched him not; taking upon him our nature, yet without sin. Saint Paul tells us, he was like us in all things, yet without sin. His miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost was a sure and invincible antidote against the poison of the serpent, and so presented him an innocent and spotless Lamb, fit for such a sacrifice. We have found our captain, Christ Jesus, like unto us in all things: yea, in all the innocent infirmities of our nature. We have considered him in his Divine nature, the height of which no mortal eye can reach; and we have looked at him where he might be seen, and heard, and felt-in his human nature. We must now, with a reverent and fearful hand, but lightly touch those things which point out the union of both natures in one Person.

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(To be concluded in the next.)

THE TRUTH OF GOD DEFENDED.

Review of " SERMONS by the late Rev. CHARLES WESLEY, A. M.
Student of CHRIST-CHURCH, OXFORD, with a MEMOIR of the
AUTHOR, by the Editor."

THE Editor, who has now favoured the Public with those Sermons, the greater part of which had lain by in manuscript, for almost eighty years, gives, in the introduction to them, an excellent and well-written epitome of the author's life. To those who are not conversant with the larger account of him, written by Dr. Whitehead, the greater part of this epitome will come with the charm of novelty. The Editor, who we suppose to be a near relation of the character delineated, would probably have used stronger colours, had no such relationship subsisted. But enough is said to convince every pious and discerning reader, that the Rev. Charles Wesley possessed uncommon worth, as a man, a Christian, and a minister of the gospel.

After giving a short account of Messrs. JOHN and CHARLES WESLEY'S visit to, and return from America, the Editor thus proceeds:

"The popularity of the brothers, on their return to their tive country, raised a strong spirit of prejudice and persecution arcely to be imagined in this age. The churches were so crowded that it was complained there was not room for the best of the inhabitants. They were charged with delivering new doctrines from the pulpit, by strictly inculcating the old; and they waited on the Bishop of London (Dr. Edmund Gibson) to answer the complaints he had heard alleged against them respecting their preaching the absolute assurance of salvation. His Lordship's words were memorable: If by assurance you mean an inward persuasion whereby a man is conscious to himself, after examining his life by the law of God, and weighing his own sincerity, that he is acceptable in his sight (a phrase used by our Church), I do not see how any good man can be without such an assurance!' They replied, This is all for which we contend; but we have been accused of antinomianism for preaching it in the words of the Eleventh Article of our Church. (Justification by Faith.) Indeed, by delivering the doctrine without enjoining good works, many have been made Antinomians in the reign of Charles I. They requested his Lordship not to receive an accusation against Presbyters but at the mouth of two or three witnesses, which he promised to do; and he dismissed them amicably. Their lives, as well as rules, were a sufficient proof that they were zealous of good works." (Introduction, p. 22, 23.)

The steps by which the Wesleys were led to decide in favour of itinerant preaching, are briefly, but well described by the Editor. The following judicious observations merit the greatest publicity.

"The labouring poor are the most numerous class in every country; they are not less necessary to the happiness of a nation. than to the higher ranks of society. In the year 1738, their education was totally neglected; few of them were taught the duty of attending churches, and there was no possibility of doing them good but by some extraordinary mode of communication, as their ignorance and vicious habits removed them out of the reach of those salutary methods appointed by government.

"It was a matter of national importance, that so large a part of the community should be instructed in the principles of religion, and the social duties of life; and it is in this point that the ames of John and Charles Wesley, and the Rev. George Whitefield, will be peculiarly held in honour by the candid and unprejudiced.

"They directed their labours to those who had no instructor; to the highways and hedges; to the miners in Cornwall and Newcastle, and the collieries near Bristol. These unhappy creatures married and buried among themselves, and often committed murder with impunity. It was always dangerous to pass their