transition into an endless eternity: Ah! how do they despond! how fainthearted are they then! Men, indeed, profess, with their mouths, that they love God; but why are they so afraid of him? Are we able of ourselves to love and trust in God? No! we cannot love and trust in God, without Christ and his grace operating in our hearts. God condescends to us; but if he did not do so, and we had to appear before the glorious countenance of God, with such fearful hearts, desponding minds, and timid souls, how utterly abashed and confounded we should feel!

Fear manifested itself in man as soon as he was fallen. For no sooner had our first parents sinned, than they hid themselves in the garden, at the voice of God. When Cain had sinned, he thought every one would lay hold of him. Nay, even the pious themselves, if they are not established in faith and in fellowship with God, often evidence despondency enough. For when the holy angels appeared in heavenly glory to the shepherds in the field, they were obliged to encourage them; "Fear not," said they, "we publish great joy unto you." Now, if an angelic form, if angelic radiance is able to cast a person to the ground-how much more the glory of the Majesty of God!

But I say that God has most deeply condescended towards us. God comes to us in human nature; he comes to us as a child, that we may take courage and feel love towards him; that we may not despond, but let ourselves be aided and healed by his assumed sacred humanity. God might have come to us in his

glory; he might have come to us in the very brightest radiance of his purity and holiness; God might have come to us with the sword, and with the scales of his justice; what would then have become of us, and what would have become of us without Christ, my dear friends! But God comes to us as a poor child; God became a child; he comes entirely unarmed; he comes clothed with our poor, weak, human nature; he comes in the most gracious, the most innocent form; solely that we should not be afraid; solely that we might hear what he had to say to us, and what he had to operate in our hearts. For to this end does our dear Saviour present himself to us, in his assumed humanity, at this season, as a child, to show that he will associate with us in a child-like manner; he presents himself to us as a child, that we may not run away from him; and he is willing to effect all his works in our hearts in a child-like and supportable manner, in order that he may again raise us up from all our sorrow and wretchedness, and that we may be again brought into fellowship with him.

"Unto us a child is born." Ah, unto whom is it born? To us-unto us, this child is born. It is true, this is, in the first instance, preached unto us, who are believers and pardoned souls. It was said to the shepherds in the field, "to you is the Saviour born." To the rest, who were living securely at Jerusalem in their sins; to Herod with his whole stately court; to the Pharisees and Scribes, with their mere literal knowledge of the Scriptures; to the rest of the Jews, who built solely upon their temple, their rites

and ceremonies ? To such characters it was not first announced; Ah! they had no need of Jesus; they had something very different to occupy them. An infant! O this was to them much too mean an affair! It was first announced to shepherds, to hungry souls; yet still, it was said to the shepherds at the same time, that this joy should be unto all people. God, in his impartial love to man, excludes no one, who does not, by impenitence and unbelief, exclude himself.

Now, sinners ought reasonably to take this to heart. "Unto us a child is born." O sinner! approach this child; thou mayest now find grace. God will not go to work with thee, as a judge; he will not deal with thee as a holy God; but in his artless, unarmed, poor, and lowly childhood will he offer thee his grace. O come, therefore, all ye poor sinners! not only those who are so outwardly, but also, in particular, ye who are become poor and humbled sinners, and who would gladly come, but are still like timid children, and think in your timidity and fearfulness that ye dare not come.

Observe, my dearest friends! it is a child, which is presented to you, as the object of your faith. Draw near, therefore, to this child. You need not make yourselves pious and holy. Draw near to him, as he draws near to you. Methinks I see the divine child, lying in the manger, with his friendly, gracious, and smiling countenance, with his weeping little eyes, with his kindly moving lips, with his stretched out hands, with his most artless childlikeness, beckoning

to us poor sinners, and timid children, who gladly would, yet dare not, that he may constrain us to come to him, and as though he were saying, "If thou wilt but come, I will receive thee; come and bow thyself before my couch, I will not deal harshly with thee; I will forgive thee every thing, thou mayest treat with me in a child-like manner; and thou shalt find grace, but only on condition, that thou humblest thyself, confessest thy transgression, and receivest me as the sole object of thy choice." "Unto us a child is born." We must not think, 'Ah, my sins keep me back, my sins are too great! I dare not come; the child Jesus has no reference to me; the son of God is in the child; I dare not take such a step!'

Now, O soul, ruminate upon these words, "Unto us a child is born," still more intently. Hast thou heard them? "Unto us a child is born." This child did not come straight from heaven, and laid itself in the manger of Bethlehem; no, the child was really born, and God has really assumed our nature in this child; "the word was made flesh" in this child. God has condescended, in an incomprehensible manner, to our degraded humanity; he was born in our human nature. By this birth, he entered into our human family (if I may so speak), he has become, by this birth, our near relative; he is become our brother. O this is a word, to which we may well add a Selah! and it requires a whole eternity to adore and venerate this greatest of all wonders, that the only Son of God, by his incarnation, has descended into our humanity, has become our brother,

has wholly and entirely taken upon himself our misery, and brings with him into our human family, all his heavenly riches: so that now, the very poorest sinners may find, possess, and enjoy, in Christ Jesus, all that they need, to rejoice their hearts, both in time and eternity.

Christ, by his birth, has become our brother. Let us in connection with this, remember the law, which God gave (Lev. xxv.), to the effect, that when any one amongst the Jews became poor, so that he was obliged to sell his property, house, land, and all that he had, and thus was entirely impoverished: his next relative was obliged to ransom him; and such a redeemer, who was called a Goel, was obliged to redeem him from all his debts, and cause all his property to remain in the family. Job speaks of such a man in the xix. chapter of his book, 25 verse. "I know that my Redeemer liveth," my Goel liveth, and therefore, although I am a poor man, and although I am grievously oppressed with debts, yet I have a Redeemer, he will redeem me.

Now see, my friend! thou who sayest thy sins are too great; yes, my sins and thine require such a man, such a Redeemer; otherwise nothing would ever have availed us. If a man had come to redeem us, what would that have done for us? None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him; for the redemption of his soul is too precious. (Psalm xlix. 7, 8.)' 'Though all the treasures of kings and emperors were offered, all would not avail to redeem a single soul. An empe

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