of the victim the offerer symbolized his own identification with the victim, which was not merely a substitute, but was mystically his very self. The flesh burnt upon the altar is unquestionably the portion of God, symbolizing the surrender of self, to be purified and sublimated by the spiritual force which the fire represents.

These are the common features of all sacrifice. In the Mosaic ritual they were minutely elaborated, and three forms of the offering of blood were distinguished. In the sin-offering, or trespass-offering, the idea of atonement was predominant. In this the Aaronic priesthood had peculiar duties and privileges. The priest, and he alone, could perform a precise and mysterious ritual of the blood, and partake of the flesh. In the whole burnt-offering the idea of pure worship was predominant, the whole of the flesh being surrendered to God through the fire of the altar. In the peace-offering, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, there was added to the ritual of expiation and worship the sacred banquet, in which the offerer and his friends feasted with God in token of reconciliation.

1

"It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." The obvious inadequacy of these sacrifices, which nevertheless were accepted and even commanded by God, showed them to be typical of something which should afterwards be revealed; an atonement which should have a real and sufficient efficacy, a means of access and communion which should in very deed restore man to the presence of God. In this way the Law was, by its very imperfection, a tutor bringing men to Christ. But not the Law only; all

1 Heb. x. 4.

ethnic religion as well, by insisting with whatever obscurity on the principle of sacrifice, bore witness to the need of what he should do, and prepared the way for him who was alike the Hope of Israel and the Desire of the Nations.

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING REDEMPTION

SECT. I.-The Incarnation

"THE Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us." We have already considered the personality of the Eternal Word. This Divine Person, we are taught, became man; that is to say, he took into the unity of his Person our human nature in its completeness, body and soul. He did not take only a human body, to which his Divine nature stood in the relation of soul; for a human body alone is not man. In the language of Scripture, the flesh is the whole composite humanity. The word is used by St. Paul for that which is opposed to the spiritual or godly, when it stands not for the body, which is equally sacred with the soul, but for the corrupt nature that we inherit. "They that are in the flesh," he says, cannot please God." It is the "flesh of sin,” and in the likeness of this flesh God sent his Son.1

It is an obvious truth, and for that very reason, perhaps, not stated in express terms of revelation, that by the act of taking this flesh into union with himself he cleansed it from sin.2 Such is indeed the purpose of the Incarna

1 I Cor. vi. 13-20; Rom. viii. 3, 8.

2 I do not touch the question whether the Flesh which he took of his Mother was already cleansed in her. Such cleansing would only anticipate the effect of the Incarnation.

tion. According to the bold figure of St. Athanasius, man was a portraiture of God graven out of created matter, but obliterated by accumulations of filth. For the restoration of the likeness, he who was the very Image depicted, and for whose sake the dishonoured. material was saved from destruction, came in his own Person.1 The created image of God, as we have seen, is the rational nature of man; the likeness of God was the original righteousness in which man was created. The image, defaced by the obliteration of this likeness, was restored, and more than restored, by the assumption of manhood into the Person of the Eternal Word. Human nature was thus endowed with the unchangeable holiness of God himself, and the Divine purpose in creating man was definitely fulfilled: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. The image was there from the first and was indestructible; the likeness was impressed on man as he came from the hand of his Maker; but notwithstanding this, we have seen reason to suppose that he was created not in his ultimate perfection, but in the way to it, and that his progress was turned aside by the opposition of his own will to the Divine Will. This was remedied, and the ultimate perfection was attained, when the Word was made flesh. The Incarnate Word is therefore called, in his human nature, the second Adam, and that for two reasons. He is the firstborn

Athans., De Incarn. Verbi, c. xiv., Op., tom. i. p. 66: 's γὰρ τῆς γραφείσης ἐν ξύλῳ μορφῆς παραφανισθείσης ἐκ τῶν ἔξωθεν ῥύπων, πάλιν χρεία τοῦτον παραγενέσθαι, οὗ καὶ ἔστιν ἡ μορφὴ, ἵνα ἀνακαινισθῆναι ἡ εἰκὼν δυνηθῇ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ ὕλῃ· διὰ γὰρ τὴν ἐκείνου γραφὴν καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ ὕλη ἐν ᾗ καὶ γέγραπται, οὐκ ἐκβάλλεται, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν αὐτῇ ἀνατυποῦται· κατὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὁ πανάγιος ὐοῦ Πατρὸς Υἱὸς, εἰκὼν ὢν τοῦ Πατρὸς, παρεγένετο ἐπὶ τοὺς ἡμετέρων τόπους, ἵνα τὸν κατ' αὐτὸν πεποιημένον ἄνθρωπον ἀνακαινίσῃ.

of restored and perfected humanity, and he is also the origin of a restored and perfected race; his work is to bring many sons to glory.1

This work of cleansing and restoring human nature is the purpose of the Incarnation. We can speak of this purpose only so far as our knowledge extends. Theologians have debated the question whether, if man had not fallen, the Son of God would nevertheless have become incarnate. It is a question of purely speculative theology. The answer is no part of Christian doctrine. God does not reveal to us what would have been, if things had been other than they are. He reveals that which it concerns us to know, things being as they are. We know indeed that God the Creator has an eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord; that a mystery of Christ, hidden from all ages in God, is now revealed by the gathering in of men as fellow-members of his Body, and fellowpartakers of the promise in him. That is to say, we are forbidden to think of the work of Christ as an afterthought of mercy consequent upon the Fall, even if such a conception were not contradictory to the Divine attributes. But nothing is revealed as to the manner in which this work would have been done, if sin had not been. Revelation is of realities; and the fallen state of man being his actual state, the Incarnation of the Son of God is revealed as relative to that state. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. The religion of Jesus Christ appeals to the heart by the revelation of God's good will toward us, even in our rebellion: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life."

1 Heb. ii. 10. 2 Eph. iii. 4-11; Luke xix. 10; John iii. 16.