On the Incarnation of the Word.

 On the Incarnation of the Word.

 §2. Erroneous views of Creation rejected. (1) Epicurean (fortuitous generation). But diversity of bodies and parts argues a creating intellect. (2.) P

 §3. The true doctrine. Creation out of nothing, of God’s lavish bounty of being. Man created above the rest, but incapable of independent perseverance

 §4. Our creation and God’s Incarnation most intimately connected. As by the Word man was called from non-existence into being, and further received th

 §5. For God has not only made us out of nothing but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having r

 §6. The human race then was wasting, God’s image was being effaced, and His work ruined. Either, then, God must forego His spoken word by which man ha

 §7. On the other hand there was the consistency of God’s nature, not to be sacrificed for our profit. Were men, then, to be called upon to repent? But

 §8. The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always present and saw all these evils. He takes a body of our Nature, and that of a spot

 §9. The Word, since death alone could stay the plague, took a mortal body which, united with Him, should avail for all, and by partaking of His immort

 § 10. By a like simile, the reasonableness of the work of redemption is shewn. How Christ wiped away our ruin, and provided its antidote by His own te

 §11. Second reason for the Incarnation. God, knowing that man was not by nature sufficient to know Him, gave him, in order that he might have some pro

 §12. For though man was created in grace, God, foreseeing his forgetfulness, provided also the works of creation to remind man of him. Yet further, He

 § 13. Here again, was God to keep silence? to allow to false gods the worship He made us to render to Himself? A king whose subjects had revolted woul

 §14. A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original. Thus the Son of the Father came to seek, save, and regenerate. No other way was possi

 §15. Thus the Word condescended to man’s engrossment in corporeal things, by even taking a body. All man’s superstitions He met halfway whether men w

 §16. He came then to attract man’s sense-bound attention to Himself as man, and so to lead him on to know Him as God.

 §17. How the Incarnation did not limit the ubiquity of the Word, nor diminish His Purity. (Simile of the Sun.)

 § 18. How the Word and Power of God works in His human actions: by casting out devils, by Miracles, by His Birth of the Virgin.

 §19. Man, unmoved by nature, was to be taught to know God by that sacred Manhood, Whose deity all nature confessed, especially in His Death.

 §20. None, then, could bestow incorruption, but He Who had made, none restore the likeness of God, save His Own Image, none quicken, but the Life, non

 §21. Death brought to nought by the death of Christ. Why then did not Christ die privately, or in a more honourable way? He was not subject to natural

 §22. But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews, and so guard its immortality? (1) It became Him not to inflict death on Himself, and yet not

 §23. Necessity of a public death for the doctrine of the Resurrection.

 §24. Further objections anticipated. He did not choose His manner of death for He was to prove Conqueror of death in all or any of its forms: (simile

 §25. Why the Cross, of all deaths? (1) He had to bear the curse for us. (2) On it He held out His hands to unite all, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself. (

 §26. Reasons for His rising on the Third Day. (1) Not sooner for else His real death would be denied, nor (2) later to (a) guard the identity of His

 §27. The change wrought by the Cross in the relation of Death to Man.

 §28. This exceptional fact must be tested by experience. Let those who doubt it become Christians.

 §29. Here then are wonderful effects, and a sufficient cause, the Cross, to account for them, as sunrise accounts for daylight.

 §30. The reality of the resurrection proved by facts: (1) the victory over death described above: (2) the Wonders of Grace are the work of One Living,

 §31. If Power is the sign of life, what do we learn from the impotence of idols, for good or evil, and the constraining power of Christ and of the Sig

 §32. But who is to see Him risen, so as to believe? Nay, God is ever invisible and known by His works only: and here the works cry out in proof. If yo

 §33. Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks. The former confounded by their own Scriptures. Prophecies of His coming as God and as Man.

 §34. Prophecies of His passion and death in all its circumstances.

 §35. Prophecies of the Cross. How these prophecies are satisfied in Christ alone.

 §36. Prophecies of Christ’s sovereignty, flight into Egypt, &c.

 §37. Psalm xxii. 16 , &c. Majesty of His birth and death. Confusion of oracles and demons in Egypt.

