Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| On the Feast of the Epiphany, VI.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Sermon XXXVI.
On the Feast of the Epiphany,
VI.
I. The story of the magi not only a
byegone fact in history, but of everyday application to
ourselves.
The day, dearly-beloved, on which Christ the
Saviour of the world first appeared to the nations must be venerated by
us with holy worship: and to-day those joys must be entertained
in our hearts which existed in the breasts of the three magi, when,
aroused by the sign and leading of a new star, which they believed to
have been promised, they fell down in presence of the King of heaven
and earth. For that day has not so passed away that the mighty
work, which was then revealed, has passed away with it, and that
nothing but the report of the thing has come down to us for faith to
receive and memory to celebrate; seeing that, by the oft-repeated gift
of God, our times daily enjoy the fruit of
what the first age possessed. And therefore, although the
narrative which is read to us from the Gospel894
| 894 Narratio
evangelicæ lectionis. This, according to Bright’s
n. 46 (q.v.) “refers to the reading of passages of Scripture by
the Lector as a part of the church service.” |
properly records those days on which the three men, who had neither
been taught by the prophets’ predictions nor instructed by the
testimony of the law, came to acknowledge God
from the furthest parts of the East, yet we behold this same thing more
clearly and abundantly carried on now in the enlightenment of all those
who are called, since the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled when he says,
“the Lord has laid bare His holy arm in
the sight of all the nations, and all the nations upon earth have seen
the salvation which is from the Lord our
God;” and again, “and those to
whom it has not been announced about Him shall see, and they who have
not heard, shall understand895
.”
Hence when we see men devoted to worldly wisdom and far from belief in
Jesus Christ brought out of the depth of their error and called to an
acknowledgment of the true Light, it is undoubtedly the brightness of
the Divine grace that is at work: and whatever of new light
illumines the darkness of their hearts, comes from the rays of the same
star: so that it should both move with wonder, and going before
lead to the adoration of God the minds which
it visited with its splendour. But if with careful thought we
wish to see how their threefold kind of gift is also offered by all who
come to Christ with the foot of faith, is not the same offering
repeated in the hearts of true believers? For he that
acknowledges Christ the King of the universe brings gold from the
treasure of his heart: he that believes the Only-begotten of
God to have united man’s true nature to
Himself, offers myrrh; and he that confesses Him in no wise inferior to
the Father’s majesty, worships Him in a manner with
incense.
II. Satan still carries on the wiles of
Herod, and, as it were, personates him in his opposition to
Christ.
These comparisons, dearly-beloved, being thoughtfully
considered, we find Herod’s character also not to be wanting, of
which the devil himself is now an unwearied imitator, just as he was
then a secret instigator. For he is tortured at the calling of
all the nations, and racked at the daily destruction of his power,
grieving at his being everywhere deserted, and the true King adored in
all places. He prepares devices, he hatches plots, he bursts out
into murders, and that he may make use of the remnants of those whom he
still deceives, is consumed with envy in the persons of the Jews, lies
treacherously in wait in the persons of heretics, blazes out into
cruelty in the persons of the heathen. For he sees that
the power of the eternal King
is invincible Whose death has extinguished the power of death itself;
and therefore he has armed himself with all his skill of injury against
those who serve the true King; hardening some by the pride that
knowledge of the law engenders, debasing others by the lies of false
belief, and inciting others to the madness of persecution. Yet
the madness of this “Herod” is vanquished, and brought to
nought by Him who has crowned even infants with the glory of martyrdom,
and has endued His faithful ones with so unconquerable a love that in
the Apostle’s words they dare to say, “who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or want, or persecution,
or hunger, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? as it is written, For
thy sake are we killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for
the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome on account of
Him who loved us896
.”
III. The cessation of active persecution
does not do away with the need of continued vigilance: Satan has
only changed his tactics.
