These lines contain as deep a philosophy as they do good poetry. "All things unto our flesh are kind in their descent and being." As they descend to us they bless our lower nature, but as we follow them in their ascent they bless our minds. And in history are there not changes similar to and commensurate with those which we have seen in nature, and all subordinated to one end? Mighty nations and kingdoms have arisen and passed away, and passed away, we might add, in the greatness of their might. What strange development, as it has well been asked, is it that the power of the world should rise to a great height of glory, and, not able to sustain it, pass away? Because they knew not God--because they were prejudicial to the interests of man. The present state and prospects of the world are but the results of all its past history, of the action and reaction, the strife and ceaseless conflict, which have been going on from the first--the strife and ceaseless conflict between the spirit of man's revolt in all the forms of will-worship and idolatrous power, and the returning spirit of allegiance towards God and His kingdom of life and love. On the one hand, therefore, we have a series of rapid and mighty developments of the very power which destroyed them when at the very height of their glory; on the other hand, we have the continuous and silent growth and expansion of the same ideas--all-conquering ideas and all-conquering beliefs personally embodied from the first in men confessing their allegiance to God.--_Dr. Pulsford._ Ver. 10. _The Humiliation and Exaltation of Christ._ +I. Christ's humiliation.+--Implied in the words, "He that descended." These words bear the same sense with those of Ps. cxxxix. 15, and may be properly taken for Christ's incarnation and conception in the womb of the Virgin.--1. Because other expositions may be shown to be unnatural, forced, or impertinent, and there is no other besides this assignable. 2. Since Paul here uses David's words it is most probable he used them in David's sense. 3. The words descending and ascending are so put together in the text that they seem to intend a summary of Christ's whole transaction in man's redemption, begun in His conception and consummated in His ascension. +II. Christ's glorious advancement and exaltation.+--"He ascended far above all heavens" to the most eminent place in dignity and glory in the highest heaven. +III. The qualification and state of Christ's person in reference to both conditions.+--He was the same, showing the unity of the two natures in the same person.