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God’s purpose is to rule by a man. The King both of earth and heaven is to be son of David and son of Abraham. ‘The man Christ Jesus’ is heir of the throne of David as well as possessor of the throne of heaven. The crown of all the earth is to be placed on the head of a man. Human hands are to wield the sceptre of the universe .... God’s purpose is to link heaven and earth together by a man. It is in the man Christ Jesus that the reconciliation takes place between them. It is by this man that the nearness is to be maintained for ever. He is the bridge, the ladder, the chain, the golden clasp that is to knit together the heavenly and earthly regions and races. Round this human centre the universe is to revolve. Glad tidings! The woman’s seed has at length come to our rescue from the hands of our great enemy! Glad tidings! Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. Glad tidings! Jesus, the son of Mary, of David, of Abraham, of Adam, is our Saviour; our prophet; our priest; our king. Oh, has not God loved man?

He is of the same stock as we are, the same ancient root, the first man Adam, whom God created. He is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh … In everything that is truly human He is one of us. He “knew no sin”; He was ” that holy thing” yet was He all the more human because of the absence of sin for sin is not an original part of our nature. As man, then, He sympathises; He pities; He loves. As man, He “loved his neighbour as himself,” and so “fulfilled the royal law of love.” As man, He was born, He lived, He “grew in stature, and in wisdom, and in favour with God and man.” His was thoroughly a human body and a human soul; his was thoroughly a human life and a human death. His was human hunger and thirst, human sleep and waking, human weariness and rest. His words were human words, issuing from human lips, and the utterance of a human heart. His looks were human looks, his tones were human tones, his tears were human tears. He was man all over, yet sinless; man all over, living in man’s world, yet not partaker of that world’s evil; man all over in every step He took, and every word He spoke; man all over in his daily intercourse with his fellow-men, and in his fellowship with his Father in heaven.

His whole ancestry is as thoroughly human as ours can be. Every link of the chain is human … It is a long chain, sometimes almost broken or worn through; but thus all the more thoroughly human. He is the seed of the woman; the man Christ Jesus. He is very man, out of the loins of Abraham, and of the substance of the Virgin; son of Mary and son of Adam.

Thus is Jesus in all respects fitted for his mighty work of redeeming. He is very man and very God. He is the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, the son of Mary, yet God over all, blessed for ever. Thus He can bear our sins; He can sympathise with our sorrows; He can fight our battles; He can love as a man, a fellow-man, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.

As we take Matthew’s history literally, so do we take that of John. If we allegorize the first chapter of the one evangelist, we must allegorize the first of the other. If John does not mean that Christ was very God, Matthew does not mean that He was very man. The divine side of Christianity is as strongly shewn in the one evangelist as the human side in the other. He whom we call Lord and Master, Saviour and Redeemer, is one in whose Person the extremes of all being unite. All Godhead and all creaturehood are in Him; the fulness of the finite, and the fulness of the infinite; all the excellence of the created and the uncreated.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not great or mighty men; they are but shepherds, dwelling in tents. So was David a shepherd boy, taken from among the flocks. So was Joseph, and so was Mary,—poor in this world; a carpenter and his wife. There is a singular mixture of the high and low, of the rich and poor. For He is the Saviour of rich and poor. His gospel is equally for both.

Verse 1

Jesus is God! the glorious bands
Of holy angels sing
Songs of adoring praise to him,
Their Maker and their King.

Verse 2

He was true God in Bethlehem’s crib,
On Calvary’s cross, true God;
He who, in heaven, eternal reigned,
In time, on earth abode.

Verse 3

Jesus is God! there never was
A time when he was not;
Boundless, eternal, merciful,
The Word the Sire begot.

Verse 4

Backward our thoughts through ages stretch,
Onward through endless bliss;
For there are two eternities,
And both alike are his.

Verse 5

Jesus is God! oh, could I now,
But compass land and sea,
To teach and tell this single truth,
How happy should I be!

Verse 6

Oh, had I but an angel’s voice,
I would proclaim so loud,
Jesus, the Good, the Beautiful,
Is everlasting God.

Verse 1

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”
Joyful all ye nations, rise;
Join the triumph of the skies!
With the angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Verse 2

See, he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity.
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel.

Verse 3

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness;
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Let us, then, with angels sing,
“Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”

Verse 1

Angels rejoiced and sweetly sung
At our Redeemer’s birth;
Mortals! awake: let every tongue
Proclaim his matchless worth.

Verse 2

Glory to God, who dwells on high,
And sent his only Son
To take a servant’s form, and die,
For evils we had done!

Verse 3

Good-will to men; ye fallen race!
Arise, and shout for joy;
He comes, with rich abounding grace
To save and not destroy.

Verse 4

Lord! send the gracious tidings forth,
And fill the world with light,
That Jew and Gentile, through the earth,
May know thy saving might.

Verse 5

William Hurn, 1813.

Verse 6

1O3 Salvation Morning, 7s & 6s.

Verse 7

God’s Salvation Morning.

Verse 8

What means this glorious radiance
Across Judea’s plain?
Those white-winged angels singing
In such exultant strain?

