history; it is the vestibnle or the temple or the Christ. He who oan vensure paat that entrance-hall will find no grander mystery in any of the courts or holy places. That Incarnat.ion ie BO distinct from the ordinary working of human laws, so manifestly the operation, in the human sphere, of higher and Divine laws, that he who can receive Christ u the Child of the virgin-mother and the Divine Father, will find no miracle wrought during our Lord's life raise any disturbing doubts. The Idea of incarnation is not, indeed, peculiar to Christianity. It is found in other religions, especially in those of India and China. But the contrast they present is most significant. In other religions the incarnation is transient; it is more like the angelophanies of the Old Testament times, than like the living Man, Christ Jesus, of the New Testament. Theirs is only into the appearance of a man; this is into the reality of human flesh. Theirs is usually into some monstrous form of man or beast; this is into the simple but perfect form of a true manhood. Our faith is asked for the incarnate God. Born in accordance ~·itb human times; coming into the world as every member of the race must come• nourished for months with a mother's own life. At once Man and God: born of th~ earth, earthy; born of heaven, heavenly and Divine. Deity in the dress of the human flesh; the Creator become a creature; the Lord of heaven and earth in the form of a servant. Infinity pressed into the hour of a mortal life. Immortality submitting to die. A babe, yet a Kit:g. An infant, yet a God. He who was from everlasting con- senting to begin in time. That being the awful mystery of the Christ, it is no longer strange that be should heal diseases, feed multitudes, still the raging seas, and waken the slumbering dead; all difficulties begin to fade before us when we can say, "This wa.s the Son of God." IL lN THE NA.HE, bDiUNUEL, LIES HID THE HYBTERY OP THE BEDEM:Pl'I0N. If God is with his creatures, it can only be to bless and save them, to deliver them from evil, to bring them into full unity with himself, to establish them in all good. If God, who is lcn,e, is with his sinful, rebellious, self-willed children, it can only be that he may deliver them from the consequences of their transgressions, and recover them from the degradation of their sinfulness. There is light and hope for humanity in this great name; the name by which prophecy pointed to him who should come; the name by which he was called when he came; the name which fits in with Jesus. The full name is Immanuel-Jehoshu,a--" God with us, saving us from our sins."-R. T. Ver. 16.-The C'U,lture of conscience. "Before the child shall know to refuse'the evil, and choose the good." Some take this expression as referring to pleasant or unpleasant food ; but it probably is used in a general moral sense. Compare the tree of the know- ledge of good and evil, in Gen. ii. 9; iii. 5. For the expression as used in reference to children, see Deut. i. 89. Isaiah evidently intends, by a figure of speech, to indicate two or three years, the time when a child may be regarded e.s getting out of his infancy of ignorance and innocence. Without discussing philosophically the nature of conscience, or the sense in which man has innate ideas, and keeping quite within the sphere of observation and experience in family life, we may say, with Reid, "Conscience, like all other powers, comes to maturity by insensible degrees, and may be more aided in its strength and vigour by proper culture." The following line of thought is given barely and suggestively, because its detailed treatment must depend on the philosophical and theological standpoint of the preacher. L WE BEGIN LIFE WITH DEBmEs. As soon as Eve was made she looked longingly on the beautiful fruits of the garden. The infants are crying for something, if it be only the light. Man wants. He ill not sufficient to himself. And the wants are ever growing. II. WE FIND THE SUPPLY OP SOME DESIRES BRINGS PLEA.BURE, and of some brings pain. So we begin to distinguish things by their attendant consequences in our feeling. III. WE CALL THE PAINFUL EVIL, AND 'l.'HE PLEASANT GOOD; and 80 establish for our- selves a standard which will test more than we at first imagine. IV. PRP.&ENTLY WE FIND THAT WE CONFUSE THINGS, AND OALL TBlNGS PLEASANT WHOSE CONSEQUENCES ABE EVIL. So we discover that our discernment needs educe.ting; and- v. WE ABE BROUGHT TO BEE.I[ A STANDARD BY WHIOB TO JUDGE THINGS j that is away from, and beyond ourselves; and we learn to find the only s1ue educating force in the OH, vm. 1-22.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 145
revealed will of God. M11n knows with certainty what is evil and what is good, when he recognizes that God haR set him in this world of sensible relations, and, pointing to some things, has said, "Thou mayest;" and to other things, "Thou shalt not." Con- science is truly cultured only when it clearly witnesses to that of which God bas in his revelation, expressed bis approval.-R. T. ' Vera. 18-25.-National fudgment for national aw. In this latter part of the chapter we have one of those highly elaborate, intense, and suggestive pictures which are peculiar to the books of the prophets. The mighty Assyrian army sweeps over the land; the people flee before them ; they fill every corner; they eat up all the food ; they carry away all the flocks and herds; a man can barely save one cow and two sheep; they consume the fruits; they trample down the shrubs; they bear off the people captive; they leave behind them a wilderness; there is nobody to rent or till the land; the few scattered inhabitants are content to live on the spontaneous product.~, milk and curds and honey; agriculture is entirely stopped, and the wild beasts are again encroaching on the arable and pasture lands. William Jay, of Bath, was accus- tomed to say," God can punish individuals in this life, and in the next; but he can only punish nations, as such, in this life." This may be further illustrated by reference to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, which was a direct national judgment on their sins as a nation, culminating in the judicial murder of their Messiah. The shout had risen, " His blood be on us, and on our children ; " and so it was. We suggest the following points for consecutive illustration : - I. Some sins are distinctively national Snch as the high-handed dealings of modern nations with semi-civilized peoples. II. Some judgments are distinctly national. Such as Isaiah refers to: loss of states- men ; or of male population ; war, etc. III. These are directly related, the one to the other, as are sowing and reaping. IV. They are thus fitted together, as outward and evident illustrations of the relations between sin and punishment, for the individual.-R. T.