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| On the Passion, XII.: preached on Wednesday.
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Sermon LXIII.
(On the Passion, XII.: preached
on Wednesday.)
I. God chose to
save man by strength made perfect in weakness.
The glory, dearly-beloved, of the Lord’s Passion, on which we promised to speak again
to-day, is chiefly wonderful for its mystery of humility, which has
both ransomed and instructed us all, that He, Who paid the price, might
also impart His righteousness to us. For the Omnipotence of the
Son of God, whereby He is by the same Essence
equal to the Father, might have rescued mankind from the dominion of
the devil by the mere exercise of Its will, had it not better suited
the Divine working to conquer the opposition of the foe’s
wickedness by that which had been conquered, and to restore our
nature’s liberty by that very nature by which bondage had come
upon the whole race. But, when the evangelist says, “The
Word became flesh and dwelt in us1043
,” and
the Apostle, “God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself1044
,” it
was shown that the Only-begotten of the Most High Father entered on
such a union with human humility, that, when He took the substance of
our flesh and soul, He remained one and the same Son of God by exalting our properties, not His own: because
it was the weakness, not the power that had to be reinforced, so that
upon the union of the creature with the Creator there should be nothing
wanting of the Divine to the assumed, nor of the human to the
Assuming.
II. God’s
plan was always partially understood, and is now of universal
application.
This plan of God’s
mercy and justice, though in the ages past it was in a measure
enshrouded in darkness, was yet not so completely hidden that the
saints, who have most merited praise from the beginning till the coming
of the Lord, were precluded from understanding
it: seeing that the salvation, which was to come through Christ,
was promised both by the words of prophecy and by the significance of
events, and this salvation not only they attained who foretold it, but
all they also who believed their predictions. For the one Faith
justifies the saints of all ages, and to the self-same hope of the
faithful pertains all that by Jesus Christ, the Mediator between
God and man, we acknowledge done, or our
fathers reverently accepted as to be done. And between Jew and
Gentile there is no distinction, since, as the Apostle says,
“Circumcision is
nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing,
but the keeping of God’s
commands1045
,” and if they
be kept in entirety of faith, they make Christians the true sons of
Abraham, that is perfect, for the same Apostle says, “For
whosoever of you were baptized in Christ Jesus, have put on
Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither
slave nor free: there is neither male nor female. For ye
are all one in Christ. But if ye are Christ’s, then are ye
Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise1046
.”
III. The union of the Divine Head with
Its members inseparable.
There is no doubt therefore, dearly-beloved, that
man’s nature has been received by the Son of God into such a union that not only in that Man Who is the
first-begotten of all creatures, but also in all His saints there is
one and the self-same Christ, and as the Head cannot be separated from
the members, so the members cannot be separated from the Head.
For although it is not in this life, but in eternity that God is to be “all in all1047
,” yet even now He is the inseparable
Inhabitant of His temple, which is the Church, according as He Himself
promised, saying, “Lo! I am with you all the days till the
end of the age1048
.”
And agreeably therewith the Apostle says, “He is the head of the
body, the Church, which is the beginning, the first-begotten from the
dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence, because in Him
it was pleasing that all fulness (of the Godhead) should dwell, and
that through Him all things should be reconciled in Himself1049
.”
IV. Christ’s passion provided a
saving mystery and an example for us to follow.
And what is suggested to our hearts by these and
many other references, save that we should in all things be renewed in
His image Who, remaining “in the form of God1050
,”
deigned to “take the form” of sinful flesh? For all
our weaknesses, which come from sin, He took on Him without sharing in
sin, so that He felt the sensation of hunger and thirst and sleep and
fatigue, and grief and weeping, and suffered the fiercest pangs up to
the extremity of death, because no one could be loosed from the snares
of death, unless He in Whom alone all men’s nature was guileless
allowed Himself to be slain by the hands of wicked men. And hence
our Saviour the Son of God provided for all
that believe in Him both a mystery and an example1051
| 1051 Sacramentum
(with its saving efficacy) et exemplum (with its spur to
exertion), see Bright’s n. 74. | , that they might apprehend the one by being
born again, and follow the other by imitation. For the blessed
Apostle Peter teaches this, saying, “Christ suffered for us,
leaving you an example that ye should follow His steps. Who did
no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Who when He was
reviled, reviled not: when He suffered, threatened not, but gave
Himself up to His unjust judge. Who Himself bare our sins in His
body on the tree, that being dead to sins, we may live to
righteousness1052
| 1052 1 Pet. ii. 21–24: notice the reading of the Vulgate
indicanti se iniuste for the correct
τῷ
κρίνοντι
δικαίως (namely God). | .”
