ers is dumb, fo he opened not his mouth, to oppofe the humbling treatment he was exposed to. Man fell off from God by his ambition, and therefore was Chrift humbled, that he might be recovered again from his mifery to the favour of God, and allegiance to him.

In difcourfing further from this fubject, I fall confider the feveral parts of our Lord's humiliation, as they are laid down in the catechism, viz. "his being born, "and that in a low condition, made under the law, "undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God; and the curfed death of the crofs; his being "buried, and continuing under the power of death "for a time." What a catalogue of humiliating circumftances is here, to which the Son of God was fubjected from the cradle to the grave! the confideration of all which fhould excite us to hate fin, the fatal caufe of all, and to endear to us the merciful Redeemer, who for our fake went through all this scene to accomplish our falvation.

FIRST, The Son of God was born, and that in a low condition. Here is a wide step at firft, a step from heaven to earth; which is a myftery of infinite condefcenfion. Take this article in pieces, and behold humiliation in every point. The Son of God was humbled in his incarnation, his conception, his birth, and the circumftances attending it.

1. The Son of God became man. To fee a king become a flave, and the order of angels degraded into crawling worms, would be matter of wonder; but a greater is here, viz. God not become an angel, though that would have been infinitely below him, but a man, a fon of Adam, taking the likeness of finful flesh. Hence the apoftle cries out with admiration, 1 Tim. iii. 16. Great is the mystery of godliness, God we manifeft in the flesh. O deep humiliation! far greater than if all the creatures had been degraded to the lowest degree of existence.

2. He was conceived in the womb of a finful woman, the virgin Mary, who, as a daughter of Adam, was

certainly infected with original fin as well as the reft of his pofterity. O the depth of the Son of God's humiliation! It would have been low, had the great God, the Creator of heaven and earth, purposing to become man, been created as Adam, as it were at once, and in a perfect ftate of manhood. But to be conceived in the womb of a woman, was yet lower. He whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain as God, is as man fhut up for the ordinary number of months in the womb of a woman, whom he himself had made. His body was formed not of any substance fent down from heaven, but of hers, a creature; Gal. iv. 4. He was made of a woman; that is, his body was formed of a part of her fubftance, being of the feed of David, and of the tribe of Judah. He was born of a finful creature, and yet without fin; the Holy Ghoft having purified it from all defilement, as God alone can bring a clean thing out of an unclean, though man cannot.

13. He was born of a woman. Had there been no more about him but that he had been born of an emprefs, a fovereign princefs, who made a great figure in the world, it would have been very wonderful: but that he was born of any woman at all, be her rank in life what it will, may well ftrike us with amazement. Ifhall fay no more of this, but that our birth is such as the due confideration of it might humble us all our life; and yet to it Christ humbled himself. O the depth of his humiliation!

4. He was born in a low condition. There were feveral circunftances of the loweft abafement about the birth of Chrift. He was not born of a great princefs, feated on a fplendid throne, and attended with a briant court, but a mean woman, though of the feed-oyal of David, and married not to a mighty potentate, but a poor mechanic, a carpenter, Luke i. 48.; and that not in her own houfe, but in that of another; not in the inn, the great houfe where the richer and more noble company chose their lodging,

there being no room there for him who was born King of the Jews, yea who is the Prince of the kings of the earth, but in a stable among cattle; and when born, not clothed with embroidered or coftly garments, as the children of kings ufe to be, but fwaddled in tattered cloaths, rent pieces of a garment, as the original word fignifies; and laid not in a fervant's bed in the ftable, but in a manger, out of which the cattle eat their provender, inttead of a cradle, Luke ii. 7. A far lower ftate of humiliation than moft of the fons and daughters of Adam are reduced to. Well may we cry out with aftonishment, How low, O Son of God, waft thou humbled in every circumftance relating to thy conception and birth! O that we might ftudy humility from thy low abafement!

SECONDLY, Our Redeemer was made under the law, though he be Lord of all, and the Lawgiver unto his rational creatures. Rebellious man had thaken off the yoke of obedience, and Christ therefore lays his neck under it. He fubmitted himself to the ceremonial law, undergoing the painful operation of circumcifion on the eighth day after his birth, as was therein enjoined; to the civil law, paying tribute, &c.; and to the moral law, obeying the precepts thereof, and fuffering the penal fanction of it, which was added in cafe of tranf greffion by man, in whofe room he fubftituted himself.