 §38. Other clear prophecies of the coming of God in the flesh. Christ’s miracles unprecedented.

 §39. Do you look for another? But Daniel foretells the exact time. Objections to this removed.

 §40. Argument (1) from the withdrawal of prophecy and destruction of Jerusalem, (2) from the conversion of the Gentiles, and that to the God of Moses.

 §41. Answer to the Greeks. Do they recognise the Logos? If He manifests Himself in the organism of the Universe, why not in one Body? for a human body

 §42. His union with the body is based upon His relation to Creation as a whole. He used a human body, since to man it was that He wished to reveal Him

 §43. He came in human rather than in any nobler form, because (I) He came to save, not to impress (2) man alone of creatures had sinned. As men woul

 §44. As God made man by a word, why not restore him by a word? But (1) creation out of nothing is different from reparation of what already exists. (2

 §45. Thus once again every part of creation manifests the glory of God. Nature, the witness to her Creator, yields (by miracles) a second testimony to

 §46. Discredit, from the date of the Incarnation, of idol-cultus, oracles, mythologies, demoniacal energy, magic, and Gentile philosophy. And whereas

 §47. The numerous oracles,—fancied apparitions in sacred places, &c., dispelled by the sign of the Cross. The old gods prove to have been mere men. Ma

 §48. Further facts. Christian continence of virgins and ascetics. Martyrs. The power of the Cross against demons and magic. Christ by His Power shews

 §49. His Birth and Miracles. You call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus gods for their works. Contrast their works with His, and the wonders at His de

 §50. Impotence and rivalries of the Sophists put to shame by the Death of Christ. His Resurrection unparalleled even in Greek legend.

 §51. The new virtue of continence. Revolution of Society, purified and pacified by Christianity.

 §52. Wars, &c., roused by demons, lulled by Christianity.

 §53. The whole fabric of Gentilism levelled at a blow by Christ secretly addressing the conscience of Man.

 §54. The Word Incarnate, as is the case with the Invisible God, is known to us by His works. By them we recognise His deifying mission. Let us be cont

 §55. Summary of foregoing. Cessation of pagan oracles, &c.: propagation of the faith. The true King has come forth and silenced all usurpers.

 §56. Search then, the Scriptures, if you can, and so fill up this sketch. Learn to look for the Second Advent and Judgment.

 §57. Above all, so live that you may have the right to eat of this tree of knowledge and life, and so come to eternal joys. Doxology.

§39. Do you look for another? But Daniel foretells the exact time. Objections to this removed.

But perhaps, being unable, even they, to fight continually against plain facts, they will, without denying what is written, maintain that they are looking for these things, and that the Word of God is not yet come. For this it is on which they are for ever harping, not blushing to brazen it out in the face of plain facts. 2. But on this one point, above all, they shall be all the more refuted, not at our hands, but at those of the most wise Daniel, who marks both the actual date, and the divine sojourn of the Saviour, saying: “Seventy112    Dan. ix. 24, sq. weeks are cut short upon thy people, and upon the holy city, for a full end to be made of sin, and for sins to be sealed up, and to blot out iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities, and to bring everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint a Holy of Holies; and thou shalt know and understand from the going forth of the word to restore113    Lit. “answer,” a misrendering of the Hebrew. and to build Jerusalem unto Christ the Prince” 3. Perhaps with regard to the other (prophecies) they may be able even to find excuses and to put off what is written to a future time. But what can they say to this, or can they face it at all? Where not only is the Christ referred to, but He that is to be anointed is declared to be not man simply, but Holy of Holies; and Jerusalem is to stand till His coming, and thenceforth, prophet and vision cease in Israel. 4. David was anointed of old, and Solomon and Ezechias; but then, nevertheless, Jerusalem and the place stood, and prophets were prophesying: God and Asaph and Nathan; and, later, Esaias and Osee and Amos and others. And again, the actual men that were anointed were called holy, and not Holy of Holies. 5. But if they shield themselves with the captivity, and say that because of it Jerusalem was not, what can they say about the prophets too? For in fact when first the people went down to Babylon, Daniel and Jeremy were there, and Ezechiel and Aggæus and Zachary were prophesying.

