The truth is, we are not so sensible of this effect of the Incarnation, because we are so familiar with it. We hardly realize how meagre men's notions about God naturally are. Of course, we know by reason the existence of God, and many of His attributes; but without revelation, these are very indistinct. We know that He is great and good and beautiful; but still there is a gulf between us and Him. Partly, no doubt, this arises from our sense of guilt. We fear God, because we have offended Him. But there is a dread of God, and a sense of distance from Him, that does not come from guilt. The most innocent feel it the keenest. I know not why, but we dread Him because He is so spiritual. He is so strange and mysterious. {290} We cannot think what He is like. We lose ourselves when we try to think of Him. There are so many things in the world that frighten us. We do not know how God feels toward us. We have a diffidence in approaching Him which we cannot shake off. Now, all the while, God is full of the most wonderful love to man. Heaven is not enough for Him. Even with the angels, it is a wilderness because man is absent. At last He resolves what He will do. He will lay aside altogether that majesty which affrights man so much. "The distance is too great," He says, "between Me and My creatures. I Myself will become a creature. Man flies from Me. I will become Man. Every thing loves its kind. I will make Myself like him. 'I will draw him with the cords of Adam, with the bands of love.' [Footnote 49] [Footnote 49: Osee xi. 4.] I will tell him how the case stands--that I love him and desire his love. I will tell him to love Me, not for his sake, but Mine; and when I have made him understand this--when I have gained his love; when I have healed his wound and made him happy--then I will come back, and call on all the angels of heaven, and say, 'Rejoice with Me, for I have found the sheep that I had lost.'" Such is the enterprise that our Lord enters on to-day. He comes to tell you how He loves you, and how He desires your love. "Behold, I bring to you glad tidings of great joy, and this shall be the sign to you: you shall find the Infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger." It is a sign of Humanity. It is a sign of Beauty. It is a sign of Humility. It is a sign of Love. He speaks to you, not in words, but in actions. The cold wind whistles in His cavern, but He will not have it otherwise. David said: "_I will not enter into the tabernacle of my home: I will not go up into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, or rest to my temples, until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob_." [Footnote 50] [Footnote 50: Isai. cxxxi. 3-5.] {291}