In no other way can the mystery be apprehended as real. Make Christ either a common man, sharing humanity with Moses, David, Peter and Paul, or in lieu of this a man wholly on the outside of this humanity as it belongs to others; and in both cases the conception of his Mediatorial character is gone, lost in Ebionitism on the one side or lost in fantastic Gnosticism on the other. The person of Christ, as Mediator, is of universal human significance and force. So the Scriptures teach when they call him the Second Adam; a title plainly implying that he is to be regarded in some way as the root of the race, in a deeper sense even than this can be affirmed of the First Adam. It is accordingly a vast mistake, contradicting alike the letter and the spirit of the Gospel, and leading to consequences of enormous mischief, when the Christian Salvation is taken to be in its primary purpose and plan for a part of the race only, a certain number of individuals as such, and not for Humanity as a whole. It must terminate on individuals indeed, and this involves an election of grace;" but like all Life, it is universal before it becomes thus particular and single, and the single christian is saved only by receiving it into himself under this character. To conceive of Christ's redemption as having regard, either to all men numerically and outwardly considered, according to the Pelagian theory, or to a given number only in the same outward view, according to at least one kind of Calvinism, involves in the end the same error; this namely, that Christ did not really assume our human nature at all, in his Mediatorial life, but only stood on the outside of it, and wrought a work beyond it, in the semblance of our common manhood, for the benefit of such as are brought individually and separately to avail themselves of his grace. This is to make Christ a mere instrument or means, for the accomplishment of an end which is supposed to have its existence and necessity under a wholly different form; than which it is hard to conceive of anything more derogatory to the true dignity of his person. Gloriously above all this is the form under which he appears in the Gospel. He is himself there the Salvation of the world, not simply as a true mediation between heaven and earth is reached in his own life separately considered, but as this life also, on its human side, is found to be the comprehension in truth of Man's life as a whole, the actual lifting up of our fallen nature from the ruins of the fall, and its full investiture with all the glory and honor for which it was originally formed. Humanity, as a single universal fact, is redeemed in Christ, truly and really, without regard to other men, any farther than as they are made to partake of this redemption by being brought into living union with his person.

Archdeacon Wilberforce puts himself to some trouble, to show that there is such a thing as human nature objectively considered, in distinction from the mere thought or notion of a certain multitude of men regarded as having a common character.

"The objection brought against the actual existence of human nature is, that being only an abstraction formed by ourselves from a variety of examples, there can be no real thing intended by it; to give it actual existence is supposed to be the error of the Realists, who attributed an objective existence to those universal conceptions, which were only the creatures of their own minds. Hence, the reality of human nature, as a thing existing in the external world, is denied, because to assert reality for the idea of it in our own minds, would be contrary to the theory of Nominalism, which prevails in logic. But this is to abuse the principles of Nominalism on one side, as the opposite principle of Realism has been abused on the other. That many objects can be united by our classing them under a common idea, does not give them any real objective union; but neither does it take that union away, provided that by other means it can be shown to exist. Yet this is the argument of those who, on principles of Nominalism, deny the objective existence of human nature. They pass over the distinction between such classifications as men make for themselves by an inward act of reasoning, and such as have been provided in the external world by God's Providence. The one are only our own internal acts; the other have an external existence. The error of the Realists was encouraged, according to Archbishop Whately, by observation of those organized beings, which are bound together by the unalterable laws of nature. That in these cases there existed a real, though unknown bond, which maintained the perpetuity of the class, led men to attribute an objective existence to their own abstractions. But if no real connexion had united these external objects, the sight of them would not have led any one astray. When we class together philosophers or physicians, we bestow a common name upon those who are associated by their dispositions or employments. There is no connexion between them, distinct from the thoughts and actions to which the individuals described choose to addict themselves. There is a real similarity in their doings, supposing the class to be happily designated; but it is a similarity only, and at their will they may cease to resemble one another. It would be a vicious Realism, therefore, to assert the existence of an objective connexion among these parties, because we can embrace them under a common idea; but it would be an equally vicious Nominalism to deny an objective reality, where an inherent law prevents the possibility of such re-arrangement, and confines individuals to the peculiar classes to which they severally belong. The first would

be to claim for our own mind the power of making its inward ideas into external realities; the second would be to deny the existence of external realities, because we have not the power of making them. We have no right, therefore, to deny the existence of a common nature in those who are derived from a common origin; whose union does not depend upon their voluntary combination, and cannot be dissolved by their own will."-P. 48-50.

With some, all this may be set down as so much mysticism and transcendentalism. They go on the common sense view, which turns the world into a sand-heap. We agree however fully with Stahl, as quoted p. 52. quoted p. 52. "The more superficial a man is, the more isolated will every thing seem to him, for on the surface all things are detached. In mankind, in the nation, even in the family, he will see nothing but individuals, whose actions are altogether distinct. The deeper a man is, the more conscious will he be of those inward principles of unity, which radiate from the centre. Even the love of our neighbour is only a deep feeling of this unity, for a man does not love those to whom he does not perceive and feel himself bound. Unless sin could come through one, and through one atonement, there could be no understanding the command to love our neighbour."