Ἀλλ' ἴσως καὶ αὐτοὶ μὴ δυνάμενοι πρὸς τὰ φανερὰ διαμάχεσθαι, οὐκ ἀρνήσονται μὲν τὰ γεγραμμένα, προσδοκᾶν δὲ ταῦτα καὶ μηδέπω παραγεγενῆσθαι τὸν Θεὸν Λόγον διαβεβαιώσονται. Τοῦτο γὰρ ἄνω καὶ κάτω θρυλλοῦντες, οὐκ ἐρυθριῶσιν ἀναιδευόμενοι πρὸς τὰ φαινόμενα. Ἀλλὰ περὶ τούτου καὶ πρὸ πάντων μᾶλλον ἐλεγχθήσονται, οὐ παρ' ἡμῶν, ἀλλὰ παρὰ τοῦ σοφωτάτου ∆ανιὴλ σημαίνοντος καὶ τὸν παρόντα καιρόν, καὶ τὴν θείαν τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἐπιδημίαν, λέγοντος· “Ἑβδομήκοντα ἑβδομάδες συνετμήθησαν ἐπὶ τὸν λαόν σου, καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἁγίαν, τοῦ συντελεσθῆναι ἁμαρτίαν, καὶ τοῦ σφραγισθῆναι ἁμαρτίας, καὶ ἀπαλεῖψαι τὰς ἀδικίας, καὶ τοῦ ἐξιλάσασθαι τὰς ἀδικίας, καὶ τοῦ ἀγαγεῖν δικαιο σύνην αἰώνιον, καὶ τοῦ σφραγίσαι ὅρασιν καὶ προφήτην, καὶ τοῦ χρίσαι ἅγιον ἁγίων· καὶ γνώσῃ καὶ συνήσεις ἀπὸ ἐξόδου λόγου τοῦ ἀποκριθῆναι, καὶ τοῦ οἰκοδομῆσαι Ἰερουσαλήμ, ἕως Χριστοῦ ἡγουμένου.” Ἴσως ἐπὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις κἂν προφάσεις εὑρίσκειν δύνανται, καὶ εἰς μέλλοντα χρόνον ἀναβάλλεσθαι τὰ γεγραμμένα. Τί δὲ πρὸς ταῦτα λέγειν ἢ ὅλως ἀντωπῆσαι δύνανται; ὅπουγε καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς σημαίνεται, καὶ ὁ χριόμενος οὐκ ἄνθρωπος ἁπλῶς ἀλλ' Ἅγιος ἁγίων εἶναι καταγγέλλεται, καὶ ἕως τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ Ἰερουσαλὴμ συνίσταται, καὶ λοιπὸν παύεται προφήτης καὶ ὅρασις ἐν τῷ Ἰσραήλ. Ἐχρίσθη πάλαι ∆αβίδ, καὶ Σολομών, καὶ Ἐζεκίας, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάλιν Ἰερουσαλὴμ καὶ ὁ τόπος συνειστήκει, καὶ προφῆται προεφήτευον, Γάδ, καὶ Ἀσάφ, καὶ Νάθαν, καὶ μετ' αὐτοὺς Ἡσαΐας, καὶ Ὠσῆε, καὶ Ἀμώς, καὶ ἄλλοι. Ἔπειτα καιαὐτοὶ οἱ χρισθέντες ἄνθρωποι ἅγιοι ἐκλήθησαν, καὶ οὐχ ἅγιοι ἁγίων. Ἀλλ' ἐὰν τὴν αἰχμαλωσίαν προβάλλωνται, καὶ δι' αὐτὴν μὴ εἶναι λέγωσι τὴν Ἰερουσαλήμ, τί καὶ περὶ τῶν προφητῶν ἂν εἴποιεν; καὶ γὰρ πάλαι καταβαίνοντος τοῦ λαοῦ εἰς Βαβυλῶνα, ἦσαν ἐκεῖ ∆ανιὴλ καὶ Ἱερεμίας· προεφήτευον δὲ Ἰεζεκιὴλ καὶ Ἀγγαῖος καὶ Ζαχαρίας.