SERMON I. BEHOLD HOW HE LOVED HIM. JOHN XI. 36. THEN SAID THE JEWS, BEHOLD HOW HE LOVED HIM. We cannot draw the line between those parts of our Saviour's conduct nor among those feelings which proceeded, respectively, from his divine and human natures. It is not intended that we should do so. The Saviour's own manner of speaking concerning himself is a safe and sufficient guide in speaking of him. Without explanation or hesitation he says things of himself which can be true of only one of his natures. "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" "No man hath ascended into heaven but he which came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven." "Before Abraham was, I am." "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." The Bible leads us to think and speak of him at the same moment as (7) creating the world, laid in a manger; upholding all things by the word of his power, and a man of sorrows; every where present and searching the heart, disappointed under a barren fig tree, ignorant of certain times; tempted of the devil, yet terrifying a legion of devils by his approach; on a cross and on a great white throne, the Resurrection and the Life, yet dying between two thieves; sent a prisoner from Pilate to Herod and from Herod to Pilate, then sitting with the whole human race at his tribunal. We no more feel that there is inconsistency in these several representations than in singing at the same hour of public worship a psalm respecting the vanity of man as mortal, and dying Galileo's exulting apostrophe and farewell to the "golden lamps of heaven." It is the perfectness of just conceptions and feelings respecting Christ to think and speak of him thus promiscuously as God and man, without misgiving; to address him in a way which is really inconsistent with one of his natures; at Bethlehem to join with angels adoring him in his slumber, and then, with saints and angels in heaven proceeding to his feet with their crowns, to say, "Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain." If we do not thus regard Christ, we shall be tried with cold, speculative efforts to fix the right proportion between the divine and human in his feelings and actions; and thus he will be to us a difficult and repul |