Chapter I. The Divine Glory of the Sacred Heart

The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us; and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the Only- begotten of the Father. S. JOHN i. 14.

S. JOHN, in his first epistle, writes thus: ' Every spirit that dissolvetk Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is already in the world.'1 The meaning of the words ' that dissolveth Jesus' is this: — whosoever denies that the Son of God is come in the flesh, that is, the truth of His Incarnation, or in any way destroys the distinction of His two natures, or the unity of His Divine Person, or denies that He is the Incarnate God, or refuses to Him divine worship and the honour which is due to God alone — whosoever in these, or in any other way, destroys or denies the truth of the Incarnation, ' dissolveth

1 1 S. John iv. 3.

Jesus,' and, whether he know it or not, is a disciple of Antichrist.

The Person of our Divine Lord has heen, from the beginning, the centre of all the chief heresies that have tormented the Christian world. Like as in warfare, the hottest conflict is always around the person of the king, so, in the whole history of the Christian Church, the keenest assaults of heresy and the most concentrated enmity of heretics have been directed against the Incarnation of the Son of God.

In the beginning there were those who assailed His manhood, and taught that it was a phantom. Then came Apollinaris, who taught that He had a human body but not a human soul. Then came Arians, who affirmed that, if He had a Godhead, it was inferior to the Father. Then arose a cloud of semi-Arian heresies shading off in their distinctions, but all alike in denying His true Godhead. Then came Nestorius, who affirmed that He had a human person: then Monophysites, who taught that His two natures were confused into one: then Monothelites, who taught that He had only one will. For centuries the Church was tormented by a succession of heresies, all surrounding and assailing the person of the Incarnate Word, and all alike striving to 1 dissolve Jesus.*

And so it has been in these later times. Three hundred years ago there was what was called a reformation of the Church of God. Among the agents of that reformation there were three who bore the most fatal sway. A hand friendly to them, thinking to glorify them in what he wrote, composed for one of them an epitaph, and it runs thus:

' Tota jacet Babylon, destruxit tecta Lutherus, Calvinus muros, sed fundamenta Socinus.'

'Babylon is utterly fallen. Luther pulled off the roof (denying the true doctrine of our Justification); ' Calvin pulled down the walls' (denying the doctrine of the Sacraments); ' Socinus tore up the foundations' (because he denied the Incarnation of the Son of God, and therefore our redemption in His Precious Blood). These three agents of destruction have ever been at work all over what is called the Reformed Church to this day. They have been tormenting Poland and Switzerland and France — I grieve to say England in some part — and the New World, to which heresy has been carried together with Christianity. What is called Unitarianism — the denial of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and the denial therefore of the proper Incarnation of the Word — is the legitimate result of the Reformation. And this subtil heresy has spread widely in England, and its coldness has spread still more widely than its formal errors. The Church which is established hy law in England, so far as its books are concerned, is not indeed responsible for this. It retains the creeds, and it retains what is called the creed of S. Athanasius, in which the true and proper doctrine of the Incarnation is fully enunciated. A century ago a number of clergymen, who were at heart Unitarians, tried hard to get rid of the Athanasian Creed. In these days this effort has been renewed. Those who have authority have resisted the attempt, and I thank God for it. It is one more barrier in the way of the descent of religion — it is one more bond to hold the Christianity of England from hastening down the rapids which have wrecked the faith of Germany and Switzerland. I speak, therefore, of the Established Church of England so far with hope, and I bear a true affection to multitudes of those who are in it. I believe them to be in good faith. If they knew the light of the truth, they would give their lives for it. They would not for the world speak a syllable to derogate from the glory of the Incarnation. Therefore let nothing I am about to say be understood as reflecting on those whom I honour and love, though they be in error and in separation from the Catholic Church.

Let us, then, see what is the doctrine of the Incarnation, because, as the doctrine of the Incarnation is the true test of the disciples of Jesus Christ, so the divine glory of the Sacred Heart is the true test of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

' The Word,' that is the Eternal Son of God, ' was made flesh' without ceasing to be God. From all eternity He is God. In time He took upon Him our nature and was made man. He ' dwelt' in the midst of men, and men ' saw His glory,' and- that glory was ' the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father.' It was therefore a divine glory. These are the words of the Apostle. How are we to understand this doctrine? What is the Incarnation?

