minds will be stunned and fail in the effort, so will it be if we should attempt to grasp in them the true reality of the meaning of the Incarnation of Christ. But this is said lest we should imagine that the understanding is called upon to do what is far beyond its powers. A true and deep belief may well exist together with an imperfect understanding: and the dangerous error which has often prevailed among men is, that it matters not what they believe as to the nature of our Blessed LORD and the other great revealed mysteries of the Gospel, provided they obey its precepts and rule of life. What are the words of Scripture? "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."* Believeth what? assuredly the Revelation which Christ made known to mankind. And shall that be called an unimportant part of that Revelation, which tells us who our Blessed Lord, its Author, is? Being GOD, is it immaterial that He should be acknowledged as such? Consider the meaning of our own words; when we say in the Creed that we believe in Jesus Christ, we mean that we believe that He is: that He is who? GOD the SON, perfect GOD and perfect Man: "equal to the Father as touching his Godhead,” though "inferior to Him as touching His manhood." Let us then, at times at least, and as we are able, bring our thoughts steadily to gaze at this amazing mystery, as it is made known to us; and in our minds hold fast that form of sound and safe words in which it is declared to us in Scripture, and thence taken in the language of the Church. Not that we are to make it the subject of frequent and familiar conversation. It is not for nothing * Mark xvi. 16. that our Lord himself seems to have rather led His disciples' thoughts to the contemplation of His Divine Essence, by His behaviour and actions, than brought it before them in express words. He spoke of Himself as the Son of Man rather than as GOD the SON. But nowhere in the Bible is any restraint laid upon our meditations; on humble and dutiful contemplation of what is revealed. Let us then often bring before our minds, and dwell upon, such texts as those great and overpowering ones:- "The Word was with GOD, and the Word was GOD." "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. "I and My Father are one."+ "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." "Christ Who is over all, GOD blessed for ever."§ "Great is the mystery of godliness: GOD was manifest in the flesh." For by the thought of these most penetrating words we shall be more impressed with the manifestation of the Godhead of Christ that shines through all the rest of Holy Scripture. And in praying, whether alone or publicly with the Congregation, to GOD the Son as to God the Father and GOD the Holy Ghost, let us sometimes at least pause, and endeavour to enter into our own minds, and reflect what we really mean by those heavenly and fearful, yet most consoling words. Now, in considering what may be useful helps towards thus deepening and making more and more real our belief that Christ is GOD, of course we must first mention those large and general ones, which are the appointed supports of every part of our faith, and the food of the whole of our spiritual life; frequent prayer, public and Ibid. xiv. 9. * John i. 1-14. || 1 Tim. iii. 16. private study of the Bible, participation in the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ; these, united with an honest endeavour to follow the heavenly light of conscience, and to please GOD, and not ourselves, in all things. For, towards the settling of every part of religious belief, the best advice is that contained in that great and important text of Holy Scripture, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of GOD."* But a few special hints may be given towards the formation of a right state of mind, chiefly on this principal mystery of Revelation, the Godhead of Christ, but partly also applicable to other mysteries. One may be, that we should guard against having low and unworthy views of human nature, as it came from the creating hand of GOD. We look around on the world and within upon our own selves, and seeing the endless misery and the sin beyond our power to measure, the utter debasement of the souls of many, the prevalence of avowed selfishness, and the want of any attempt even at true purity and holiness, among the masses of men, and feeling our own consciousness of deadness of belief, or pride, or worldliness, or whatever may be our besetting sin, we are startled, as if it were a strange and impossible thing, when we read that the Almighty Himself became flesh, and dwelt among such as we are, and such as men ever have been. But let us ever bear in mind, that this is the picture, not of our nature as it was first created, but of our nature fallen and corrupt by the sin of our first parents, from whom all mankind have derived it. This is not the state of man's nature partook of it. He indeed took our in which Christ *John vii. 7. nature upon Him, for it is still the same nature, essentially the same, though now fallen beyond our power to redeem, with that which was formed pure and holy by the Almighty. Let us never forget those memorable first words of man's history, "And GOD said, Let us make man after our image, after our likeness :"* and then, though it could never be other than an immeasurable condescension for GOD to take on Himself the nature of His creature, still this mystery will not be beyond our powers of belief, when we think how glorious that nature originally was; and that it was so done, not only to redeem man from the powers and penalty of so abject a state, but to restore him to the condition and privileges of one so noble. For no less than this does the Bible declare to have been the intention of man's redemption, had his will consented to bend itself to the gracious offer. It is also useful, and this is often insisted on, to help our thoughts in the contemplation of the unseen mysteries of Providence, by meditation on those which are seen, and of which no man can doubt. It has been well said that Providence is stranger than Revelation; that the course of history, the daily events of the world, the constitution of man, his life and his death, would be far more inexplicable to the thinking man, without the light which the Gospel sheds on them, than they are with it. Without going the least beyond what we see and feel, our own senses and consciousness, let us endeavour sometimes to ask ourselves, with deep and calm thoughtfulness, such questions as these :-What we really are? How and wherefore we were created and exist? We * Gen. i. 26. see and know that the outer world is, and has been as it is for a certain number of thousands of years; have we any idea of its true purpose and meaning in the counsels of the Almighty? Can we give any account of what and how the earth and the heavens truly are, not merely as they are manifested to us, but as GOD sees them? No man has ever lived who could answer these questions. Let them be rightly understood: we know from the Bible how we are to look on all these wonders as connected with our own history, and how to use them as far as is necessary for the good of our own souls; but the more we endeavour to reflect on the great mystery of Creation as it is in itself, the more we shall feel that it is a mystery, and the less difficult shall we find it to realise in some measure the belief of the Incarnation of GOD the SON, and all other mysteries of Revelation. Above all, let us think often of death; and let us think of it as it really is, not as the end of our life, but as an event in our life. We cannot say with certainty that a man's life begins with his earthly birth;* we know with absolute certainty that it does not end at what is called his death, nor at any time after it. This is one of the oldest and best known of truths; but again the question is, not whether we admit this truth in words, but how far it is really present as a believed truth in the depth of our minds. That he will die indeed no man doubts; it is perhaps the only future event concerning himself that the ungodly man does really believe. But does he really believe, or try to believe, what GOD's word tells him that death is, and Eternity which comes * See Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, &c. Works, Ed. 1832, III. 317. |