And we must remember that man's love, like his will, is _free_. Compulsory love is in the nature of things impossible. A man can only love, what he can if he chooses hate. Therefore God cannot force man to love Him, He can only induce him; and how can He do this better than by an Incarnation? For it would show, as nothing else could show, that God's love is a self-sacrificing love; and this is the highest form of love. Indeed, if it were not so, in other words, if God's love cost Him nothing, it would be _inferior_ in this respect to that of many men. But if, on the other hand, God's love involved self-sacrifice;--if it led to Calvary--then it is the highest possible form of love. And then we see that God's attributes are all, so to speak, on the same scale; and His Goodness is as far above any human goodness, as the Power which rules the universe is above any human power; or the Wisdom which designed all nature is above any human wisdom. Hence, if the Incarnation still seems inconceivable, may it not be simply because the love of God, like His other attributes, is so inconceivably greater than anything we can imagine? Moreover a self-sacrificing love is the form, which is most likely to lead to its being returned. And experience proves that this has actually been the case. The condescending love of Christ in His life, and still more in His death, forms an overpowering motive which, when once realised, has always been irresistible. But more than this. Not only does the Incarnation afford the strongest possible motive for man to love God, but it _enables_ him to do so in a way which nothing else could. Man, it is true, often longs for some means of intercourse, or communion with his Maker, yet this seems impossible. The gulf which separates the Creator from the creature is infinite, and can never be bridged over by man, or even by an angel, or other intermediate being. For a bridge must of necessity touch _both sides_; so if the gulf is to be bridged at all, it can only be by One Who is at the same time both God and Man. Thus the Incarnation brings God, if we may use the expression, within man's reach, so that the latter has no mere abstract and invisible Being to love, but a definite Person, Whose Character he can appreciate, and Whose conduct he can to some extent follow. In short, the Incarnation provides man with a worthy Being for his love and devotion, yet with a Being Whom he can partly at least understand and partly imitate. And he is thus able to become in a still truer sense a _child of God_; or, as it is commonly expressed, God became Man in order that man might become as far as possible, like God.