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| On Lent, VIII.
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Sermon
XLVI.
On Lent, VIII.
I. Lent must be kept not only by avoiding
bodily impurity but also by avoiding errors of thought and
faith.
We know indeed, dearly-beloved, your devotion to
be so warm that in the fasting, which is the forerunner of the
Lord’s Easter, many of you will have
forestalled our exhortations. But because the right practice of
abstinence is needful not only to the mortification of the flesh but
also to the purification of the mind, we desire your observance to be
so complete that, as you cut down the pleasures that belong to the
lusts of the flesh, so you should banish the errors that proceed from
the imaginations of the heart. For he whose heart is polluted
with no misbelief prepares himself with true and reasonable
purification for the Paschal Feast, in which all the mysteries of our
religion meet together. For, as the Apostle says, that “all
that is not of faith is sin933
,” the
fasting of those will be unprofitable and vain, whom the father of
lying deceives with his delusions, and who are not fed by
Christ’s true flesh. As then we must with the whole heart
obey the Divine commands and sound doctrine, so we must use all
foresight in abstaining from wicked imaginations. For the mind
then only keeps holy and spiritual fast when it rejects the food of
error and the poison of falsehood, which our crafty and wily foe plies
us with more treacherously now, when by the very return of the
venerable Festival, the whole church generally is admonished to
understand the mysteries of its salvation. For he is the true
confessor and worshipper of Christ’s resurrection, who is not
confused about His passion, nor deceived about His bodily
nativity. For some are so ashamed of the Gospel of the Cross of
Christ, as to impudently nullify the punishment which He underwent for
the world’s redemption, and have denied the very nature of true
flesh in the Lord, not understanding how the
impassible and unchangeable Deity of God’s Word could have so far condescended for
man’s salvation, as by His power not to lose His own properties,
and in His mercy to take on Him ours. And so in Christ, there is
a twofold form but one person, and the Son of God, who is at the same time Son of Man, is one
Lord, accepting the condition of a slave by
the design of loving-kindness, not by the law of necessity, because by
His power He became humble, by His power passible, by
His power mortal; that for the
destruction of the tyranny of sin and death, the weak nature in Him
might be capable of punishment, and the strong nature not lose aught of
its glory.
II. All the actions of Christ reveal the
presence of the twofold nature.
And so, dearly-beloved, when in reading or hearing
the Gospel you find certain things in our Lord
Jesus Christ subjected to injuries and certain things illumined by
miracles, in such a way that in the same Person now the Humanity
appears, and now the Divinity shines out, do not put down any of these
things to a delusion, as if in Christ there is either Manhood alone or
Godhead alone, but believe both faithfully, worship both right humbly;
so that in the union of the Word and the Flesh there may be no
separation, and the bodily proofs may not seem delusive, because the
divine signs were evident in Jesus. The attestations to both
natures in Him are true and abundant, and by the depth of the Divine
purpose all concur to this end, that the inviolable Word not being
separated from the passible flesh, the Godhead may be understood as in
all things partaker with the flesh and flesh with the Godhead.
And, therefore, must the Christian mind that would eschew lies and be
the disciple of truth, use the Gospel-story confidently, and, as if
still in company with the Apostles themselves, distinguish what is
visibly done by the Lord, now by the spiritual
understanding and now by the bodily organs of sight. Assign to
the man that He is born a boy of a woman: assign to God that His mother’s virginity is not harmed,
either by conception or by bearing. Recognize “the form of
a slave” enwrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, but
acknowledge that it was the Lord’s form
that was announced by angels, “proclaimed by the
elements934
| 934 Declaratam ab
elementis, viz. by the star in the east. | ,” adored by
the wise men. Understand it of His humanity that he did not avoid
the marriage feast: confess it Divine that he turned water into
wine. Let your own feelings explain to you why He shed tears over
a dead friend: let His Divine power be realized, when that same
friend, after mouldering in the grave four days, is brought to life and
raised only by the command of His voice. To make clay with
spittle and earth was a work of the body: but to anoint therewith
and enlighten the eyes of the blind is an undoubted mark of that power
which had reserved for the revelation of its glory that which it had
not allowed to the early part of His natural life. It is truly
human to relieve bodily fatigue with rest in sleep: but it is
truly Divine to quell the violence of raging storms by a rebuking
command. To set food before the hungry denotes human kindness and
a philanthropic spirit: but with five loaves and two fishes to
satisfy 5,000 men, besides women and children, who would dare deny that
to be the work of Deity? a Deity which, by the co-operation of the
functions of true flesh, showed not only itself in Manhood, but also
Manhood in itself; for the old, original wounds in man’s nature
could not be healed, except by the Word of God
taking to Himself flesh from the Virgin’s womb, whereby in one
and the same Person flesh and the Word co-existed.
III. Hold fast to the statements of the
Creed.
This belief in the Lord’s Incarnation, dearly-beloved, through which
the whole Church is Christ’s body935
| 935 Per quam tota
Ecclesia corpus est Christi. This is a great saying, by which
the centrality of the doctrine of the Incarnation is fearlessly
asserted. | ,
hold firm with heart unshaken and abstain from all the lies of
heretics, and remember that your works of mercy will only then profit
you, and your strict continence only then bear fruit, when your minds
are unsoiled by any defilement from wrong opinions. Cast away the
arguments of this world’s wisdom, for God hates them, and none can arrive by them at the
knowledge of the Truth, and keep fixed in your mind that which you say
in the Creed. Believe936
| 936 Notice that both
here and in the next sentence the construction is credite
Filium—credite Hunc not credite in
Filium—in Hunc, the exact language of the
creed being the latter (I believe in, &c.). | the Son of
God to be co-eternal with the Father by Whom
all things were made and without Whom nothing was made, born also
according to the flesh at the end of the times. Believe Him to
have been in the body crucified, dead, raised up, and lifted above the
heights of heavenly powers, set on the Father’s right hand, about
to come in the same flesh in which He ascended, to judge the living and
the dead. For this is what the Apostle proclaims to all the
faithful, saying: “if ye be risen with Christ seek the
things which are above, where Christ is sitting on the right hand of
God. Set your mind on the things that
are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye are
dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For when Christ, our life, shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with Him in glory937
.”
IV. Use Lent for general improvement in
the whole round of Christian duties.
Relying, therefore, dearly-beloved, on so great a
promise, be heavenly not only in hope,
but also in conduct. And though our
minds must at all times be set on holiness of mind and body, yet now
during these 40 days of fasting bestir yourselves938
| 938 Lit. “polish
yourselves up” (expolite vos). | to yet more active works of piety, not
only in the distribution of alms, which are very effectual in attesting
reform, but also in forgiving offences, and in being merciful to those
accused of wrongdoing, that the condition which God has laid down between Himself and us may not be
against us when we pray. For when we say, in accordance with the
Lord’s teaching, “Forgive us our
debts, as we also forgive our debtors939
,” we
ought with the whole heart to carry out what we say. For then
only will what we ask in the next clause come to pass, that we be not
led into temptation and freed from all evils940
| 940 A malis omnibus
liberemus. The free turn given to this passage is
interesting: ἀπὸ τοῦ
πονηροῦ (Vulg. a
malo) being now considered personal “from the evil one”
(R.V.). | : through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit
lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
