s
reveal it unto them.

Thus man stands environed with impossibilities. His own weakness and
wickedness, and the law's impossibility by reason of that,--these do shut
up all access to the tree of life, and are instead of a flaming sword to
guard it. Our legs are cut off by sin, and the law cannot help us; nay,
our life is put out, and the law cannot quicken us. It declares our duty,
but gives no ability; it teacheth well, but it cannot make us learn, While
we are in this posture, God himself steps in to succour miserable and
undone man; and here is the way,--he sends his Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, and grace and truth come by him, which do remove those
impediments that stopped all access to life.

This is a high subject, but it concerns the lowest and most wretched
amongst us; and that is indeed the wonder of it, that there should be such
a mystery, such a depth in this work of redemption of poor sinners, so
much business made, and such strange things done for repairing our ruins.
In the consideration of this we may borrow that meditation of the
Psalmist's, Psal. viii. 4, "Lord, what is man, that thou shouldest thus
magnify him; and make him not a little lower than the angels, but far
higher?" "For he took not on him the nature of angels," Heb. ii. 14, 16;
but took part with the poor children of flesh and blood. This deserves a
pause,--we shall stay a little, and view it more fully in the steps and
degrees that this mystery rises and ascends up by. But, oh! for such an
ascending frame of heart as this deserves. It is a wonder it doth not draw
us upward beyond our own element,--it is a subject of such admiration in
itself, and so much concernment to us.

Every word hath a weight in it, and a peculiar emphasis. There is a
gradation that the mystery goes upon till it come to the top. Every word
hath a degree or stop in it, whereby it rises high, and still higher. "God
sent,"--that is very strange; but God sent "his own Son,"--is most strange.
But go on, and it is still stranger,--in the likeness of "flesh," and that
"sinful flesh," &c. In all which degrees you see God is descending and
lower and lower, but the mystery ascends and goes higher and higher; the
lower God coming comes down, the wonder rises up. Still the smaller and
meaner that God appears in the flesh, the greater is the mystery of
godliness, God manifested in the flesh.

If you would rise up to the sensible and profitable understanding of this
my