The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-30
INCARNATION OF
 GOD WAS THEME Inspiring Sermon By We'll Known EnSley Rector HIS PERMANENT HUMANITY Virgin Birth the Only Way of Accom- pIlshing Incarnation Without the
 Faint of Sin, So Far as
 Man Can See.
HIS PERMANENT HUMANITY


 Ensley, December 29.-(Special )-"The Incarnation of God" was the theme of Dr. Crawford's sermon at St. John S Christmas morning. The rector dwelt at length on the truth as it Is expressed in the Holy Scripture, as repeated by the people in the creeds, saying that it Is the keynote and foundation of all Christian belief
 The minister recited in clear, logical terms the beauty and wonders of the day of incarnation. dwelling at length on the , consistency of Christ's religion and his everlasting and permanent humanity.
 The preached said in part:
 Text: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us tand we beheld his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth. h."-St. John, Ill.
 Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary "-Apostles Creed.
 ''Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was in- earnate by the Holy Ghost of the Vir- gin Mary. y."-Nicene Creed.
 We are invited today, the day com memorative of the Nativity of our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ commonly called Christmas Day, to turn our thoughts with special devotion to that great and awful and overwhelming mystery of the In- oarnation of the Son of God, this truth expressed in the text of Holy Scripture,
 
 church, the keynote of all Christian be- lief and doctrine, the foundation of all of our hope for ourselves and for the world; it is wonderful at all times, but wonderful and awful, indeed, is a day like this-Christmas tide-when the sig nificance of the realities and its mystery breaks Into fresh light in our souls, and year by year, at each Christmas tide, we seem to live over again those an eient days far off from us, but which every Christian makes so near, and so new, and so blessed. The incarnation was the taking of manhood into God not by fusion of the human and divine natures, but by the uniting of both (while each na- ture was kept perfectly distincD, in the One Person of the Word became the Son of Man without being the son of man, and so took into Himself humanity with out taking Adams taint of original sin. | This virgin birth is not only an arti- | cle of faith in the church, but 1t is the | only way, so far as we can see in which l tho purpose of the incarnation could be | accomplished and humanity taken into God apart from the tant of sin. And so | the creeds tell us that our Lord was made Man"-not "A man." It was man. hood, not man-human nature, or as the l text words 1t, flesh" not a human per | hot fIan of nH tnnl Int mi with Himself; it is of the most i'm | portance to any clear understanding of the incarnation to grasp this. By human nature we mean all those qualities which the race has in common; by a human person" we mean a separate in l dividual, possessing that distinct and sov- eregn power of action in the soul to which we give the name of personality" | Now Adam did not transmit to his deS- cendants his own personality, for that Is | incommunicable, but his nature. No hu- man being can part with his own person. alty, or share it with another. When Adari begat sons and daughters he passed on to his offspring his own nature but 1 his personality remained exclusively his | own forever and his descendants had each their own personality. Personality, then, Is not an essential part of human | nature, but human nature is organized on | a new personality in every individual. | It is therefore not so difficult to under stand that in order to cut off the entail | of that moral nature which we derive from Adam, and to make the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures possible, the germ of humanity which was derived from Adam through the | Blessed Virgin was vitallzed by the direct | operation of the Holy Ghost, the Lord | and life giver.
 Moreover, instead of being. as it is with us. united to new human personality, that human nature was taken up into the personality of the Word. Thus all that | was essential to humanity was taken up | by the Second Adam, and the differences | between our Lords humanity and ours | that he had no human father, no human | person, and no sin-are none of them diff | ferenees which touch in any way the integrity and perfection of His human | nature.