We propose to consider,
I. The honour promised her —
She was informed, that God had ordained her to be the happy instrument of bringing into the world his only dear Son : and, on her inquiring how that should be accomplished in her virgin state, she was told that the Holy Ghost, who at the first creation of the world " moved upon the face of the waters," and reduced the chaotic mass to order and beauty, should, by his almighty power, form in her that Holy Being, who should, in his human as well as his divine nature, be the Son of God.
But here a question arises, why should the Messiah be born in this way ? Why might not the privilege of bearing him be vouchsafed to her in a way more agreeable to the common course of nature ? We answer, that there was, if we may so speak, a neces- sity for it :
1. That he might not be involved in Adam's guilt —
[Adam was not a mere individual, but the head and representative of all his posterity ; and, when he violated the covenant which God had made with him, he brought a curse, not on himself only, but on all his descendants also. This is evident from the death of infants, who cannot have contracted personal guilt, and yet suffer the punishment of sin. This could not be, if sin, in some shape or other, were not imputed to them. It is by " the transgression of Adam that they are accounted sinners, and that judgment comes upon them to condemnation3." " In Adam all diedV
Now if the Lord Jesus had descended from him in the common way, he would have lain under the same sentence of condemnation with others, and therefore would have needed a deliverer himself, instead of becoming a deliverer to others.]
2. That he might not partake of Adam's corrup- tion—
[When Adam fell, he became corrupt in every member of his body, and in every faculty of his soul. And we are particularly informed, that " he begat a son in his own like- ness," not in the likeness of God in which he was created, but in his own image as a fallen creature. An awful evidence of this truth he soon beheld, in Cain's hatred, and murder, of righteous Abel.
a Rom. v. 12—19. b 1 Cor. xv. 22.