SERMON IV.

GOD IN CHRIST.

MATTHEW, xi. 27.

All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

BEFORE I proceed to say any thing of this verse, I will read the two verses that come just before it. "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight." It seems to me, that taking these verses together with what follows in the text, the case now is very much the. same as it was when our Lord spoke these words; it is still in a particular manner to those here called babes," that is, to

persons of simple minds, not having much knowledge, but ready to be taught, that it is revealed in its full extent how all things are delivered to Christ by his Father. To judge by their language on any serious occasion, whether of trouble or of joy, I should imagine that good Christians, amongst the poorer classes, looked up perhaps more directly to Christ as having all power both in heaven and in earth, than is the case with those who may be called "the wise and prudent." With these last, the term "Providence" is more in use: they speak and seem to think of God, rather in a general way, as the Maker of all things, than as he is revealed in the Gospel-in the person of Jesus Christ, as our Saviour as well as our Maker. And the difference is not altogether trifling: for, when we speak of Providence, we may, and often do, get our notions about it from other places than from the Scriptures, because it is a word which others, as well as Christians, have used; but when we speak of Christ, we think of God only as he has himself been pleased to reveal himself; for of Christ we know nothing whatever, but through the teaching of the Spirit of God.

Christ, then, says of himself, that all things are delivered to him of his Father; or, as it is in another place, that all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth; or, as he says again in St. John's Gospel (chap. xvi. 15), "All things that

the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that the Spirit shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." And there are a great many passages more to the same effect. All these things were meant to teach us that Christ was not like one of the prophets merely; who, having served God in their own generation, and done good to men, fell asleep, and were gathered to their fathers like other men, and are only known to after times by the works which they may have done; they themselves are no longer present, but past. And in this manner Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and his various parables and discourses, might still be living amongst us, though Christ himself were dead. But this is not so with him,-not his works only, but he himself also is alive for evermore; his Father worketh hitherto, and he worketh in like manner. He is ascended up far above all heavens, that he may fill all things with his power; and, till he comes again, his people were meant to look to him as their Lord; to come to him in all their distresses, whether of mind, body, or estate; to trust in him with an undoubting faith, that even as he died for them and rose again, so will he guide and guard them through all troubles and difficulties till they fall asleep in him, and their redemption is fulfilled. This is he whom our fathers saw with their eyes, and heard with their ears, and touched with their

hands, whom they saw, and heard, and knew; and whom we, through their testimony, though now we see him not, yet believing, can know and conceive in our minds in like manner; and so rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Yet if we can know him and conceive of him, what mean the words in the text which follow"No man knoweth the Son but the Father?" It seems as if Christ himself contradicted what I have been saying, and declares that we cannot know him. Indeed we can know him, and yet we cannot it seems a strange contradiction to say so, yet it is a contradiction which applies to a great many even of created things; we know them, and we know them not. We know how they act; we have seen, or can image to ourselves, a notion of them, but what they are in their very nature we know not. So it is with the sun in the heavens: we have all felt his warmth, and seen his brightness; we know how he ripens the fruits of the earth, and makes the world such as we can live in; yet what he is in himself, of what made, or how, that we know not, and probably cannot know. And so it is much more with Him by whom the sun was made. His goodness we know, and his power; his love and mercy we have felt; and even of his very person, as it pleased him to become flesh, and to dwell among us, we can readily conceive. But what he is in

himself,—the eternal, the incomprehensible,—that we cannot know; none but the Godhead knows what the Godhead is; none knoweth the Son save the Father, none knoweth the Father save the Son, none knoweth the things of God save the Spirit of God.

The next words in the text seem to contain nothing difficult: "No man knoweth the Father save the Son." We do not imagine that any human being can properly be said to know God. Yet the very next words say that there are some who can know him; for it adds, "and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." So that they can know the Father to whom Christ has pleased to reveal him. And this is the practical part of the whole matter, and the part on which I mean to dwell during the rest of this discourse, after I have just explained what may seem to be a difficulty with regard to the understanding of it. For it seems to say that we can know the Father, if Christ reveals him to us, but that we cannot know Christ at all, "for none," it says, "knoweth the Son save the Father." What is meant, however, is this that of Christ, as far as he was man, we can know very well by our own common understandings; there needs no particular revelation from heaven to make us comprehend him but as far as he is God, we cannot understand him, nor is it revealed to us what the nature of God is. But,