Page:Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.djvu/18

 can be formed of him, because man's mind is finite, and the finite cannot comprehend the infinite. "No man hath seen God at any time," saith the Scripture,—no, neither with the eyes of the body, nor with the eye of the mind. But though we cannot go to him, he could come to us; though we cannot behold him, as he is in his Divine Essence, he could come forth, as it were, and manifest himself in such a form as to be comprehensible to the minds, and even visible to the eyes, of men. And this he has already done. Jesus Christ was "God manifest in the flesh." At his birth it was declared who he was, "Emmanuel, God with us." The Divine Being had put on humanity, that he might present himself to men in a form which they could comprehend with their minds, and even behold with their eyes; in a form, through which he could manifest audibly and visibly his Goodness, Wisdom, and Power in words and deeds; a form, in which he could stand amongst men, speak to them, teach them, pour out his Divine influence upon them, heal their diseases, raise them from the dead, teach them truth, and save them from infernal spirits, the Powers of Darkness.

The humanity, thus assumed, was called the Son of God, as being derived from the essential Divinity—in Scripture language that which is derived being called a son, as that from which a thing is derived is called a father. Yet the Father and the Son were not two Persons, but one,—just as the internal and external of man, or as the soul and body, are one: as the Lord