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In whatever way God is pleased to manifest Himself, the medium of manifestation must be limited and finite. His union with our humanity, as an organ of revelation, is no more inconceivable than with any other nature which is restricted and confined. He was pleased to assume our humanity as the form through which to reveal the Divinity, and had He not been conscious of a complete participation in human nature, He never would have adopted or employed the designation — Son of Man. Having taken our nature, the man Christ Jesus followed the laws of purely human development both in body and in mind. He not only represented but passed through every successive period or stage of life. In every sense He was a child — in every sense a youth — in every sense a man. The social affections enter immediately and inseparably into the very idea of our humanity. With these social feelings our Creator has endowed us, and has fixed our abode in a world in which they are ever being called into joyous play, and in which there exists the most beautiful provision for their gratification. Nor does Christianity interfere with these social ties and relationships. We are formed to love. Nor can we conceive of any principle, human or Divine, stronger or more impressive. It is the conservative principle of families and of society at large. A world without love would be a world in which every social bond would soon be loosened and broken, and the human passions become the play of so many lawless forces, which would ultimately involve society in eternal enmity and opposition. One of the most touching scenes in the social life and history of Christ is connected with His death. Not far from His cross, and just as He was in the act of giving up His spirit into the hands of His Father, He beheld His mother standing at a distance, burdened with sorrow and bathed in tears. While His development was from first to last without sin — while He was a living and pure model of that conduct which is pleasing to God — yet His fellowship with humanity was emphatically a fellowship of suffering. In suffering He surpassed all men. In proportion to the perfection, refinement, and sensibility of His nature, was the depth and keenness of His affliction. Never was sorrow like unto His sorrow. We wonder not, therefore, that Christ should have a deep and unmistakeable sympathy with suffering and with sorrow. Not that His sympathies could flow out only amid scenes of grief and distress. The subject of the purest social affections, He could freely mingle in the intercourse of men, and share in all their human joys. In Him we behold that Spirit of liberty with which the Divine life takes hold of, and appropriates to itself the relations of the world and of society. Christianity is eminently social in its character. True piety is cheerful as the day, and sheds its radiance over every scene. That school of spiritual life in which the Saviour taught His disciples differed from every other. Instead of a sour, austere, unyielding asceticism, He trained them to a comparatively unrestrained mode of life. Nor was it with poverty only that the Saviour sympathized. Nor must we lose sight of the truth, that the sympathy of Christ sprang from the purest and most intense love-that love, which, in seeking and in blessing its objects, asks not how, or when, or where. It is true that this loving, compassionate, sympathizing Saviour, has left this lower sphere of being, and hath passed into those higher heavens, in which room is found for nothing but the most refined and the most sublime enjoyment; and yet even there is "He touched with the feeling of our infirmities." His sympathies are still with us, whether we be in joy or in sorrow, and He can so communicate with our spirit, as to give us the consciousness of Divine succour and support. We are conscious of the fellowship of mind with mind. And what shall we say of those kindred virtues which clustered and shone like the most brilliant constellation in the life and character of the Man? Humility is the queen of graces. It is one of the rarest and the truest virtues. It is far removed from everything approaching to meanness of spirit. Having come into the world to offer himself a sacrifice for man, there was no act of hazard or of self-denial to which the Saviour was not prepared and willing to descend. Allied to this humility is meekness. Self-denial is nothing if clamorous and noisy. It does not lift up and cause its voice to be heard in the street. It is silent, unobtrusive, and retiring. If humility be not servility, neither is meekness to be looked upon as softness. Hence it is that we read of the gentleness of Christ. Not only was He harmless in life, but in death He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Not that He can be charged with timidity and weakness. His soul was full of manly energy. A spirit so humble, and meek, and gentle, could not be wanting in forbearance; but forbearance must not be understood as involving anything of timidity or cowardice. It is the highest manifestation of self-control. It follows that this forbearance carries with it the corresponding idea of patience. In forbearance there must be the power of enduring. But patience is not to be resolved into insensibility, any more than forbearance is to be resolved into cowardice. The Saviour of man could not only face opposition and danger, but He could with calm assurance bear every species of wrong and suffering which could be inflicted on His deeply sensitive and susceptible nature. It new only remains to add, that this patience was allied to the most child-like submission — the most perfect resignation. To give up our own individual will for the will of another in circumstances of deep suffering, is the perfection of Christian virtue. Nor were these virtues embodied and exemplified in the life of Christ otherwise than as a model and example to man. Our character and life should be the mirror in which His virtues are reflected; or rather, our life should be the counterpart of His. We must copy after our great pattern. It is not forbidden us in the arrangements of infinite wisdom and love to cultivate and cherish the social affections to the highest possible point, so long as they do not withdraw the heart from God, and the sublime objects of immortality. Nor can our Christianity have its full development but amid the scenes, and friend ships, and enjoyments of our present being. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report — if there be any force, and if there be any praise in them, think on these things, and these things do, and the God of peace shall be with you.

(R. Ferguson.)

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KJV: For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

WEB: For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,