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Our subject matter is the gradual development of redemption, like the sun, "shining more and more unto perfect day."

I. THERE IS A GRADUALNESS IN ALL THE WORKS OF GOD. In the physical sphere, gradual development is a universal law. At first, all was a chaos of lifeless matter, then vegetable life appeared, then low forms of brute life, then the mammal, and then the man. The world did not reach its present state in a few seconds — the chaos did not become a cosmos in an hour. In the first day's work we only see power; but in the second day's work we see wisdom; and in the third day's work we see goodness; and thus from step to step we advance, until the sixth day brings forth the crowning glory, man, the lord of creation, filled with the harmonies of the skies. Creation is not a fungus-growth, but a gradual oak-growth In the intellectual and moral spheres there is gradualness. Even our consciousness develops. Natural consciousness develops gradually, and the reflective consciousness of the profound thinker is only a further development of the natural. We grow step by step. Our education proceeds gradually. The prince and the pauper must begin with the alphabet and the multiplication table, and then onward, "line upon line, and precept upon precept." Our great discoveries have been gradual. How slowly did the astrology of the ancients develop into our nineteenth-century astronomy! How gradually did the alchemy of the fathers grow into the modern chemistry of a Faraday! And, again, in the moral sphere there is gradual development. The new man in Christ Jesus is not made of full stature all at once. For a time, he is "a little one in Christ," then he "grows in grace," and, finally, he reaches unto "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

II. WE REASON FROM ANALOGY THAT THE GRADUALNESS WE FIND IN NATURE AND MAN MAY ALSO BE EXPECTED IN THE PROGRESS OF REDEMPTION, FOR GOD IS THE AUTHOR OF BOTH. The God of the rock and star is also the Cod of the Bible, and we are not surprised to find this gradual development in Revelation four thousand years intervening between the fall of the first Adam and the advent of the second Adam. Redemption grew as the world grew — it grew as the human grace grew — slowly. As far as we know, God was powerful enough to bring about redemption sooner; but for some wise purpose, He left the world in the dim starlight for forty centuries. Why this slowness? He is never in a hurry, for He "seeth the end from the beginning." The march of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan, if they had taken a direct route, would have only occupied them a few months; but the Lord kept them in the lone desert for forty years. The Divine is never in a hurry. Jesus Christ spent thirty years on earth before He performed one miracle — no hurry! And, indeed, we rejoice in this gradualness. We cordially thank God for it. And why? Simply because a full-orbed revelation all at once would overwhelm us. If the natural sun were to reach its meridian at once, the tender green of earth would be reduced to ashes. "O God, how gracious Thou art to reveal Thyself gradually unto us in a manner adapted to our weak capacities. It is no punishment to withhold these mighty mysteries from us, but a mercy." And, besides, friends, we would not be satisfied with a little Christ, that could be fully and completely revealed in a century or two. We are great sinners, and we need a great Christ to save us — a Christ that demands, not six thousand years, but all the countless years of eternity to reveal Him to the full. And, blessed be God, that Christ is to be found in our glorious gospel. And let us not think that the development of relation is yet at an end. No, far from it.

III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF REDEMPTION FROM STAGE TO STAGE.

(J. O. Davies.)

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KJV: Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,

WEB: because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dawn from on high will visit us,