and New Testament1 uniformly assert. He had for many ages manifested himself in the Shechinah, the bright cloud that first abode upon the tabernacle, and afterwards resided in the most holy place of the temple: but at the appointed time he assumed our very nature, with all its sinless infirmities, into a real union with himself, and dwelt substantially on earth in the person of Jesus Christ k.
What an astonishing mystery was this ! that the Creator of all things should become a creature, and that the infinitely holy God should be made "in the likeness of sinful flesh1!" Let us incessantly adore him for this his ineffable condescen- sion, his incomprehensible love.]
II. He was "justified in (or by) the Spirit" —
[So deep was the humiliation of Christ throughout the whole period of his sojourning on earth, that he needed the most signal evidences from heaven to justify his pretensions, and to vindicate his character from the charges of blasphemy and imposture. The office of justifying him was committed to the Holy Spirit, who visibly interposed on many occasions to attest his divine mission. When our Lord submitted to baptism, and thereby seemed to acknowledge himself a sinner, who needed to be washed in the laver of regeneration, the Spirit bore witness to him as God's beloved Son, and as the spotless Lamb that was to take away the sin of the world1". When he was accounted a deceiver, and a confederate with the devil, the Spirit enabled him to work the most stupendous miracles in proof of his being the true Messiah". When he was dead, and imprisoned in the grave, so that his very Disciples thought they had been deceived by him, the Spirit raised him from the dead0, and thereby declared him to be the Son of God with power p. And when Christ had, as it were, staked the whole credit of his Messiahship on the descent of the Holy Spirit after his own ascension to heaven, the Holy Spirit did descend according to his word, and not only rested visibly on the Apostles, but endued them with power to speak divers languages, and to confirm their word with signs following q.
And is not this a mystery, that God should reduce himself to such an abject state as to need these attestations to his character; and that the Third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity should be thus necessitated, as it were, to " glorify
1 John i. 1. Rom. ix. 5. Phil. ii. 6. John x. 30.
k Col. ii. 9. l Rom. viii. 3. m John i. 29—34.
" Matt. xii. 24 — 28. ° 1 Pet. iii. 18. p Rom. i. 4.
a John xv. 26. Acts ii. 3, 4. Heb. ii. 4.