Such courage as this, dearly-beloved, we do not
believe to have been needful only at those times in which the kings of
the world and all the powers of the age were raging against
God’s people in an outburst of
wickedness, thinking it to redound to their greatest glory if they
removed the Christian name from the earth, but not knowing that
God’s Church grows through the frenzy of
their cruelty, since in the tortures and deaths of the martyrs, those
whose number was reckoned to be diminished were augmented through the
force of example897
| 897 Cf.
Tertullian’s famous boast in his Apologeticus (chap. l.,
§ 176), semen est Christianorum sanguis, and Leo’s
own words again, Serm. LXXXII. 6, non minuitur persecutionibus
ecclesia sed augetur. | . In fine,
so much strength has our Faith gained by the attacks of persecutors
that royal princedoms have no greater ornament than that the lords of
the world are members of Christ; and their boast is not so much that
they were born in the purple as that they have been re-born in
baptism. But because the stress of former blasts has lulled, and
with a cessation of fightings a measure of tranquillity has long seemed
to smile upon us, those divergences are carefully to be guarded against
which arise from the very reign of peace. For the adversary
having been proved ineffective in open persecutions now exercises a
hidden skill in doing cruel hurt, in order to overthrow by the
stumbling-block of pleasure those whom he could not strike with the
blow of affliction. And so seeing the faith of princes opposed to
him and the indivisible Trinity of the one Godhead as devoutly
worshipped in palaces as in churches, he grieves at the shedding of
Christian blood being forbidden, and attacks the mode of life of those
whose death he cannot compass. The terror of confiscations he
changes into the fire of avarice, and corrupts with covetousness those
whose spirit he could not break by losses. For the malicious
haughtiness which long use has ingrained into his very nature has not
laid aside its hatred, but changed its character in order to subjugate
the minds of the faithful by blandishments. He inflames those
with covetous desires whom he cannot distress with tortures: he
sows strifes, kindles passions, sets tongues a-wagging, and, lest more
cautious hearts should draw back from his lawless wiles, facilitates
opportunities for accomplishing crimes: because this is the only
fruit of all his devices that he who is not worshipped with the
sacrifice of cattle and goats, and the burning of incense, should be
paid the homage of divers wicked deeds898
| 898 The warning of
this chapter is insisted on not only by Leo himself often elsewhere
(see references in Bright’s note 51), but, among others
doubtless, by Cyprian in more than one passage, esp. in De
Lapsis, where he accuses even the clergy of worldliness in the
strongest terms. | .
IV. Timely repentance gains God’s merciful consideration.
Our state of peace899
| 899 Cf. Cypr. de
lapsis v. traditam nobis divinitus disciplinam pax longa
corruperat. | ,
therefore, dearly-beloved, has its dangers, and it is vain for those
who do not withstand vicious desires to feel secure of the liberty
which is the privilege of their Faith. Men’s hearts are
shown by the character of their works, and the fashion of their minds
is betrayed by the nature of their actions. For there are some,
as the Apostle says, “who profess that they know God, but deny Him by their deeds900
.” For the charge of denial is
truly incurred when the good which is heard in the sound of the voice
is not present in the conscience. Indeed, the frailty of
man’s nature easily glides into faults: and because no sin
is without its attractiveness, deceptive pleasure is quickly acquiesced
in. But we should run for spiritual succour from the desires of
the flesh: and the mind that has knowledge of its God should turn away from the evil suggestion of the
enemy. Avail thyself of the long-suffering of God, and persist not in cherishing thy sin, because its
punishment is put off. The sinner must not feel secure of his
impunity, because if he loses
the time for repentance he will find no
place for mercy, as the prophet says, “in death no one remembers
thee; and in the realms below who will confess to thee901
?” But let him who experiences the
difficulty of self-amendment and restoration betake himself to the
mercy of a befriending God, and ask that the
chains of evil habit may be broken off by Him “who lifts up those
that fall and raises all the crushed902
.”
The prayer of one that confesses will not be in vain since the merciful
God “will grant the desire of those that
fear Him903
,” and will
give what is asked, as He gave the Source from Which to ask.
Through our Lend Jesus Christ, Who liveth and reigneth with the Father
and the Holy Ghost for ever and ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