1. The Athanasian Creed will tell us; it is assumptio humanitatis in Deum: the assumption of humanity into God. It is not the conversion of Godhead into flesh, nor the conversion of the flesh into Godhead. It is not the confusion of two natures into one. It is the assumption of human nature into the unity of the Divine Person of the Eternal Son of God. He took the nature of man; He assumed it to Himself. And this assumption was the work of the Three Persons of the Ever-blessed Trinity, for all the works of Omnipotence ad extra are the works of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. The Father and the Holy Ghost assisted in the divine work of the Incarnation, but it was the Son of God alone who invested Himself with our humanity. The Person of the Son became incarnate, and not the Person of the Father, nor the Person of the Holy Ghost. But, as the Son of God is God, it is God who became incarnate. And in that Incarnation He assumed a human soul. In the order of reason, though not in the order of time, the Word of God assumed a human soul, and thereby a human body; a human soul like ours and a human body like ours in all its sinless infirmities; and therein He assumed the whole nature of man.2

2 ' In which wonderful conception Wisdom built herself a house, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and yet the Word was not converted or changed into flesh, that He should cease to be God who willed to be man; but the Word was so made flesh, that not only the Word of God and the flesh of man were there, but also the rational soul of man: and this Whole should be called God because of Godhead, and man because of manhood. In whom, the Son of God, we believe that there were two natures, one of Godhead, another of manhood, which the one person of Christ so united in Himself, that the divinity could never be separate from the humanity, nor the humanity from the divinity: nor in saying that there are two natures in the Son do we make in Him two Persons, lest, which God forbid, a quaternity should seem to enter into the Trinity. For God the Word did not assume the Person of a man, but the nature, and into the Eternal Person of His Godhead He assumed in time the substance of flesh; so although we believe the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost to be of one substance,

2. The Word of God, then, so became man or incarnate, that the Person of the Eternal Son was clothed in our humanity. The countenance that gazed upon the faces of men while ' He dwelt amongst them' was the face of God; and the hands that cleansed the leper were the hands of God; the finger that opened the ear of the deaf was the finger of God; the feet that Mary kissed in her repentance were the feet of God; the hands that were bound with cords were the hands of God; the hands and the feet that were nailed upon the cross were the hands and feet of God; the Blood that was shed for the redemption of the world was the Blood of God; and the heart that was pierced upon the cross was the heart of God; because the whole humanity which the Eternal Word assumed was the humanity of God. In that sacred humanity dwelt the Person of the Eternal Son of God in all the we yet do not say that the Virgin Mary bore the unity of this Trinity, but the Son alone, who alone assumed our nature into the unity of His Person. It is to be believed also that the whole Trinity wrought the incarnation of the Son of God, because the works of the Trinity are inseparable. Yet it was the Son alone who assumed the form of a servant in the singularity of His Person, not in the unity of the Divine nature, in that which is proper to the Son, not in that which is common to the Trinity: which form was fitted to Him in the unity of His Person, that is, that the Son of God and the Son of man should be one Christ.' Symbolum Fidei Concilii Toletani, II., A.D. 675.

fulness of His Godhead. The Son of God was not united to our manhood as the Holy Spirit of God was united to the prophets. S. Paul, in the first verse of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, expressly says, that ' God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son;'3 that is, by His Incarnate Son. Neither was the Godhead of the Son united to His manhood like as God is united to us. God is united to the soul and dwells in the soul by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, but we are not God Incarnate. The Saints of God are perfectly united to Him and He dwells in them, but they are not the Incarnation of God. The first Adam before the fall was a man united with God, but not God manifest in the flesh. His Blessed and Immaculate Mother, though she was more closely united to Him than any other creature, because of her very substance the Son of God took the substance of our humanity and united it to His own Divine Person, yet she is not incarnate God. The hypostatic union, as it is called — the union of Godhead and manhood in one person — is distinct from this and beyond all this. The whole Godhead dwelt in Jesus, as S. Paul says, in all its fulness 3 Heb. i. 1.

