Page:God Manifest.djvu/222

212 more able to appreciate the true nature of genuine goodness, more able to understand the Divine character. Consequently, more of that character is now revealed to them: that Divine character, that Divine goodness, was indeed always the same,—in the days of Moses, as in the time of Jesus. But, under the Old Covenant, when dealing with a hard and "stiff-necked generation," the Divine was obliged to cloak His smiles with seeming frowns,—to clothe a Father's true and ever burning love in words of sternness and apparent harshness,—in order to drive, as it were, a rebellious people into that course which He saw was for their own good. But now, in a better day, and speaking to a more willing and more spiritual age, when making His New Covenant, He could speak more plainly, and show forth His true character, and declare His Divine and perfect and changeless love.

Such, then, was the testimony borne by Jesus to the goodness of the Divine Father of all. Yet, in so testifying. He was, in truth, but setting forth His own love and goodness; for were not He and the Father one? "The Father," he said, "dwelleth in Me;" "I and the Father are one." The special view that we should keep before our minds, in contemplating Jesus, is, that He was "God manifest in the flesh," God appearing to man, in the only way in which He ever did or can appear; as Jesus Himself affirmed. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (or as it might with more correctness be rendered, "hath manifested Him," or "shown Him forth"). Our precious privilege as Christians, is, that