V. Christ not destroyed, but fulfilled
and elevated the Law.
As therefore there is no believer, dearly-beloved,
to whom the gifts of grace are denied, so there is no one who is not a
debtor in the matter of Christian discipline; because, although the
severity of the mystic Law is done away, yet the benefits of its
voluntary observance have increased, as the evangelist John says,
“Because the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth
came through Jesus Christ1053
.” For
all things that, according to the Law, went before, whether in the
circumcision of the flesh, or in the multitude of victims, or in the
keeping of the Sabbath, testified of Christ, and foretold the grace of
Christ. And He is “the end of the Law1054
,” not by annulling, but by fulfilling
its meanings. For although He is at once the Author of the old
and of the new, yet He changed the symbolic rites connected with the
promises, because He accomplished the promises and put an end to the
announcement by the coming of the Announced. But in the matter of
moral precepts, no decrees of the earlier Testament are rejected, but
many of them are amplified by the Gospel teaching: so that the
things which give salvation are more perfect and clearer than those
which promise a Saviour.
VI. The present effect of Christ’s
passion is daily realized by Christians, especially in Holy
Baptism.
All therefore that the Son of God did and taught for the world’s reconciliation,
we not only know as a matter of past history, but appreciate in the
power of its present effect. It is He Who, born of the Virgin
Mother by the Holy Ghost, fertilizes His unpolluted Church with the
same blessed Spirit, that by
the birth of Baptism an innumerable
multitude of sons may be born to God, of Whom
it is said, “who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God1055
.” It is He, in Whom the
seed of Abraham is blessed by the adoption of the whole world1056
, and the patriarch becomes the father of
nations by the birth, through faith not flesh, of the sons of
promise. It is He Who, without excluding any nation, makes one
flock of holy sheep from every nation under heaven, and daily fulfils
what He promised, saying, “Other sheep also I have which are not
of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and
there shall be one flock and one shepherd1057
.” For though to the blessed
Peter first and foremost He says, “Feed My sheep1058
;” yet the one Lord directs the charge of all the shepherds, and feeds
those that come to the rock with such glad and well-watered pastures,
that countless sheep are nourished by the richness of His love, and
hesitate not to perish for the Shepherd’s sake, even as the good
Shepherd Himself was content to lay down His life for His sheep.
It is He whose sufferings are shared not only by the martyrs’
glorious courage, but also in the very act of regeneration by the faith
of all the new-born. For the renunciation of the devil and belief
in God1059
| 1059 The renouncing
of the Devil and all his works and the professing of faith in
God have always preceded the rite of
Baptism: see Bright’s notes 78 and 142. | , the passing
from the old state into newness of life, the casting off of the earthly
image, and the putting on of the heavenly form—all this is a sort
of dying and rising again, whereby he that is received by Christ and
receives Christ is not the same after as he was before he came to the
font, for the body of the regenerate becomes the flesh of the
Crucified1060
| 1060 Corpus regenerati
fiat caro crucifixi an almost unduly strong assertion of the
union between Christ, the Head and the members of His body, the Church
effected by Holy Baptism: see Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. 60. 2,
quoted by Bright, n. 79. | .
VII. The good works of Christians are
only part of Christ’s good works.
This change, dearly-beloved, is the handiwork of
the Most High1061
| 1061 Cf. Ps. lxxvii. 10 (LXX.) and 1 Cor. xvii.
6. | , Who “worketh
all things in all,” so that by the good manner of life observed
in each one of the faithful, we know Him to be the Author of all just
works, and give thanks to God’s mercy,
Who so adorns the whole body of the Church with countless gracious
gifts, that through the many rays of the one Light the same brightness
is everywhere diffused, and that which is well done by any Christian
whatsoever cannot but be part of the glory of Christ. This is
that true Light which justifies and enlightens every man. This it
is that rescues from the power of darkness and transfers us into the
Kingdom of the Son of God. This it is
that by newness of life exalts the desires of the mind and quenches the
lusts of the flesh. This it is whereby the Lord’s Passover is duly kept “With the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” by the casting away of
“the old leaven of wickedness1062
” and
the inebriating and feeding of the new creature with the very
Lord. For naught else is brought about
by the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ than that we pass into
that which we then take1063
| 1063 ut in id, quod
sumimus, transeamus. He uses the same strong expression in
Letter LIX. 2, ut accipientes virtutem cœlestis cibi, in carnem
ipsius qui caro nostra factus est, transeamus. | , and both in
spirit and in body carry everywhere Him, in and with Whom we were dead,
buried, and rose again, as the Apostle says, “For ye are dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God.
For when Christ, your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear
with Him in glory1064
.” Who
with the Father, &c.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