' corporally,'4 that is, in the body. The plenitude of Godhead dwells in the body of His humanity.

3. But, once more, there were in Jesus two distinct and perfect natures — neither changed nor confounded. It is impossible that the divine nature should become the human, or that the human should become the divine: for eternity and infinity cannot be communicated to the creature; neither can eternity or infinity be put off or circumscribed to the outline and stature of the creature. The two natures were perfectly distinct, without diminution or confusion. They were so united that in Christ there were two intelligences. There was the divine intelligence of the Son of God, which adequately contemplates Himself and all things possible to His almighty power. There was also a human intelligence, in which was all knowledge of which the finite intelligence of man is capable. And, as there were two intelligences, so I may say there were also two hearts; for the Holy Ghost, writing of the perfections of God, has used the language of man. In the book of Genesis we read: ' That when the Lord beheld the wickedness of man upon earth He was touched with sorrow of heart;'5 and when the Holy Ghost would describe the perfections of David, and the love

4 Col. ii. 9, 0-wjuctTtKtts. 5 Gen. vi. 5, 6.

that God had for him, He described him as ' a man after God's own heart.'6 The love and the sanctity of God are here spoken of under the symbol of a heart. And this, I may say, is the eternal heart of God. But the heart of Jesus is a heart of flesh — a heart taken from the substance of His Blessed Mother — a symbol, indeed, because it best symbolises and manifests the eternal love of God; but it is more than this, it is also a reality. And that human heart of Jesus was, in the hypostatic union, united with the eternal charity and sanctity of God — all the ardour of the eternal love was there, and all the fervour and all the tenderness of our humanity was there. And as He had two hearts, He had also two wills.7 There was in Him from all eternity the divine will, which is the love and wisdom of God acting in the absolute harmony of their perfections. And there was also a human will like our own — the spring and origin of all our actions. And these two wills were so perfectly conformed to each other — like two notes in harmony — so identical and yet so distinct, that there c Acts xiii. 22.

7 ' Wherefore, as we confess Him to have two natures, that is Godhead and Manhood, neither confounded, nor divided, nor interchanged; so the rule of piety teaches us that He, one and the same, our Lord Jesus Christ, had also two natural wills and two natural operations, as heing perfect God and perfect man.' Epistola Agathonis et Romance Synodi ad Condi. CEcum, VI.

never was, and never could be, a variation or a shadow of conflict between them.8 The Son of God from all eternity willed this great mystery of His Incarnation; and in time, by the spirit of prophecy, He said, ' In the head of the book it is written of Me — Ecce venio — Behold, I come to do Thy Will, 0 God.'9 When He came into the world He said, ' My meat is to do the

8 ' And that in Him were two natural wills or volitions, and two natural operations without division, or change, or separation, or confusion,.... and two natural wills not contrary, God forbid, as impious heretics have said, but His human will subjected to His Divine and Almighty Will without resistance or reluctance. For the will of the flesh must needs be moved and subjected to His Divine will, according to the doctrine of Athanasius, who was most wise: for as His flesh is called and is the flesh of God (crdpj- rov ©eou), so also the natural will of His flesh is called and is the will of God, according to His own declaration, " I came down from heaven, not that I should do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me," that is, the Father. He called the will of the flesh His own Will, as also His flesh became His own; for as the most holy and spotless and living flesh being deified was not destroyed, but remained in its own state and kind, so also His human will being deified was not destroyed, but was rather preserved, according to the saying of Gregory Theologus: "For His will, which is understood, in the Saviour is not contrary to God, but is wholly deified. We adore also two natural operations without division, without change, without separation, without confusion in Him our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, that is, the divine operation and the human operation; as the divine teacher Leo most clearly asserted, for each nature wrought that which was proper to itself in union with the other; the Word, that is, operating that which is of the Word, and the body accomplishing that which is of the body." ' Definitio Synodi VI. Const. III. A.D. 680.

