for the whole creation, nor would He have sufficed to redeem the
world, nor have laid down His life by way of price for it, and
poured forth for us His precious Blood, if He be not really the
Son, and God of God." #

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^ Catech., xiii. 2.
# De Sancta Trinitate, dial. A. (quoted Liddon, B. L., p. 477).
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How different is all this from the language of those who would
deny or question the Virgin-Birth! With them the Resurrection is
denied as a literal fact; the whole meaning of the Atonement as
being a real sacrifice for sin, a real propitiation, is
eviscerated of its meaning, and is reduced to a moral appeal to
man; and finally, we find that whereas Christians have been
thinking and speaking of Christ as truly God, who in becoming man
"did not abhor the Virgin's womb," modern writers really mean a
very good man who does not, however, differ in kind but only in
excellence of degree from any saint; and by Incarnation they mean
that moral union which a good man has with God, only illustrated
in the case of Christ in an altogether unique degree. If,
however, the Incarnation be what Christendom believes it to have
been; if the Son of God did really take flesh in the womb of Mary,
and became man, not by assuming a human personality, but by
assuming human nature, by entering into human conditions of
life,--it is indeed difficult to imagine any other way of such an
Incarnation save by way of the Virgin-Birth, by which the entail
of original sin was cut off, and humanity made a fresh start in
the Eternal Person of the Second Adam. And if He is indeed