There
is nothing unreasonable here; every step is previously credible: and
invention's self would be puzzled to devise a better scheme. The
Virgin-born would thus be a link between God and man, the great
Mediator: his natures would fulfil every condition required of their
double and their intimate conjunction. He would have arrived at humanity
without its gross beginnings, and have veiled his Godhead for a while in
a pure though mortal tenement. He would have participated in all the
tenderness of woman's nature, and thus have reached the keenest
sensibilities of men.
Themes such as these are inexhaustible: and I am perpetually conscious
of so much left unsaid, that at every section I seem to have said next
to nothing. Nevertheless, let it go; the good seed yet shall germinate.
"Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after many
days."
It may to some minds be a desideratum, to allude to the anterior
probability that God should come in the flesh. Much of this has been
anticipated under the head of Visible Deity and elsewhere; as this
treatise is so short, one may reasonably expect every reader to take it
in regular course. For additional considerations: the Benevolent Maker
would hardly leave his creatures to perish, without one word of warning
or one gleam of knowledge. The question of the Bible is considered
further on: but exclusively of written rules and dogmas, it was likely
that Our Father should commission chosen servants of his own, orally to
teach and admonish; because it would be in accordance with man's
reasonable nature, that he should best and easiest learn from the
teaching his brethren.
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