1. He fubmitted to the preceptive part of the law as a covenant of works, which man had broken: and this he fulfilled, fo that he was even fubject to Jofeph his fuppofed father, and to Mary his mother according to the flesh, Luke ii. 51. nay to every branch of it, in fulfilling all righteoufnefs, Matth. iii. 15. By this his obedience the law was magnified and made honourable, and got its full due in refpect of active obedience, which it could never have got from men, though all their pieces of obedience had been accumulated into one fum.

2. He fubmitted to the threatening or penal fanction of the law. Though there was no guile found in

his mouth, and he owed the law nothing, as being the great Lawgiver, yet the law took him by the throat, as the undertaker for finners, faying, Pay me what thou oweft. The threatening was enacted, and he anfwered it to a tittle, bearing that death in his foul and body which it had threatened on account of fin. And thus he took on the debt of elect finners, and he paid it to the utmost farthing: O wonderful condefcenfion in the Lord and Lawgiver to yield obedience to his own law, that was made for creatures, in all its demands, the most rigorous not excepted! O bleffed Undertaker, who haft paid all the debt of bankrupt men!

THIRDLY, He underwent the miseries of this life, which was infected with the plague of fin, and thereby rendered very grievous to bear; and yet he, tho' finless, humbled himself to bear the tokens thereof. As,

1. Poverty: Though the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nefts, yet he, the Son of man, had not where to lay his head. Adam had reduced all his pofterity to beggary, and Chrift fubmitted to the poverty following it; not having wherewith to maintain himself, but receiving fupplies from fome women who miniftered to him of their fubftance. He was fo poor that he had not wherewith to pay the tribute exacted of him, till he wrought a miracle for it. In his greatest state, and when attended with the grandest cavalcade, he was mounted not on a horse finely caparifoned, but on a filly ass, and that none of his own, but borrowed from another.

2. Sorrow, If. liii. 3. He was a man of forrows, and acquainted with grief. There was a conftant cloud of forrow on him. Once we read of his rejoicing in fpirit, but never of his laughing; frequently of his complaints, tears, and groans. He was content to forrow for us, that we might rejoice, and to weep that we might be glad.

3. The indiguities of the world, in the contempt,

reproach, and despite poured upon him. He was defpifed and rejected of men. Hence he fays of himself in this refpect, Pfal. xxii. 6. I am a worm, and no man: a reproach of men, and defpifed of the people. He was contradicted of finners, called Beelzebub, a madman, a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and finners, &c. 4. The temptations of Satan, He was tempted of the devil forty days in the wilderness, and elsewhere; pay tempted to felf-murder, and to the worship of that damned spirit, to whom is referved the blackness of darkness for ever. And Satan feems to have often fet upon him, though the particular times are not mentioned in the facred records; as appears from Luke iv. 13. where it is faid, that the devil departed from him after his grand temptation) for a feafon; denoting that he would attack him again.

5. Laftly, The finlefs infirmities of human nature, He was fubjected to weariness, hunger, thirft, &c. as the hiftory of his life in the evangelifts abundantly declares. Thus low was the Son of God humbled on account of finners, that they might not perish for ever, O let us admire his humiliation and abafement, and let his low eftate for ever hide pride from our eyes, and teach us, in whatever state we are, therewith to be

content.

FOURTHLY, He underwent the wrath of God. Thus he humbled himself to drink the bitter dregs of the Father's wrath for us. The curfe of the law was laid upon him, and he bore it for us, Gal. iii. 13. His foul was troubled, John xii, 27. He was befet with forrows of the deepeft fort, when he faid, My foul is exceeding forrowful, even unto death, Matth. xxvi. 38. He was in an agony, fo as it made him fweat great drops of blood that trickled from his blessed body in a cold night in the open air. Whence was all this but from the load of his Father's wrath that lay on him, on account of all the fins of his elect people imputed to him? a load, which, if laid on all the angels in heaven and men on carth, would have