The Incarnation is the first article of the Mystery of Godliness. The New Testament opens with it, and the apprehension of it by each member of the Church must of necessity be prior to his right conception of every other truth of God. The Atonement wrought out by the Son of God, His everlasting Priesthood, His Headship over the Church, and His future judgment, all depend upon the truth of His Holy Incarnation. His Incarnation is the only foundation which can bear such a superstructure. . . . No other thing which God has made known to us has any place in His Word to be compared to that which He has assigned to the Incarnation of His Dear Son, as including, of course, its immediate issues in our Reconciliation through His Death, and Justification through His Resurrection. It is immeasurably more prominent than the revelation of a Future State or of Original Sin. It takes precedence of all enunciations of the general goodness of God, or of the holiness of God, or of His justice, or of His mercy. All appeals to us to follow the example of Christ’s humility and self-denial assume the truth of His Incarnation, and would fall to the ground without it (M. F. Sadler, Emmanuel, or, The Incarnation of the Son of God the Foundation of Immutable Truth, 1-3).