And this he doth, in the first instance, by taking to himself a body of it, and, through the co-operation of the other Divine Persons, bearing that body through, and bringing it out triumphant and glorious.

"Now, to my utter amazement, and I believe the utter amazement of every theologian, we have found the Religious World rejecting with Puritanical disgust the idea that Christ should have come in our fallen nature; and, as if it involved no more consequences than the mere utterance, they flatly assert that he came in our unfallen nature. To which I reply, you are so destitute of all theological knowledge and discernment, that it is vain to think of convincing you, against your likings and interests;....the eternal Son of God came into such a substance as we are all made of."- Last Days pp. 505, 507, 508, 509, & 511.

"The Son, in the fulness of the Father's will, and with the fulness of the Holy Ghost, to effect it withal, took a body out of the lump. And how did he this? He did it as it is ever done, through a rational soul. The Son, acting the Father's will, did by the Holy Ghost take a soul, and with and in that soul he did take flesh and blood of the Virgin; and having thus added a living soul-a soul living in fallen flesh-to his divine nature, he did act in it by the Holy Ghost, all the days of his flesh; and by the Holy Ghost in it acting, he did redeem it from the bondage of the devil-he did make it obedient unto God-he did make the will of the fallen creature at one with the will of God-he did redeem flesh and blood in general, and hath become the Lord of it, to give eternal life unfo as many as the Father pleaseth."- Morning Watch, No. 1. pp. 97, 98.

"The flesh he took of the Virgin was mortal and corruptible, in the same manner, to the same degree, and for the same reason, that the rest of her flesh which was not taken, that all flesh whatsoever of Adam and Eve descended, is mortal and corruptible.

"And the man who says that Christ did not die by the common property of flesh to die, because it was accursed in the loins of our first parents, that man doth deny that Christ was under the curse; he doth deny that Christ was made a curse at all; he doth deny that Christ was made sin at all; yea, he doth deny that the Word was made flesh at all.

"Yes; he was tempted in all points like as we are. How could he be tempted like me, unless he were like me?....He hath taken part with the children, with the fallen children; but he came by that part, not through connexion with Adam, but by his own free will, and his Father's free will, and the free will of the Holy Ghost; and thus original sin is avoided, though yet the body he took is in the fallen state, and liable to all temptations.

"It is, for I know it well, because we say and will maintain unto death, that Christ's flesh was as rebellious as ours, as fallen as ours. But what then? is Christ's flesh the whole of his creature-being? No: it is his humanity inhabited by the Holy Ghost, which maketh up his creature-being.”—Sermon, iv. p. 140, (xxix. xxxi. lxi. lxii. lxxv.)

To this we shall add another speculation of "most perilous stuff:"

"That the infinite God, who is also invisible and incomprehensible, cannot communicate himself, or the knowledge of himself unto his creatures, without assum. ing to himself a finite form. In order to be visible and comprehensible; nay, we may go a step higher, and say, that in order to fashion finite creatures, in order to do a finite action, it is necessary that the actor should assume a finite form.... And this is what I understand, by all things being made for Christ, as well as by

Christ....Therefore, the only meaning that can be assigned to such expressions as that all things were made by him and for him is, that the person of the Sonnot in his absolute infinity, which I have said I even believe to be impossible, but in the finite creature form which he was in the fulness of time to assume and to retain for ever and ever-did create all things visible and invisible.

"It is, moreover, a false idea concerning the Divine nature, to speak as if it could do a finite action, let that be ever so stupendous, even as creation itself, without assuming a finite form."-Sermon iv. p. 328, (iii. iv. lv.)

We may surely ask how was this very "finite creature-form" produced-was it not a finite work? And if to the production of this, in the first instance, infinite power was adequate, it surely might be so to the creation of any other. We really feel ourselves obliged to apologize for laying such crude and dangerous speculations before our readers; and nothing but the fact of Mr. Irving having published them, taken credit to himself for them, and set them forth with all the decision of his avros εon school, could have induced us to trespass so far on the public attention.

