These words, like numerous other passages in the word of God, are far too sublime to be attached to a mere creature; at the same time, they certainly express ideas which cannot be attributed to Deity. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given," is language improper to be applied to Godhead, while the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, are titles too Godlike to belong to humanity. In what light are we to view them, if not as descriptive of the person of the God-man, Christ Jesus? To whom but the Messiah, are we to apply this, and the many expressions of a similar kind, which we find so profusely scattered through the sacred volume? It is to the wonderful person of the Messiah, God united to the man Christ Jesus, that we direct our thoughts, as the glorious object presented to the faith of the patriarchs and ancient Israel of God. To him give all the prophets witness. All the types prefigure him. All the shadows are designed to represent him, the substance. He is exhibited to our view in a variety of characters, relations, and offices; and is not God and man, united in one complex person, clearly revealed in this prophecy? Let us apply it to Jesus:--Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Behold him! a babe at Bethlehem, subject to all the wants, weakness and helplessness connected with a state of infancy and childhood; such was the holy child Jesus. Unto us a son is given, who is acknowledged to be of David's royal line; yet this son of humanity, is also declared to be the only begotten Son of God, a Son who is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person. But this Son is not given as a Saviour to fallen angels, they are passed by, although possessed of faculties and powers, far superior to the sons of earth; "God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." Yes, Christ is the gift of God, and the richest, God could bestow; he parted with the choicest jewel in the treasury of heaven; and God has not such another son to give, even if the redemption of ten thousand worlds required it. How amazing the love that could prompt even God, to deliver up such a son; a son, in whom he declared himself always well pleased; a son whom all the angels of God are commanded to worship; yet he was given up to shame, reproach, and sufferings; yea, his Father became the chief executioner. "It pleased the Father to bruise him, and put him to shame." Well might the prophet exclaim, "Wonder O heaven and be astonished O earth!" Jesus declared that, as the son of man, all power in heaven and earth was given to him; and surely the government ought to be on his shoulders, for who so fit to manage all, as he who is the Wonderful Counsellor; he who, from all eternity, knew the plans and counsels of Jehovah, and with whom he concerted and contrived the creation and redemption of man; and was it not between the Father