there is neither earlier nor later, for there can be no light without rays. It is quite correct to say that the rays are rays of light, that is to say they spring from the light and are produced by it, yet they are coæval with the light. It would be absurd to say that the light is changed or diminished because the rays spring from it. Moreover, it is clear that the light is seen only by means of the rays, and that they only can reveal it. Of course it is admitted that no comparison with any created thing can really be adequate in reference to God Most High: yet, as the skill and genius and something of the character of the artist may be learnt from his work, so from such a creature as light, one of the most beautiful works of the Almighty Creator, we may learn something of Him. Nor is this illustration a wrong one to use, since God Himself has inspired men to use it in the holy Scriptures.

Another difficulty is that the Gospels speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as hungry and thirsty, as being weary, as suffering, as dying, and He told His disciples that He did not know the day and hour of the judgement. We are told that He grew in wisdom and in stature. He often offered prayer to God, His Father. He is spoken of as the mediator between God and man. None of these things agree with what we know of the attributes of the Almighty and All-wise God, who is never weary, who can never die, who is unchangeable, and who has none superior to Himself. How then can it be said that

the Lord Jesus is possessed of the divine nature when some of His attributes are so very different from the divine attributes?

The answer to this difficulty also is not far to seek. We have already replied to it by anticipation.¹ The teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and of His disciples alike is that He, being from all eternity the Word of God, one with His Father, in the fulness of time took upon Him human nature, apart from sin, and became perfect man as well as perfect God. 'In the beginning ² was the Word, and the .Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made . . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father) full of grace and truth.' It is not possible for the divine nature to die, to be hungry, to thirst, to grow in wisdom, but all these things are in accordance with human nature. In order therefore that the Word of God might suffer and die for the sins of the whole world, thus making atonement for men's sins and opening to us all the doors of His Father's House,³ He became incarnated and took our nature upon Him. In His true human nature, therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ ate and drank and slept and awoke and underwent weariness and bore