We have been copious in giving extracts from Mr. Irving's works, in order that the whole view of the subject might be before our readers, and that they might see what we hesitate not to call the inconsistency and awful darings of these presumptuous speculations. It will require but little consideration to see their fallacy. Our first parent was formed finitely perfect, "in the image of God," which the Apostle tells us consisted "in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness." Mr. Irving, indeed, asserts, that the image of God intended by the sacred historian, was the after-created body of the Redeemer; but as this is his own gloss, and seems to be in direct contradiction to St. Paul's statement, we cannot admit his speculation. While in the state of innocence, we must suppose Adam to have been subject to all the infirmities to which the creature-state is naturally subject;-to pain, upon the cause adequate to produce pain being applied; to hunger, to thirst, to the solicitation of the objects that are, in their enjoyment, the natural gratification of the senses- -yet these senses, in themselves but the instruments of the mind or soul, were used by it in subordination to the principle of obedience to the will of God. Adam sinned; he lost the principle of spiritual life-his mind became darkened and alienated from God; the balance of the powers of his soul was lost, and some corresponding change took place in the body, by which it became subject to natural disease and death. It is emphatically declared, that "Adam begat a son in his own" fallen "likeness;"-without entering into the speculation concerning the generation and infusion of souls, we must admit that this likeness was extended both to body and soul, and that the former being the instrument by which the evil propensities of the latter were reduced to acts, was justly joined with it in the threatened punishment. To assert, however, that the body was sinful in any sense connected with the present subject, is as much as to say that mere matter is sentient and intellectual-it is to cast, like the Indian hunter, the censure on the axe or the gun, not on the will by which one was wielded and the other di

rected; or to blame the telescope for the defect of vision that prevents the true use being made of it. Our bodies, in this sense are no more corrupt, morally corrupt, than Adam's our senses, like his, give entrance to the solicitations of external objects; but in neither case can the mere facility of admission be deemed an act of sin. That belongs entirely to the mind-is inherent in the soul even in the case of children and is, in after life, exhibited in all the monstrous brood stigmatised by the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, or manifested in the forgetfulness of God, and the devotedness to that which is enmity against him.

It is this that seems to constitute original sin, in its nature and its consequences, and of which the Churches equally of England and Scotland have thus spoken:

"The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: wherefore we bave no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will”.—Thirty Nine Articles, x. "By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

"They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation.

"From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

"This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.

“Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner; whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, aud eternal."--Confession of Faith, chap. vi.

It is this which, inherent in the mind and disposition, renders the human nature a thing unholy in the sight of God, and makes the application of the blood of the Redeemer as necessary to the helpless and unintelligent infant, as to the mature and active man. Now Mr. Irving seems to us to have been guilty of several errors and inconsistencies in his statements, independent of his strange opinions with respect to human nature, and the nature of sin. the first place, he seems to consider sin as essential to human nature-" He took our fallen nature," he remarks, "for what other nature was there for him to take?” This implies that humanity is necessarily connected with sin; but surely this is a mistake; sin is an introduction, an accident, and not of the essence of human nature. Adam was a perfect man before his fall, yet without sin; Christ, in his present glorified state is "perfect man," yet, Mr. Irving will allow," without sin." We, indeed, only see human nature in its

fallen state, and are accustomed to connect with it the concomitants of that state, as if they were essential; but it is just as good logic to assume that such is its real state, as it would be to affirm sin of the angelic nature, because we are better acquainted with evil than with heavenly spirits. In the next place, Mr. Irving seems to think that the material body is of itself unholy;-we, as before remarked, have been in the habit of regarding the corruptibility of the body, and its liability to disease and death, but as the signs, and evi dences, and penalty of the unholiness of the soul; but taking up Mr. Irving's view, and conceding that the body of Christ was thus unholy, while his soul was taken possession of and sanctified by the Spirit of God, it is obvious that the person of Christ was not holy; one part of that complex person was spotless, but another part was defiled, was "accursed in the loins of Adam," and, therefore, though born of the Virgin, and called "an holy thing," which would seem to imply perfect sanctity, was still unholy, still corrupt. Mr. Irving's language would intimate, that this state of the body, whatever it was, continued; he represents the sanctified soul of the Redeemer as praying to be delivered from this corruption, signifying of course that, till his resurrection, that corruption lasted; and it belongs to him to say how that imperfectly holy being could be acceptable in the sight of God, and could be, without atonement, looked upon with complacency-how he who bore about him a body that had been "accursed," the badge, the consequence, the residence of sin-how he could be regarded by the holy, and pure, and true God, as spotless and without blemish. Surely, if the mortality, corruptibility, and sinfulness of the body, (we use Mr. Irving's language) be evidences of a fallen nature, these of themselves, and continuing in their natural state, must be unholy in the sight of him who sees all things as they are, and no independant sanctification of the soul could render that pleasing to God, which by its very nature was accursed.