9 Ps. xxxix. 8.

will of Him that sent Me.'10 In His agony in the garden He said, * Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done.'11 There was then no conflict in His human will. It was in perfect conformity with the divine. And upon the cross He offered Himself; as the prophet Isaias wrote, ' Oblatus est quia ipse voluit1* — He offered Himself because He willed it.' Of His own will He gave up the Ghost: ' Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.'13 And these free acts of our Divine Eedeemer had an infinite merit. It was the free oblation of the life and of the Blood of God that redeemed the world.

4. But though He had two natures, two intelligences, two hearts, and two wills perfect and distinct, yet there was but one agent. All His actions were divine and human, because the agent is both God and man. His actions are therefore called theandric or deiviriles, because they are the actions of God and man. There is but one agent, because there is but one person; and that one person is the Person of the Eternal Word. In the Incarnate Son there is no human personality, neither could there be. For a person is a rational nature, complete and

10 S. John iv. 3-4. " S. Mark xiv. 36.

12 Isaias liii. 7. 13 S. Luke xxiii. 46.

perfect, subsisting in itself, independent of all others. The Eternal Son of God is a person complete and perfect in Himself; therefore a human person in Jesus there could not be.14 If there had been a human person, Jesus could not have been God Incarnate. He might have been the son of a woman, and therefore the son of man, but He would not have been the Incarnate God. And it was impossible that there should be confusion in His personality, for, as I said before, a human person cannot become a divine person; because he cannot cease to be finite; and a divine person cannot become a human person, because he cannot cease to be infinite. Two persons cannot coexist without real distinction. And if there had been a human personality, Mary would have been, as Nestorius said, Mother of Christ, not Mother of God. Therefore, the Person of the Eternal Son was the sole and only personality in our Redeemer. In assuming our humanity, there was never a moment of time when that human nature existed

14 ' Uniri hypostatice Deum et hominem, nihil esse aliud quam naturam humanam non habere propriam subsistentiam, sed assumptam esse a Verbo aeterno ad ipsam Verbi subsistentiam.' Bellarm. De Incarn. lib. iii. c. viii. 3.

' Hoc est, unionem hypostaticam consistere in communicatione subsistentise Verbi non in communicatione attributorum Deitatis.' Ibid. B. 15.

separate from or independent of the personality of the Eternal Son of God. The act of the Incarnation was an instantaneous act of almighty power. The Eternal Son clothed His Person with our manhood, and thereby anticipated all human personality by His own. If that human nature had ever for one moment subsisted independently, it would have had its own personality. But it was never for one moment conceived independent; and cannot, even in thought, be separated from the Person of the Eternal Son without ceasing to be the Humanity of God. The absence of human personality in the Incarnation of the Son is no imperfection of the Sacred Humanity. It is its highest perfection. Our human nature was elevated; it was perfected with a perfection above its own, and was thereby lifted above the order of creation. It was assumed into immediate union with a divine Person, and because it was assumed into the unity of a divine Person it was in Him united to the Divine Nature, and thereby deified. It became the flesh of God — it became from that moment unto all eternity the flesh of God, because those two natures subsisting in the Eternal Word can never be divided. And at the right hand of God there sits the Incarnate Son; God clothed in our humanity for ever. As, then, there never was a moment when His sacred humanity was separated from the Person of the Eternal Son, so there never shall be.

5. Lastly, as I have said, the humanity of Jesus, being the humanity of God, was thereby ipso facto, eo ipso, in the very moment of the Incarnation, by necessity, deified, for it became the flesh or the humanity of God.15 Now there are two senses in i5 S. Athanasius says: ' God Himself was made Flesh that His Flesh might be made God the Word.' Lib. de Human. Natura Suscepta. sect. 3, torn. ii. p. 873, ed. Ben.

' Therefore he assumed a human and ingenerate body that, having renewed it as its maker, He might make it God,' i.e. ' deify it.' Orat. II. contra Arianos, 70, torn. ii. p. 537.

' Though the Flesh regarded in itself be a part of things created, yet it has been made the Body of God.' Ep. ad Adelphium, sect. 3, S. Ath. Opp. torn. ii. p. 912.

