He of whom it is written, that He possessed wisdom, the simple, practical human wisdom, useful for this everyday earthly life of ours, which Solomon sets forth in his Proverbs, in the beginning before His works of old; and that when He appointed the foundations of the earth, that Wisdom was by Him, as one brought up with Him, and she was daily His delight; rejoicing alway before Him; rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth; and her delights were with the sons of men.

In one word, He is the Lord, in whose likeness man is made.  Man’s justice is a pattern of His; man’s love is a pattern of His; man’s industry a pattern of His; man’s Sabbath-rest, in some unspeakable and eternal way, a pattern of His.  Man’s family ties are patterns of His.  God the Father is He, said St. Paul, from whom every fathership in heaven and earth is named, that we may be such fathers to our children as God is to us.  God The Son is He who is not ashamed to call us brethren, and to declare to us the glorious news, that in Him we, too, are the sons of God, that we may be such sons to our heavenly Father—­ay, and to our earthly fathers also, as the Lord Jesus was to His Father.

Yes—­and even more wonderful still, and more blessed still, the Lord is not ashamed to call himself a husband.  Our human wedlock and married love is a pattern of some divine mystery.  ’Husbands love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, but that it should be holy and without blemish.’  Blessed words, which we cannot pretend to explain or understand, but can only believe and adore, and find, as we shall find, in proportion as we are loving and faithful in wedlock, that God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that they are reasonable, blessed, true; true for ever.

This, then, was the Lord who was coming to judge these Jews; not merely a god, but The God.  The Lord, in whose likeness man was made; who had appointed men to be fathers, sons, husbands, citizens of a nation, owners of property, subject to laws, and yet makers of laws; because all these things, in some wonderful way, are parts of His likeness.  He was coming to this nation of the Jews first, and then to all the nations of the earth, to judge them, Malachi said, with a great and terrible day.  To lay the axe to the root of the tree; to cut down from the very root the evil principles which were working in society.  His fan was in His hand; and He would thoroughly purge His floor; and gather His wheat into the garner, for the use of future generations:  but the chaff, all that was empty, light, and useless, He would burn up and destroy utterly out of the way, with unquenchable fire.  He would inquire of every man, How have you kept my image; my likeness, in which I made you?  What sort of husbands, fathers, sons, neighbours, subjects, and governors, have you been?  And above all, Malachi says, the root question of all would be, what sort of fathers have you been to your children?  What sort of children to your fathers?  Does that seem to you a small question, my friends?  Would you have rather expected to hear John the Baptist ask, what sort of saints they had been?  What sort of doctrines they were professing?