Second Sermon for Christmas Day: On the Three Principal Works of God, and the Special Virtue Conspicuous in Each

“ The Lord hath done great things for us.” —Ps. cxxv. 3.

“ Great are the works of the Lord,” cries out the Prophet David. All God’s works are great indeed, my brethren, because He is Himself so great. But those which appear to be the greatest amongst them have a special relation to ourselves. Hence it is that the same Prophet declares in one of the psalms, “ The Lord hath done great things for us.” And there are three of His works particularly which proclaim aloud how magnificently He has dealt with us. These are, the work of our first creation, the work of our present redemption, and the work of our future glorification. But how many great operations, O Lord, does not each of the three comprise! To Thee it belongs to “ shew forth to Thy people the power of Thy works,” but concerning the works themselves we must not be silent. In each of the three | works of creation, redemption, and glorification, we have to consider a special union or blending of opposite elements, truly worthy of the divine power and efficacy. In the first work of our creation, “ God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life.” Oh, what an Artist, what a Compounder of things diverse, at Whose command the slime of the earth and the spirit of life are thus intimately wedded together! The slime indeed had already received existence, when “in the beginning

SECOND SERMON FOR CHRISTMAS DAY 391r

God created heaven and earth.” But the spirit had a creation proper to itself. It was not produced in — common with other things. Neither was it created in the bodily mass, but was infused into it in a singular and excellent manner. Acknowledge, O man, thy dignity. Acknowledge the glory of thy human nature. Thou hast a body like other earthly creatures, since it is only fitting that, as thou art set over all the material world, thou shouldst resemble it at least in part. But thou art also possessed of something more sublime, something which lifts thee entirely above the level of other visible beings. For in thee are united and compacted together spirit and flesh, the former infused, the latter fashioned from the slime. But for the sake of which element are they thus combined ? Which of the two gains by their partnership? According to the wisdom of the children of this world, whenever there is an alliance between high and low, he that is stronger obtains the dominion and uses for his pleasure his weaker associate. The more powerful trample upon the less powerful, the learned laugh at the ignorant, the crafty deceive the simple, the mighty contemn the feeble. But it is not so in Thy works, O Lord; it is not so in this union which Thou hast made. It is not for the sole advantage of the superior partner Thou hast associated the slime of the earth with the spirit of life, the lofty with the lowly, a noble and excellent creature with a mass of vile and worthless clay. For who does not know how much the soul benefits the body? What would the body be without the soul but a lifeless trunk ? To the soul it owes its beauty, to the soul it owes its increase and development, to the soul it owes its clearness of vision and the sound of its voice: in fine, it owes to the soul all its various powers of sensation. This union speaks to me of charity. I thus find the record of charity in the very page which tells me of my own creation. For the Creator has not only announced to me the law of charity at the very commencement of my career, but with His own Hand He has lovingly inscribed it on my being and substance.

Truly great, my dearest brethren, was this alliance of spirit and flesh, if only it had continued firm. As a matter of fact, however, notwithstanding that it had been strengthened with the divine seal (for God made man to His own image and likeness) the seal was broken and the union, alas! destroyed. When as yet that seal was fresh and new, the infernal robber came and broke it. The divine image having been thus lost, miserable man is now “compared to senseless beasts and is become like to them.” God made man righteous, and so stamped upon him His own likeness, the likeness of Him of whom the Psalmist sings, ‘‘ The Lord our God is righteous and there is no iniquity in Him.” He also made him truthful and just, as He Himself is Truth and Justice. Nor could the union between flesh and spirit be dissolved whilst this seal of likeness remained unbroken. But there appeared an impostor, who, promising our unsuspecting first parents a better seal, alas! alas! destroyed that which had been impressed by the Hand of God. “ You shall be as gods,” whispered the serpent, “knowing good and evil.” O malevolent one! O most wicked one! What advantage can it be to them to resemble their Creator by such knowledge? Let them by all means be as gods: let them be truthful as God is truthful, to Whom sin can never approach. For so long as the seal of such likeness endures, the original union of soul and body is safe. But we know now from experience to what we have been persuaded by the deceit of the devil’s craft. For when the seal had been violated, there followed bitter dissension between the partners and lamentable divorce. Where now, O impious one, where now is thy promise, “ You shall not die the death”? For behold we all die, so that the Psalmist says, “ Who is the man that shall live and not see death ? ”

