1. In the first place, what is the foundation of all our blessedness and all our hope, as the redeemed and adopted children of God; as brought from a state of enmity and rebellion, into favour with Him; as having any claim upon His mercy; any prospect of recovering our lost happiness, of saving our souls alive? What, I say, is the foundation on which we expect these marvellous acts of grace? It is, that the everlasting Son of God left “the glory which he had with the Father before the world was,” {26a} and “took upon Him the form of a servant,” {26b} the nature of man: it is, that the “Word, who in the beginning was with God and was God,” “was made flesh” and came and “dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” {26c} Here then, in the very outset, is unsearchable mercy; the immensity of the divine Redeemer’s condescension and love! Who can search, who can understand it? “It is higher than heaven, what canst thou know” of it? Admire thou mayest, and adore and love; but it is beyond the stretch of thy created powers to conceive, beyond the capacity of any creature. The great truth is revealed and the work is accomplished; and here thou must leave it, in humble faith and overwhelming emotion. 2. We may consider, in the next place, the preciousness, the value, the efficacy of the incarnation and sufferings of our Redeemer. All the attributes of the Godhead are perfect and infinite; His holiness and justice, as well as His mercy. Man, by transgression, fell into a state of unholiness; his nature became corrupt; his understanding debased, his affections and passions and desires all sinful; as such he could not possibly be accepted or blest by the infinitely holy God, by Him “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity:” he became, to borrow the language of men, vile and hateful in God’s sight; he resembled Satan and the wicked spirits, who fell, for their transgression, from the heavens. And so, with regard to justice; the infinitely just God could not, without some means of atonement or satisfaction, shew favour to a disobedient, offending, rebellious creature; it was contrary to His essential character and nature so to do: nor can we form any true idea of the value of that sacrifice, on the part of another, which could be held sufficient to reconcile the great Jehovah to a creature “laden with iniquity:” the displeasure being infinite, the distance and separation between God and His creatures infinite, the sacrifice must be infinite also, and exceeding the bounds of our comprehension. And yet, strange to say, though the means of the sinner’s re-admission, to the favour and blessing of a holy and just God, must of necessity be beyond our powers of conception, there are persons, who object to the Christian doctrine of the atonement, solely on the ground of its being incomprehensible. But we, my brethren, “have not so learned Christ;” we are ready to bow with thankfulness to the revelation of the great Jehovah, by whose