A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

It was not proper that Christ should come before the Babylonish captivity. For, before that, we have not histories of the state of the Heathen world, to give us an idea of the need of a saviour. And besides, before that, learning did not much flourish, and so there had not been an opportunity to show the insufficiency of human learning and wisdom to reform and save mankind. Again, before that, the Jews were not dispersed over the world, as they were afterwards; and so things were not prepared in this respect for the coming of Christ. The necessity of abolishing the Jewish dispensation was not then so apparent as it was afterwards, by reason of the dispersion of the Jews; neither was the way prepared for the propagation of the gospel, as it was afterwards, by the same dispersion. Many other things might be mentioned, by which it would appear, that no other time before that very time in which Christ did come, would have been proper for his appearing in the world to purchase the redemption of men.

III. The next thing that I would observe concerning the incarnation of Christ, i• the greatness of this event. Christ's incarnation was a greater and more wonderful thing than ever had come to pass; and there has been but one that has ever come to pass which was greater, and that was the death of Christ, which was afterwards. But Christ's incarnation was a greater thing than had ever come to pass before. The creation of the world was a very great thing, but not so great a thing as the incarnation of Christ. It was a great thing for God to make the creature, but not so great as for God, a• for the creator himself, to become a creature. We have spoken of many great things that were accomplished from one age to another, in the ages between the fall of man and •he incarnation of Christ: but God's becoming man was a greater th••g than they all. When Christ was born, the greatest person was born that ever was, or ever will be born.