the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men."

This hymn, sung perhaps in parts by different bands of these heavenly
choristers consists of three parts; and we now proceed to the
illustration of these.

I.

THAT REDEMPTION YIELDS THE HIGHEST GLORY TO GOD.

I say the highest; for though His _absolute_ glory, like His eternal
being and infinite perfections, admits of no degrees, and is affected
by no circumstances whatever, it is otherwise with His _declarative_
glory, as old theologians called it. This, which I speak of, and which
angels sung of, consists in the manifestation of His attributes.
Whatever it be, though only the drop of water, which appears a world
of wonders to the eyes of a man of science, any work is glorious which
reflects the divine character in any measure, and still more glorious
or glorifying which exhibits it in a greater measure. God's glory
expands and unfolds itself as we rise upward in the study of His
works--from inanimate to living objects; from plants to animals; from
animals to man; from man to angels; from these to archangels, upward
and still upward, to the Being who, bathed in the full blaze of divine
effulgence, tops the pyramid, and stands on the highest pinnacle of
Creation. That Being is God manifest in the flesh, our Lord Jesus
Christ--the redemption which He wrought for us, through blood and
suffering and death, being the work which reveals God most fully to
our eyes, and forming a looking-glass, so to speak, to reflect the
whole measure of divinity. This will appear if we look at--

The Redeemer.--One of His many titles is the _Wonderful_. Anticipating
the royal birth at Bethlehem, and speaking of Christ in terms which no
other key can open but the doctrine of His divinity, Isaiah says,
"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government
shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of
Peace." With pencils of sunlight God paints the rose; by arts of a
divine chemistry He turns foul decay into the snow-white purity and
fragrant odours of a lily; He fashions the infant in the darkness of
the mother's womb; He inspires dead matter with the active principle
of life; in man He unites an ethereal spirit to a lump of
clay--wonders these which have perplexed the wisest men, and remain as
incomprehensible to philosophers as to fools. Yet, as if there was no
mystery