' He deified that which He put on.' Orat. contra Arianos, i. s. 7.

' The Lord when made man for us, and bearing a body, was no less God,.... but (He) rather deified it.' Ep. in Defence of the Nicene Creed, sect. 3.

' For He received it as far as man's nature was exalted; which exaltation was its being deified.' Orat. I. contra Arianos, s. 45.

' Being God, He has taken to Him the flesh, and being in the flesh makes the flesh God, fleoirote?; i.e. He deifies it.' Orat. III. contra Arianos, sect. 38.

S. Cyril of Alexandria says: ' We never say that the flesh of the Word was made divinity, but divine, forasmuch as it was His own (flesh). For if the flesh of man is called human, what hinders our calling that (flesh) divine which is the flesh of God the Word? Why then mock and revile the apotheosis of that holy flesh which we rightly understand to be deification?' S. Cyrill. adv. Nest. ii. 8, torn. vi. p. 51.

Again he says: ' Therefore we assert the Body of Christ to be divine; since it is the Body of God, adorned with ineffable glory, incorruptible, holy, life-giving; but that it has been changed into

C which the Fathers and theologians of the Church in speaking of Jesus use the word 'deified.' The one is that which I have already affirmed; and that is the proper, definite, and original sense of the word, namely, that the humanity which Jesus assumed is the humanity of God Himself. The other sense is, that being the humanity of God, it was altogether pervaded by the presence and by the communicable perfections of God. The Fathers liken it to the iron which, glowing with fire, is pervaded by the nature of fire; so the whole humanity of Jesus was pervaded by the personal presence and sanctity of the Son of the nature of deity neither any of the holy Fathers either thought or said; nor do we so think.' S. Cyrill. torn. v. p. 139.

S. John Damascene also writes as follows: ' The Word Himself was made flesh, conceived of a Virgin and manifested to be God with the nature He assumed, which was already deified hy Him in the moment when it began to exist. So that there were three things simultaneous — "Assumption, Existence, Deification." ' He calls the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, ' propter deificationem humanitatis.' S. Joan. Damasc. De Fide Orthodoxa, iii. 12.

S. Thomas says (Part III. q. ii. art. 1):

'As S; John Damascene says: "The Divine Nature is said to be incarnate because it is personally (hypostatice) united to the flesh, not that it is converted into flesh. In like manner the flesh is said to be deified (as he also says), not by conversion, but by union with the Word, without change in its natural properties, so that the flesh is understood to be deified because it is made the flesh of God the Word, not because it is made (to be) God." '

Also in q. xvi. art. 3, S. Thomas says:¹

God. It had, as the Fathers say, a twofold unction, whereby He was anointed as the Christ. It has the uncreated sanctity of the Son, and the created sanctification of the Holy Ghost. But this is a secondary sense derived from the true and proper meaning of the word ' deify,' which is that our humanity in Him became the humanity of God.

Now, if any man does not hold this truth, he does not hold the doctrine of the Incarnation. He may think he does. He may intend to do so. He may deceive himself; he may deceive others. But he does not hold the doctrine of the Incarnation as

God (Deus), but deified; not indeed by conversion of it into the divine nature, but by union with the divine nature in one Person, as is evident from Damascene (De Fide Orthod. lib. iii. c. xi. xiii.).'

And again (q. xvi. art. 5), S. Thomas says:

' Both natures in Christ are united to each other in the Person, by reason of which union the divine nature is said to be incarnate, and the human nature to be deified.'

De Lugo teaches as follows:

' Though,' he says, ' the Deity be not united immediately with the humanity, but only mediately (i.e. mediante Persona), yet this is enough, that it should truly deify the humanity. For the Deity alone, and not the Personality, is (forma deiftcans) that which deifies the humanity.' De Incarn. disp. xvi. sect. 1, 39.