Refrain

The King of glory cometh,
Earth’s broken hearts to bind,
And God’s salvation morning
Hath dawned for all mankind.

Verse 9

What means this wondrous story
The holy angels tell?
Of one who reigned in heaven,
And now on earth would dwell?

Verse 10

Why bend these Eastern sages
To one of lowly birth?
What means this heav’nly message
Of love and peace on earth?

Verse 11

Ye wand’rers in earth’s darkness,
On ocean deep and land,
Hail! hail! the joyful tidings,
The morning is at hand.

Verse 1

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold;
“Peace to the earth, good-will to men,
From heaven’s all gracious King:”
The earth in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

Verse 2

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still celestial music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on heavenly wing,
And ever o’er its Babel sounds,
The blessed angels sing.

Verse 3

O ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow;--
Look up! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh, rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

Verse 4

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold!
When peace shall over all the earth
Its final splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing!

Verse 1

The race that long in darkness pine
Have seen a glorious light;
The people dwell in day who dwelt
In death’s surrounding night.
To hail thy rise, thou better Sun,
The gathering nations come,
With joy, as when the reapers bear
The harvest treasures home.

Verse 2

To us a child of hope is born;
To us a Son is given;
And him shall all the earth obey,
And all the hosts of heaven.
His name shall be the Prince of Peace,
Forevermore adored,
The Wonderful, the Counselor,
The great and mighty Lord.

Verse 1

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.

Verse 2

“Fear not,” said he,--for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind,--
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.

Verse 3

“To you, in David’s town, this day,
Is born of David’s line,
The Savior, who is Christ, the Lord;
And this shall be the sign:

Verse 4

“The heavenly babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swathing bands,
And in a manger laid.”

Verse 5

Thus spake the seraph; and forthwith
Appeared a shining throng
Of angels, praising God, and thus
Addressed their joyful song:

Verse 6

“All glory be to God on high,
And to the earth be peace:
Good-will henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease!”

Verse 1

Calm on the listening ear of night
Come heaven’s melodious strains,
Where wild Judea stretches far
Her silver-mantled plains.

Verse 2

Celestial choirs, from courts above,
Shed sacred glories there,
And angels, with their sparkling lyres,
Make music on the air.

Verse 3

The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply,
And greet, from all their holy heights,
The day-spring from on high.

Verse 4

“Glory to God!” the sounding skies
Loud with their anthems ring--
“Peace to the earth, good-will to men,
From heaven’s eternal King.”

Verse 1

Joy to the world! the Lord is come:
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing.

Verse 2

Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns:
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy.

Verse 3

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow,
Far as the curse is found.

Verse 4

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love.

Verse 1

Hark the glad sound! the Savior comes--
The Savior promised long;
Let every heart prepare a throne,
And every voice a song.

Verse 2

He comes, the prisoners to release,
In Satan’s bondage held;
The gates of brass before him burst,
The iron fetters yield.

Verse 3

He comes, the broken heart to bind,
The bleeding soul to cure;
And, with the treasures of his grace,
T’ enrich the humble poor.

Verse 4

Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace,
Thy welcome shall proclaim;
And heaven’s eternal arches ring
With thy beloved name.

Remember, too, that it is in Bethlehem of Juda that Jesus is born; and be very careful lest you fail to be found there, lest He fail to be received by you. Bethlehem is the house of bread; Juda signifies confession or praise. If, then, you replenish your soul with the food of the Divine Word, the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and devoutly receive the Bread which came down from heaven, and which giveth life to the world; if the vessel of your body is made strong and able to hold the new wine by being refreshed and strengthened with His new and glorified flesh; if, moreover, you live by faith, and have no need to weep because you have forgotten to eat your bread, then, indeed, you are become a Bethlehem fitted to receive our Lord.

There are two things from which our weak human nature shrinks—pain and shame. Christ came to take both from us, and this He did by accepting both in His own person—when, for instance, not to mention other occasions, He was condemned to death, and to a most shameful death, by wicked men… Behold here an Infant without stain! Behold the Lamb without spot, the Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sins of the world! Who could better take them away than He Who knew no sin? He, indeed, can cleanse me, who has never Himself been defiled. His touch can remove the clay from my eyes, for His hand is free from the lightest dust. He can take the mote from out my eye Who has no beam in His own; or, rather, He Who has no smallest grain of dust in His own eye can take the beam from mine.

Happy the soul who has tasted this fruit of salvation, and is drawn to “run in the odour of his ointments,” that she may “see his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.” Take courage, you who were lost: Jesus comes to seek and save that which was lost. Ye sick, return to health: Christ comes to heal the contrite of heart with the unction of His mercy. Rejoice, all you who desire great things: the Son of God comes down to you that He may make you the co-heirs of His kingdom. I beseech you, then, O Lord, heal me, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; glorify me, and I shall be glorious. Then indeed shall my soul bless the Lord, and all that is within me praise His Holy Name, when He shall have been merciful to my iniquities, have healed my infirmities, and have filled my desire with good things.