And then all is for us. ' To ks a child is born, to us a Son is given,' in the same chapter. For us, and for us men, he came down from heaven. And then to the eye of faith all these things are present. Faith knoweth no difierence of time.
Christ is present to the eye of faith now. We see him sacrificed in the sacrament and in the word. Faith knoweth no distance of place, as well as no distance of time. We see him in heaven, as St Stephen, sitting at the right hand of God for the good of his church, Acts vii. 56 ; and there- fore ' behold,'
If ever any thing were, or shall be great, from the beginning of the world to eternity, this is great, this is wonderful. And if any thing in the world be fit for us ; and if any thing dignifieth the soul, and raiseth the soul above itself, it is this wonderful object.
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We, out of our weakness, wonder at poor petty things, as the disciples at the building of the temple, ' What stones are these ?' Mat. xiii. 1. We wonder at the greatness of birth and place, but, alas ! what is fit for the soul, being a large and capable thing, to stand in admiration of? Here is that that transcendeth admiration itself. ' Behold, a virgin shall conceive a son ;' and therefore attend to the great matter in hand. This I thought good to add to what I formerly delivered in that particular.
* A virgin shall conceive a son,' &c.
You need not go farther than the text for wonders ; for here are two great ones, a virgin a mother, and God man.
So in the words you have the conception and the birth of Christ, his human nature, his divine nature and his office, to reconcile God and us in one.
As he is God in our nature — he took our nature into communion of per- son— so his office is to bring God and man together ; his two natures is to fit him for his office. God and man were as much distant terms as could be, unless between the devil and God. And therefore God-man in one person must perform the great office of bringing such as were in such oppo- site terms together.
Of his conception by the Virgin Mary we spake sufficiently, only we will add this for further explication. A further type of this was in the birth of Isaac. Isaac, you know, was born of a dead' womb. Christ was conceived of a virgin, and in a manner far more improbable than the other. Isaac was the ' son of the promise,' Christ was * the promised seed,' both in some sort miraculously born ; for indeed it was a true wonder that Isaac should be born of a dead womb, and here that a virgin should conceive. Sarah had nothing to supply moisture and juice to the fruit ; and so here was nothing of a man to further Christ's conception.
I will shew why there must be this kind of conception of Christ, which will help our faith exceedingly.
1. First, Christ must be without all sin of necessity ; for else when he took our nature, stubble and fire had joined together. ' God is a con- suming fire,' Heb. xii. 29 ;' and therefore the nature must be purified and sanctified by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin.
2. And then again, in the conception, there must be a foundation of all obedience, active and passive, and of all that was afterwards excellent in Christ. If there had been any blemish in the foundation, which was his conception, if he had not been pure, there had been defect in all that issued from him, his active obedience and passive obedience, for every thing savours of the principle from whence it cometh. And therefore it was God's great work in this strange conception, that sin might be stopped in the root and beginning ; nature might be sanctified in the foundation of it. And so that he might pursue sin from the beginning to the end, both in his life, by living without sin, and also in his death, by making satisfaction for sin.
And' therefore ground our faith on this, that our salvation is laid on one that is mighty, God-man, and on one that is pure and holy. And there- fore in his obedience active, holy ; and in his obedience passive, holy.
Again, He came to be a surety for us ; and therefore he must pay our whole debt, he must pay the debt of obedience ; he must pay the debt of punishment. Now obedience must come from a pure nature, and his death must extend to the satisfying of an infinite justice. And therefore he must be conceived of the Holy Ghost in the womb of a pure virgin.
120 MIEACLE OF MIRACLES.
And we must know that in this conception of Christ there were two or three things wherein there was a main difference between Christ and us.
(1.) Christ was in his human nature altogether icithout sin. We are sinful in our nature.
(2.) Again, Christ's human nature had always subsistence in the divine, and it was never out of the divine nature. As soon as his body and Boul were united, it was the body and soul of God. Now our natures are not so.