The sixth (Ecumenical Council says: ' As His holy spotless animate flesh (i.e. with the soul) was not destroyed by being-deified, but remained in its own state and nature, so also His human will being deified was not destroyed.' This use, then, of the term ' deify' is consecrated in a definition of faith.

delivered by the Holy Ghost, as taught to the world by the Apostles, as defined by the Church of God, and as it is the doctrine of divine and Catholic Faith necessary to all who hope for salvation. But if the Sacred Humanity be the humanity of God, then it is invested with all the divine glories. As our Lord Himself has said, ' And now, Father, glorify Me, with the glory that I had with Thee before the world was.'16 * Before the world was.' What, then, is this glory but the divine? What was the glory of Jesus before the world was, but the glory which He had with the Father as the Eternal Word? Therefore, the humanity of Jesus is glorified with the divine glory in all its fulness. He was exalted to the right hand of God to sit in the glory of the Father, to be adored and worshipped in one divine glory with the Father and the Holy Ghost.

He is the Divine High-Priest by whom the world is redeemed. If the body on the cross had not been the body of God, God could not have given His life for us. But S. John writes by the Holy Ghost, 'In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us.'17 What life did God lay down upon the cross, if the sacred humanity and the life thereof was not the life of God? And if the Blood

16 1 S. John xvii. 5. " Ibid. iii. 16.

that was shed on the cross was not the Blood of God, how was the world redeemed? Your blood and my blood, even though we were saints, would not redeem even ourselves from our own sins, much less redeem the world. What, then, is the Blood which redeemed the world? What is the Blood which is offered for ever for us before the mercy-seat in the glory of the Father? It is the Precious Blood of God the Son, the Eternal Word Incarnate. And at the right hand of the Eternal Father He offers perpetually His own Divine and Adorable Blood, which is the Blood of God, for the propitiation of the sin of the world.

Therefore He is also to be worshipped as the Judge who shall judge the living and the dead. He who will come again is to be adored as the Creator and Redeemer and Judge of all mankind. And He sits there in all the royalties of His Father's Kingdom. ' All power in heaven and on earth is given unto Me;' and He is adored there both as God and man in the glory of the Ever-blessed Trinity. And as He is to be adored with divine worship at the right hand of the Father, so He is to be adored upon the altar present in the Blessed Sacrament. And wheresoever He is adored in heaven or on earth, His Sacred Heart is adored with divine worship. For the Sacred Heart is the Heart of God the Son, the true and proper Object of divine adoration and of divine worship. If this be not so, what is it that we say, day by day, at the altar, what have we been saying now in the ' Gloria in excelsis:' (Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord, Thou only, 0 Christ Jesus, art most high in the glory of God the Father '? ' For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a name which is above all names; that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.'18 What is this worship but divine worship? What is this glory but divine glory? What is this but the very words of the Evangelist? — ' The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the Only-begotten of the Father' in the depths and the splendours of the uncreated light of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

I have drawn out this doctrine, so far as time permits, in greater fulness, not without a purpose. At the outset I said that the doctrine of the Incarnation is the test of the true disciples of Jesus 18 Phil. ii. 9-11.

Christ. The Apostles who conversed with Him, and then preached His Incarnation to the world, were the witnesses that God was come in the flesh. They declared His divine glory. The test of their true discipleship was their fidelity to this truth, which is His very Person. So is it with us. And as the Incarnation is the test of our true discipleship, the divine worship and glory of the Sacred Heart is the test of our true faith in the doctrine of the Incarnation. Any man who denies this, or even a shadow of its perfect truth — any man who, hy suhtil distinctions, attempts to deprive the Sacred Heart of divine worship and glory — thereby convicts himself of heresy.19 Whether it be only material or whether it

19 ' But, you say again, we do not give adoration to a creature. 0, fools, why do you not understand that the body of the Lord which was made does not receive the adoration of a creature, for it is become the body of the uncreated Word, and to Him whose body it is become you offer your worship. It is therefore adored as it ought to be, and it is divinely adored, for the Word is God, whose own body it is. Wherefore when the women approached the Lord, He hindered them, and said, " Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.".... And yet approaching Him they held His feet, and adored Him. They held the feet and adored God, feet having bones and flesh that might be touched, but being the feet of God they adored God: and, in another place, the Lord said, " Touch Me, and see, that a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me to have." ' S. Athanasii contra Apollin. lib. i. sect. 6, torn. i. p. 926, ed. Bened.

