thren:" there would have been no need of shame, had he not been greater than he appeared "in fashion as a man whilst the reason here assigned for his taking a body, is, that he might be subject to death, and so triumph over it for us.

This then is the second approach of the Divine Being, in nearness to mankind, by actually assuming our condition, allying himself to us as a brother; so he took hold on man, and gave man an opportunity of taking hold on him. And this explains to us, how Christ was anointed with the oil of gladness, above his fellows;-not above those who are naturally equal to him, but above those he had treated as brethren,-made his fellow, by assuming their form; and having accomplished this mission, he resumed the likeness of God; returned with new lionours to his primeval glory.

This is the first sense in which Christ was made like unto his brethren; -by assuming the human form, by becoming a brother, living our earthly life, in a mortal tabernacle. Thus he became one of us.

2nd. He was made like unto us, by enduring all the temptations, evils, and privations which belong to human life.

He was not above us when he was here, he came not in splendour, attended by a cohort of angels, nor did he live in kings' houses, clothed in purple and fine linen. But he lived the every day life of man, enduring its sufferings and privations; experiencing its joys and sorrows, he was at weddings and funerals, he experienced friendship and treachery, desertion and mockery.

It was not a foreign prince, visiting a charitable institution, alighting from his carriage and walking on carpets laid down on the pavement; but a man of sorrows, a brother in misfortune, cheering on the sufferers with the pattern of his patience, and the oil and wine of his tender sympathy and benevolent help. He hungered and thirsted, and fed the hungry.

He spoke openly the truth, and became the leader of all martyrs and reformers, as he braved the hatred of the men he rebuked: and thus he ever lives in the gospel history, the companion and cheerer of the sorrowful, saying, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' He was the companion of the outcast, the friend and brother of sinners;-taking them by the hand, when the world had turned its back on them.

He met with temptation as we do, with persecution and suffering beyond our endurance; walking calmly through it all, as the pledge of our victory, if we would receive of his fulness. And thus he came as a brother, by first becoming one of us, in his mortal body; and, secondly, sharing in all the evils belonging to our earthly condition.

II. For what purpose then, was Christ made like unto his brethren? It was to express and embody the fulness of the Divine bounty to the world;-God with us, first to share our estate; and, secondly, to conquer it for us, in our form and in our stead. It showed, that God is merciful and makes the first advance, that we might be hopeful, and accept his salvation. He stooped down to us to win us up to himself.

It was to teach us the only way to victory, the faith that overcometh the world, its sins and its miseries, by telling us of one greater than the

world, who tabernacled in the human body, that we might have strong assurance, to seek his re-incarnation, Christ in us the hope of glory.

It was to prepare the way for that destiny to which man was originally invited; who was to have dominion over all things, but had fallen into slavery, sold under sin. (Heb. ii. 6-9.) We see man, not yet supreme but under dominion; and, therefore, one comes into the prison-house, to break down its walls, and make men free indeed ;-emancipated from bondage to temporal evils; to bodily and spiritual death; by passing through all human experience, and leaving a pathway plain, with all needful help to follow Jesus to glory, honour, immortality, eternal life. Then are all things put under us, when we join this conqueror; we become enlarged and walk forth as Christ's freedmen, under his victorious banner.

The entire life of Christ in this world, was a great lesson and symbol of what man is to be and may be,-a lesson lived out on earth by God himself, who undertakes to give us power to do the same; as we look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

He became a son of man, that we should become the children of God through him that as he inherited our sorrows, so we should inherit his kingdom and glory, "according as his Divine power, hath given unto us all things pertaining to life and godliness,"—everything to equip us for the life he lived, "through the knowledge of him who hath called us to glory and to virtue; by whom are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the pollution that is in the world."

He took our nature, that we should share his; lived our earthly life that we might live here a heavenly one; he died, that we might live unto God.

His death and resurrection are ours. We are to be crucified with him, to rise with him, during our earthly life. He seeks to raise and quicken us now. The mighty power of God, in raising Christ from the dead, and placing himself above all principality and power, putting all things under his feet, is a symbol of God's power to those that believe. (Eph. ii. 1-6.) Thus we are to be risen with Christ, through faith; which is of the operation of God who raised him from the dead. How exalted then is our vocation, if we live up to it; how great and noble is the life of a true Christian, dead to all earthly, narrow, and selfish aims, blind to the glare of earthly splendour, seeing only him who is invisible.

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, for ye are dead (to everything else) and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory."—(Col. iii. 1-3.) Therefore, we can wait for our reward till then, as we are "looking for and hastening unto the glorious appearing of the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile bodies, and fashion them like unto his glorious body, according to the power wherewith he is able to subdue all things even unto himself." Yes, he is our pattern, in life and in glory: he was found in fashion as a man, that we should be fashioned as he is.

But we must first share his image and bear his cross here; we must be

438 HOW AND WHY CHRIST WAS MADE LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN.

willing to suffer reproach and shame with him, that we may be glorified together. We must first be pardoned by his cross, and then carry it through the world: we must be like him here, to be like him hereafter. His life is our grand lesson; and of anything else, the apostle says,— ye have not so learned Christ," for "THE TRUTH IS IN JESUS,"– the true lesson as embodied in his character,-is, "that ye put off the former mode of life, the old man, the first Adam, and put on the new man, the Second Adam, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." This is "the truth in Jesus," the true embodiment of God's will, that we should receive Christ's words of pardon, as the entrance of his spirit of grace, and then prove that we are in Christ, by having Christ in us: "he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked." Hereby know we that we are his disciples.

