2. The humiliation to which he submitted —
[It was a marvellous act of grace that he should conde- scend to form creatures, and to give them a sight of his blessedness and glory. But that he should notice them after they had left their first estate, and despoiled themselves of their original righteousness, this was an act of condescension which we should have deemed impossible, if he had not actually evinced by his conduct that it could be done. But who would believe it possible that he should stoop so low as to take our nature upon him ? Yet even that he did ; and that too not in its primitive state, but in its present fallen state, subject to numberless infirmities and to death itself. He was " made in the likeness of sinful flesh"," and was in all things like unto us, sin only excepted". Nor did he assume even our fallen nature in its highest condition : he was born, not in a palace, but a stable ; he spent his life, during the first thirty years, in the low occupation of a carpenter ; and, for the four last years, he was often destitute of the common necessaries of life, yea, even of a place where to lay his head p. He was aware that he should meet with nothing but contempt and persecution from men ; and yet he submitted to it for their sakes. But even this, great as it was, by no means reaches to the full extent of his debasement : No ; he put himself in the place of sinners, that he might endure the curse due to their iniquities ^ : he submitted to bear the assaults of Satan, and the wrath of God'. If therefore we would form a just idea of his humilia- tion, we must visit the garden of Gethsemane, and see him bathed in a bloody sweat, and hear him " making supplication to his Father with strong crying and tears," for the removal of the bitter cup^: we must then follow him to Calvary, and hear his bitter complaints under the depths of dereliction*, and behold him in the midst of inexpressible agonies of soul and body, dying the accursed death of the cross : and lastly, we must view him imprisoned in the gi'ave under the sentence of the law, of that law which doomed us all to everlasting death". Here, here was humiliation, such as filled all heaven with wonder ; here was poverty, such as never can be compre- hended by men and angels.
In this view the Apostle elsewhere describes the grace of Christ, contrasting the dignity of his pre-existing state with the state he assumed, and the degradation he endured''. O that we might have worthy conceptions of it, and be enabled
" Rom. viii. 3. ° Ileb. ii. 17. and iv. 15,
P Matt. viii. 20. ^ 1 Pet. ii. 24. r Isai. liii. 10.
» Luke xxii. 44. Ileb. v. 7. * Matt, xxvii. 46.
1 Gal. iii. 13. ^ Phil. ii. 6—8.