Again he says: * Who is there so mad as to say, " Stand apart be formal heresy, I do not say, for I cannot read the heart; but a heretic such man is, for he denies a divine truth, and that the highest truth in the hierarchy of faith. As it was after the time of the Council of Ephesus, when the title ' Mother of God' was the test of the true doctrine of the faith, and a confession that in Jesus there was one only person and that person divine, so that any man who refused to give to the Mother of Jesus the title of Mother of God thereby convicted himself of heresy, so is it now, in these days, with the worship of the Sacred Heart. Any man who denies to the Sacred Heart divine glory and divine worship, thereby convicts himself of heresy. And do not think that this is a heresy of the imagination, verbal and unreal. No, it is here, floating round about in the air we breathe. It pervades multitudes who profess to believe in the Incarnation. The Jansenists, two centuries ago, set the example on from the body, that I may worship thee." ' Ep. ad Adelphium, sect. 3, torn. i. p. 913.

S. Thomas (p. iii. q. xxv. art. 1): 'Is the Divinity of Christ and His Humanity to be adored by one and the same adoration?'

He quotes the Fifth General Council, canon ix., and affirms that the Divinity and Humanity of Christ are to be adored with one and the same adoration.

In art. 2 he asks whether the Humanity of Christ is to be adored with the adoration of latria. He answers that the Humanity of Chiist is to be adored with latria.

the first rise of the devotion of the Sacred Heart. They accused those who adored it of separating the Sacred Humanity. For manifold errors they were condemned by the Bull Unigenitus, and exist no longer. Afterwards the Synod of Pistoia, following in their footsteps, accused those who adored the Sacred Heart of separating the human nature of Jesus from the divine. They, too, were condemned by the Bull Auctorem Fidei, for uttering on this head an opinion 'false, scandalous, and injurious' to those who adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They, too, have passed away. In these days we have heard the same things once more. Old errors come up again, and spread from mouth to mouth. They are at this moment busy and malicious. Not in the hearts of the great English people; I bear them witness. The last time I spoke to you on this subject was to give a benediction to those who went on a pilgrimage of devotion in honour of the Sacred Heart; and I bear honourable witness to the public opinion of England, that though there were many strange sounds and some uncouth and sharp sayings from the tongues and the pens of men, yet in the main the utterance of the English mind, as we read it daily, was full, perhaps, of a perplexed wonder, but also of a true reverence, partly out of respect for honest men fearless in confessing their faith, partly out of a manly reverence for a sacred subject, and, perhaps, too, out of a consciousness half-suppressed that they did not comprehend it as fully as they ought. I have seen nothing that has impressed me more with a belief of the religious character of the English people than the way in which, during those days, I may say weeks, this sacred subject was handled in daily discussion. For the most part it was treated with respect. Here and there, indeed, forked lightnings came through the clouds of mental darkness, and certain sounds of ignorance and of impiety. But they were not enough to qualify what I have said. What I add, therefore, I confine to a handful of individuals. They are few in number and of little power, but of a strange malice. It is indeed very strange, brethren, that there should be men who delight in evil, who exult over a heresy whensoever they hope they can find it. It is to them a revel if they can impute error or evil to what they call the Koman Church. A Catholic delights in the truth, and every particle of truth that he can find in any of those who are separated from the Church he accepts with joy. He blesses God for it. He has so much the more in those who are separated from him. He is so much the more united to them, because they are more united to the truth. Not so those who are out both of truth and of charity. They will find evil if they can with joy, and impute it where it cannot be found. But the man that rejoices in the hope that any fellow Christian, to say nothing of any Christian teacher, should depart even a hair's-breadth from the truth, such a man is doing the works of one whom he would not acknowledge to be his father. His inspiration is not of God. Such malice is not the malice of mere nature. There remains but one other source of inspiration.