Consider, therefore, Jesus Christ, the Apostle and High-Priest of our profession, who is not ashamed to call us brethren, who called us so, by becoming a brother and sharing in our misfortunes, that he might remove them who became a brother by partaking of flesh and blood, that he might bear our sins in his own body on the tree; who went through all human afflictions and temptations to comfort the troubled, and assist the tempted: who became like us, that we might be like him: a son of man to create us sons of God: who bore our yoke, that we might receive it again as his yoke,—still upborne and rendered light by his Spirit which dwelleth in us: who gave us an example of victory, and offers strength from his fulness to achieve it: whose death is our pardon, whose life is our lesson, whose presence is our strength, whose trials are our comforts, whose temptations are our assurances, whose death is our life.

Who died like us, that we should rise like him, and who now seeks to sanctify our spirits, fashioning them after his own purity, and who having stooped to our earthly trials, seeks to lift us to our heavenly home.

Let us then yield ourselves to his gracious power, that we may receive pardon through his name; and entering into his service, seek to become fashioned like him in our souls on earth, that we may have a foretaste of this blessed truth, he "shall change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself," to model us after his likeness,-lifting sinful, condemned, and degraded man, to the right hand of the throne of God.

II.

PRIESTS' RELIGION.

HUMAN AUTHORITY AND INVENTION versus CONSCIENCE AND THE

BIBLE.

The Scriptures are the only standard of Christian faith and practice: every one is at liberty to examine them; but no one is at liberty to decline this examination: and though we may receive the help of others, we may not rest on their authority, (which is Man-worship ;) nor receive as religion, what is not in the Scriptures, (which is Willworship.)

THE WOLF IN THE FOLD: OR, PIUS IX., THE BLINDER OF THE FAITHFUL.

THE infamous principles of absolute authority, by which the common sense and dignity of mankind are outraged, in the pretensions and usurpation of the Popedom, are best exhibited in the actions and declarations of the Popes themselves: for these their defenders cannot deny.

The following specimen, translated and published in The Tablet of October last, should be preserved as a matter of horror, astonishment and indignation, that any small-souled mortal, like the present Pope, should so far presume as to put out the eyes of his followers, striking them blind by the curse of his spiritual authority; laying an interdict on books and man's thoughts, and impiously quoting the Divine word,"render unto Cæsar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," when he is himself robbing both Cæsar and God, and all deluded people: Cæsar of civil rule; God of man's reasonable service; and men of their native and Christian freedom. The Prohibition and Condemnation following, is an outrage on mankind, an insolent and indecent invasion of common rights and duties of human beings, in which a pitiful unit makes his own honour the unity of the Church and the foundation of faith, condemns and prohibits a book for not advocating the good old orthodoxy-on the punishment of heretics: so is the Pope the natural enemy of mankind; and is tolerated, in his insane fury, only by the apathy of his tools, and the forbearance of the world :

"CONDEMNATION AND PROHIBITION

"Of the work entitled Institutions of Ecclesiastical Lar, by John Nepomucene Nuytz, Professor of the Royal University of Turin, and of another writing of the same author, entitled Treatise on Universal Ecclesiastical Law.

"PIUS PP. IX.

"FOR A PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE OF THE THING.

"[Translation.]

"Elevated to the honour of the Apostolical See, not by Our merits, but only by the Divine Father of the Household in charge of this vineyard, We consider Ourselves strictly bound, in virtue of Our office, to cut away and extirpate entirely all the pernicious germs We are enabled to discover, in order that they may not take root or spread themselves to the great mischief of the field of the Lord. And assuredly We know that, from the very cradle of the Church, it has been necessary that the Faith of the elect should be tried like gold in the furnace, as the Apostle St. Paul proclaimed to the Faithful of his time, warning them that many would arise who would 'overturn and corrupt the Gospel of Christ'-(Gal. 1.) -adding to these propagators of false doctrines, to these perfidious men who would betray the deposit of Faith, We ought to say anathema, without even excepting from it an angel*-'If it happened that an angel taught another doctrine than that which We preached.' In vain have the bloodthirsty enemies of the truth been continually beaten down and vanquished-they have never ceased to raise up their heads, striving, with a new increase of fury, to work, if it might be, the utter destruction of the Church. Hence the impious audacity with which, laying their profane hands on holy things, they have striven to usurp the prerogatives and the rights of this Apostolic See, to pervert the constitution of the Church, to ruin from the very foundation the deposit of the Faith. Thus, although We find a great consolation in the promise by which Christ, Our Saviour, has given Us the certainty that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against His Church, We nevertheless, cannot but feel a cruel pang at Our heart in beholding the loss of souls which is daily augmented by the unbridled licence by which bad books are circulated, the perverse and criminal insolence which is ready to dare anything in hatred of Divine things.

"In this pestilence of bad books which pours upon Us from all sides, deserves to be reckoned the work entitled, Institutions of Ecclesiastical Law, by John Nepomucene Nuytz, Professor of the Royal University of Turin, as also the Treatise on Universal Ecclesiastical Law, by the same author; works whereof the unsound doctrine, taught by the author in his chair, is so spread abroad, that the licentiates have taken therefrom anti-Catholic propositions, and have made of them their theses for the degree of Doctor. In these books, in these theses, under colour of de

And also without excepting a Pope, to whom Paul's anathema for perverting the right ways of the Lord, pre-eminently belongs.-EDITOR.