But what wilt Thou do, O Lord our God? Is this work of Thine never to be repaired? Shall not he who has fallen be assisted to rise? But there is none that can help him except the Lord Who created him. Therefore, “‘By reason of the misery of the needy and the groans of the poor, now will I arise, saith the Lord” ; and “The enemy shall have no advantage over him, nor the son of iniquity have power to hurt him.” “I will form another union,” He seems to say, “‘ which I will secure with a stronger and deeper Seal, with that, namely, Which is not something made to My Image, but is Itself My Image, the Figure of My Substance and the Splendour of My Glory, a Seal not made but begotten before the day-star.” And lest you should have any fears that this new Seal may be broken like the other, listen to the Prophet speaking thereof, “ My strength,” he says in one of the psalms, “is dried up, viz., hardened, like a potshred.” Yes, “like a potshred,” but such a potshred as Satan, the mighty hammer of the whole earth, has no power to break. The first union was an alliance of two, the second is a conjunction of three, suggesting to us a resemblance to the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. The Word Who “was in the beginning with God” and “ was God”; the Soul Which had been created out of nothing and before was not; and the Flesh Which divine wisdom separated from the mass of corruption and preserved undefiled: these three elements have coalesced in the unity of a single Person, and are bound together with an indissoluble bond. In this union we find a threefold manifestation of power: that which was not has been created; that which had perished has been restored ; that which was over all things has been “ made a little less than the angels.” These three ingredients, my brethren, are symbolised by the “ three measures of meal,” which, as the Gospel tells us, were leavened together, and made into the “Bread of angels” whereof man eateth, the Bread Which “‘strengtheneth man’s heart.” Happy that woman, and blessed amongst all women, in whose chaste bosom this heavenly Bread was baked, baked over the fire of the Holy Spirit. Blessed, I say, is that woman who hid the leaven of her faith in these three measures. For it was by faith she conceived and by faith she brought forth. To this St. Elizabeth bears witness when she says, “‘ Blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.” And be not surprised to hear that it was by means of Mary’s faith that the Word was united to flesh, because it was from Mary’s flesh Christ’s Flesh was taken. Nor is it any objection to this interpretation that, according to the Gospel, “the kingdom of heaven is like to leaven.” For, as it seems to me, the faith of Mary may also be likened to the kingdom of heaven, since it was by her faith the kingdom of heaven has been restored.

Therefore no creature has power to break the bond of this second union, since even “ the prince of this world hath not anything” he can claim in Christ, and the Baptist is not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoe. What then? It is plainly needful that it be dissolved to some extent. Otherwise the first union, which has been destroyed, can never be restored. Bread that is unbroken, a treasure that is concealed, wisdom that is not manifest—what is the use of such things ? With good reason did St. John weep, as he tells us in the Apocalypse, “because no man was found worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof.” For whilst it remained closed none of us could gain access to the divine wisdom it contained. Open Thou the book, O Lamb of God, O Thou Who art meekness itself. Present Thy Hands and Thy Feet to the Jew, to bepierced with nails, so that the treasure of salvation, the “ plentiful redemption ” concealed within, may at last pour itself out. ‘‘ Break Thy bread to the hungry,” because Thou alone canst break it Who alone art able to stand in order to repair Thy broken creatures. For in the general breaking * Thou alone dost possess the power to lay down Thy life and to take it up again when Thou pleasest. Therefore, in Thy compassion for our need, let this Temple be dissolved in part, but not utterly destroyed. Let the Soul be separated from the Body, but let the Divinity guard the incorruption of the Flesh, and confer upon the Spirit full liberty, so that It alone may be “free among the dead” to lead forth from their prison-house them that are shut up and sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. Let Thy holy Soul lay aside Its immaculate Flesh, but only to take It up again on the third day, so that by dying Thou mayest destroy death, and by rising from the dead mayest restore life to man. So it has been, dearest brethren, and it is a cause of joy to us that it has so been. Death has been slain by His death, and we have been “‘ regenerated unto the hope of life by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” But as for the third union, who shall describe it ? “ Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.” That will be the consummation, when Christ shall “deliver up the kingdom to God and the Father,” and they, viz., Christ and His Bride, the Church, shall be two, not now in one flesh, but in one spirit. For if the Word by cleaving to the flesh was made flesh, much more shall she that cleaves to God become one spirit with Him. In the second union of the Word with flesh, humility is manifested, a humility exceedingly great. But in that for which we look, for which we sigh, there is laid up for us—if indeed for us—the perfection of heavenly glory. If you recall now what I said about the first of these unions, in which man is compacted of spirit and flesh, namely, that therein charity is commended to us, you will see with what reason humility is so conspicuous in the second, because it is only the virtue of humility that can repair the injury done to charity. The union of such a noble creature as the rational soul with a body fashioned from the slime of the earth, must not be ascribed to humility. For it is not by its own deliberate choice that the spirit is mixed with matter, since it is infused by the very act which creates it and created by the very act which infuses it.* But the same is not true of the Sovereign and Divine Spirit, Who being infinitely good, has united Himself by His own free will and pleasure to a Body pure and undefiled. Then the union of glory follows upon that of charity and humility ; because without charity nothing is of any avail, and, according to the words of Christ, no one shall be exalted but he that humbleth himself.