Therefore, brethren, if you are called 'worshippers of men,' or 'worshippers of flesh,' which are the two titles given by the Arians and the Nestorians to the Catholics of old, do not be alarmed. We have been called harder things than these. We have been called ' worshippers of bread,' because we adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and we have been called ' worshippers of Mary,' though the very syllables convict our modern Nestorians of false witness. They well know that no one gives divine honour to the Mother of God; but every true disciple of Jesus gives divine worship to the Sacred Heart of her Son. Do not be afraid, then, if you are assailed for His sake. Is it not a grace?

Is it not a dignity? Is it not a happiness to be reviled for the divine worship of the Sacred Heart? It will not harm you. It will not divide you from Him. It will only bind you closer to Him and Him to you. Could you be irritated by an accusation. BO grateful to Him? No; rather thank God for it. /If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honour, glory, and power of God, and that which is of His Spirit, resteth upon you.20 The Sacred Heart will be to you a covert from the storm and a shelter from the wind, and as ' rivers of water in drought, and as the shadow of a rock standing out in a de,sert land.'21 Enter, then, into the Sacred Heart, and all these things will pass by you as the harmless wind.

One word more I must say before I conclude. It is a great glory to the Catholic Church in England to stand out almost alone in the broad light of day, and in the face of the English people, as the witness for the full and explicit faith of the Incarnation; as the witness for the Sacred Heart of Jesus; as the witness of its love and of its tenderness, and of the one Name by which alone we can be saved. To be the full, explicit, and inflexible witness for all these divine things — for the Person of Jesus, for the sole

20 1 S. Peter iv. 4. 21 Isaias xxxii. 2.

divine personality of the Incarnate Son, for the dignity of His Immaculate Mother, and for the sympathy and tenderness of His Sacred Heart — to be the witness for all this is a joy and a glory. England has to make a reparation. The doctrine of the Incarnation, as I have said, is indeed in the heart of the English people. But it is gravely threatened, and in every generation that passes I fear its light is becoming fainter and fainter, and the faith of men in that mystery is growing less and less. And why? Because the divine defences of that truth have been ruined in England. There are two outworks of the faith of the Incarnation. Like as we see in warfare, the outworks which defend the citadel must be taken before the citadel can be assailed. So it is with the Faith. The two outworks which protect the Incarnation are the worship or devotion which we give to the Blessed Mother of God and the divine adoration of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament. Three hundred years ago the very name of the Mother of God was cast out. Her chapels were ruined, her festivals were abolished, her rosary was taken from her children. Every memorial of her was effaced. The little ones of England who had been trained up till then with her beads in their hands were thenceforward to know nothing of her as their Mother. Too effectually has this work been done. But more than this: the altars were pulled down. The very name of sacrifice was effaced. The festivals in honour of the Blessed Sacrament were abolished. The word priest — everything that told of the Holy Mass, everything that manifested the presence of Jesus on the altar, the tabernacle and the light that burnt before it — all these things were taken away. And when these two outworks were destroyed, the citadel itself was assailed. The doctrine of the Incarnation has been battered ever since, and to this day its light has been fading in England.

And therefore I believe that the work of grace which God has revived in the midst of us in these days is a providential warning. I believe that this restoration of the light of the Sacred Heart, come whence it may, and I know not whence it came, has been ordained to revive with an intense fervour and with a sevenfold ardour our devotion to the Person, the Name, the Passion of our Divine Kedeemer. It is come to restore the faith of England — first, in the Incarnation; secondly, in the presence of Jesus upon the altar; thirdly, in a joyful recognition that the title of Mother of God is truly the right of her who bore into this world the Divine Infant, God the Son Incarnate.

A great grace, then, has heen poured out upon us and upon the people of England, and there will come a time, hastened by these things, when thousands and ten thousands of hearts will return again to the true Mother of their faith. I believe that in the confusions we hear around us the announcement may be heard that the light of the Incarnation will spread once more over England in renewed splendours from sea to sea.

But, dear brethren, in the midst of this visitation of Grace let us not be without a holy fear. If Jesus be now among us, He has come to put us on our trial: ' His fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into His garner, and the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire.'22

22 S. Matt. iii. 12.

Footnotes

1. And in this manner the human nature is not called essentially ↩