But if, on Mr. Irving's principles, his opinions be thus inconsistent, they will appear still more so, when we examine his views themselves. Mr. Irving intimates, so far as we have been able to understand his statements, that the rational soul of the Son of Mary was taken possession of by the Holy Ghost, at the moment of its union with the embryo body prepared for its reception by the same divine agent-and that thus it was sanctified and made perfectly holy. In order to produce the degree of holiness essential to Mr. Irving's hypothesis, and to the strong language of Scripture, it is necessary, not merely that the union between the rational soul of Jesus and the holy Ghost, should be intimate and complete, but that they should constitute one person-and so, as we have seen, Mr. Irving seems to say in one extraordinary paragraph we have quoted. The Spirit of God dwells in the hearts of believers; the Spirit of God was with Jeremiah, and John, and other holy men, from their mother's womb; but this is not the manner in which it must have dwelt in the rational soul of Jesus.-Now, is there the least intimation in Scripture, that such an union as constitutes identity did really exist ?—are we to

regard the person of the Redeemer as constituted of the Logos, the Spirit, the soul, and body?—and, if so, does not this tend to unsettle all our notions of the mystery of the Trinity, by entrenching on the distinct personality of the sacred Three? But Mr. Irving himself supplies an answer to this difficulty; he seems, in the passage to which we have adverted, to declare this personal unionyet, again, we find him stating that the office of the Spirit was to counteract, to restrain, to prevent sin, that Christ had " a law in his members warring against the law of his mind," and that it was the overruling influence of the Holy Ghost which prevented him from being brought into captivity to this first-mentioned law-for" he was liable to sin." How, then, except in degree, does this office of the Spirit in the soul of Christ differ from his work in the heart of the believer?-how can that be called holy which requires the irresistible influence of Divine grace, exercised through the immediate presence of the Spirit, to preserve from sin ?-how is the person of the Redeemer superior to that of any of his faithful people, except that the tendency to sin in him was restrained, and in them is relaxed? We ask, is the person of the Redeemer, which was formed to accomplish so great a work, which was the result of divine power, and divine presence-is it superior, or, rather, is it not inferior to that of the elect angels, inasmuch as it is in part imperfect and unholy,—a "sinful and corruptible" body, and a soul preserved from sin only by the power of the Holy Ghost, but "communing with every impious, ungodly, and blasphemous chamber of the fallen intellect and feeling of man ?" In fine, if the soul and body of the Redeemer existed, when united, for one moment without this sanctifying influence of the Holy Ghost, for that moment it was an unholy thing; and if the efficacy of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, though it took up its abode in the soul from the moment of the union, failed to make the whole man, body as well as soul, holy, on either supposition the Redeemer must have been, we shrink from writing it, a sinner, unacceptable to God, and, as we shall see, incapable of being an atonement for others: and if this complete regeneration took place, Mr. Irving agrees with us in holding the absolute sinlessness of Christ's nature, and has only had the singular goodfortune to select the most heretical language to express the most common ideas.

But Mr. Irving will ask, "had not Christ possessed such a nature, how could he be liable to temptation ?" We reply, that a nature finitely perfect, such as we suppose the Saviour to have chosen, may be liable to external temptation. Adam possessed a perfect moral and intellectual nature, and it is apparent that he was liable to temptation, and fell; the angels possessed such a nature, but were exposed to temptation, and a portion of them kept not their first estate; thus, the mere fact of such a nature as we suppose belonged to Christ, by no means includes an exemption from temptation, but that temptation, we conceive, in the first instance at least, must be ab extra-the solicitation comes from without, and the voluntary selection from within,