Such a collective existence in the case of our race, not the aggregate of its individual lives but the underlying substance in which all these are one, is everywhere assumed in the Bible, as a fact entering into the whole history of religion. The race starts in Adam. It is recapitulated again, or gathered into a new centre and head, in Christ.

"This is the fact declared, when it is stated that Christ took man's nature: it implies the reality of a common humanity, and His perfect and entire entrance into its ranks, Thus did He assume a common relation to all mankind. This is why the existence of human nature is a thing too precious to be surrendered to the subtilties of logic, because upon its existence depends that real manhood of Christ which renders Him a co-partner with ourselves. And upon the reality of this fact is built that peculiar connexion between God and man, which is expressed by the term Mediation. It locks to an actual alteration in the condition of mankind, through the admission of a member into its ranks, in whorn and through whom it attained an unprecedented elevation. Unless we discern this real impulse which was bestowed upon bumanity, the doctrines of Atonement and Sanctification, though confessed in words, become a mere empty phraseology. That 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself,' implies an actual acceptance of the

children of men, on account of the merits of one of their race; as well as an actual change in the race itself through the entrance of its nobler associate. The work of man's redemption and renewal is a real work, performed by real agents. It is not only that the Almighty was pleased to save appearances, if we may so express it, by conceding to the representations of a third party, what He did not choose otherwise to yield or to acknowledge (as Queen Philippa prevailed over her harsher husband, Edward ;) but Christ's Incarnation was a step in the mighty purposes of the Most High, whereby all the relations of heaven and earth were truly affected. To deny, as is done by Bishop Hampden, 'that we may attribute to God any change of purpose towards man by what Christ has done,' would be to resolve this real series of acts into a mere technical juggle. But to the reality of this work, the existence of that common nature is indispensable, whereby 'as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He Himself took part of the same.' Else, how would the perfect assumption of humanity have consisted with His retaining that divine personality, which it was impossible that He should surrender? Since it was no new person

which He took, it can only have been the substratum in which personality has its existence. For His Incarnation was not the conversion of Godhead into flesh, but the taking of the manhood into God.' Or how could He have entered into a common relation to mankind in general, unless there had existed a common nature as the medium of union? This nature, which exists only in individual persons, He took for the earthly clothing of that divine personality, in which He must ever continue to exist."-P. 55-56.

The universalness of Christ's life does not consist in the assumption of the lives of all men into himself, but in the assump tion of that living law or power, which, whether in Adam alone or in all his posterity, forms at once the entire fact of Humani ty, irrespectively of the particular human existences in which it may appear. These are always a finite All; the other is a boundless Whole; two conceptions, which are as wide as the poles apart. Christ, in this view, is organically and historically joined, we say, with the universal life of Man, as its only true ground, and centre, and end. The child, it is sometimes said, is father to the man; inasmuch as the first foreshadows the coming of the second; although, in truth, that which is second here, when we look to inward reality, must be counted first. It is only in full manhood, that the tendencies and powers of childhood are made complete at last, through the actualization of their own sense. Analogous with this is the relation of our general human nature to the coming of Christ. It looks to this event from the beginning, as the proper completion of its own

meaning; and in such view may be regarded as opening the way for it in the order of time; although as regards the order of actual being the mystery of the incarnation must be considered first, as that which lies at the ground of our whole human life in its true form. Christ thus is the deepest sense, the most urgent want of humanity, as it stood previously to his coming, or still stands where his coming is not owned. The universal constitution of the world looks towards him as its necessary centre. All the lines of history converge towards him as their necessary end. He is the "desire of all nations," the dream of the Gentile as well as the hope of the Jew. If there be any wholeness in our human life whatever, any rational unity in history, and if the incarnation be at the same time a real putting on of humanity, a real entrance of the Word into the process of our existence, and not a mere Gnostic vision or Hindoo avatar instead, how is it possible to escape the truth of this proposition? Those who seek to cut off Christ from all organic, inwardly historical connection with the world in its natural form, as though his credit must be endangered by his being made to appear a true birth of mankind, the veritable seed of the woman which should bruise the serpent's head, know not surely what they are about. As an abstraction, in no natural union with the life of Man universally considered, how could his pretensions ever be legitimated or made sure?

III. The Humanity of Christ is the repository and medium of salvation for the rest of mankind. The truth of this propsition flows inevitably, from what has been already said of his Mediatorial nature, and its relation to the universal or whole life of the race. Christ has redeemed the world, or the nature of Man as fallen in Adam, by so taking it into union with his own higher nature as to deliver it from the curse and power of sin; meeting the usurpation of this false principle with firm resistance from the start; triumphantly repelling its assaults; and in the end leading captivity captive, by carrying his man's nature itself, through the portals of the resurrection, to the right hand of God in glory. The process holds primarily altogether in his own person. In his own person, however, as the Second Adam, the bearer and root of our whole human nature, now lifted thus into actual union with the Godhead, and so made answerable to its true idea, as we find this labored after by its whole creation from the beginning. Thus perfected, he has become the captain and author of salvation for others, Heb. ii. 10, v. 9; and through his glorification, the way is open for the Spirit to carry forward the work of Christianity in the hearts and lives of his people