Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

THE CHIEF TRUTHS.

No. II.-THE INCARNATION OF OUR BLESSED LORD.

66

"God was manifest in the Flesh." (1 Tim. iii. 16.) " The Word," who was "in the beginning with God," and who 66 was God." "The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.") (St. John i. 1, 14.) He who was "declared to be the Son of God with power," was made of the seed of David according to the Flesh." (Rom. i. 3, 4.) "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." (Heb. ii. 14.)

66

[ocr errors]

THIS blessed truth which Holy Scripture thus declares to us, is the very root and corner-stone of our Christian faith. It is as the link which joins man with God, and raises earth to heaven. To have a share in the benefits of our Lord's Incarnation, is the privilege of each individual member of Christ, so to each one does it become a duty, as it is also a blessing, to meditate upon it, to realize it, and to learn how such glorious privileges are applied to himself.

We know that when Adam by disobedience fell, our nature fell with him. All mankind partook of the stain, which Adam, the first man, had brought upon his race. All mankind, therefore, needed some signal regeneration, ere the image of God, which had been defaced, could be restored to it. Such a regeneration was hoped for and expected by our forefathers even from the time of the fall. To Adam it was announced by the mysterious promise, that the

seed of the woman should break the serpent's head." The hopes of this promised seed were confirmed to the Patriarchs, and to Isaiah the wonderful method of man's redemption was more clearly revealed, when it was foretold that "A Virgin should conceive, and bear a Son, and should call His Name Emmanuel," " which is, being interpreted, God with us." (Isa. vii. 14; St. Matt. i. 23.) Thus gradually had men's minds been prepared for the awful mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God.

But it was only when "the fulness of time was come," and Jesus Christ, the great God and Saviour of the world, was "conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary," that these dim hopes and mysterious prophecies were exchanged for glorious truths, and blessed

certainties. Then it was that the Eternal Word of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, restored and sanctified our nature by taking it upon Him, so that what had been lost in Adam was regained in Christ.

This is one of the greatest and most important articles of our Christian faith; so great and important is it, that, as the Church tells us in the Athanasian Creed, it is necessary to our everlasting salvation that we believe it " rightly." The right faith then is, "that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man; God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds: and man, of the substance of His mother, born in the world; perfect God, and perfect man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting; equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father, as touching His manhood." (Athanasian Creed.) Such is the Catholic Faith on the doctrine of the Incarnation, as handed down to us by the Church.

Deep and mysterious as this truth is, yet there is not one of us, who by faith may not rightly receive it, and dwell on it to his soul's good.

God and man joined together, and becoming

one Person in our Lord Jesus Christ, this is what we have to keep steadily in view in contemplating Him; then, while we behold Him in the flesh as perfect man, we shall not fail to remember that He is also perfect God; while we look upon Him as the great Restorer and Deliverer of our race, we may also take comfort from His human sympathy, and benefit by His human example.

So let us draw near to meditate upon our incarnate God.

Many are the thoughts which will fill our minds when we look upon Him in helpless infancy lying in the manger at Bethlehem. Beholding in the Holy Child Jesus none other than the great and mighty God, we shall scarcely know whether most to wonder at the honour our nature has received, or at His condescension in conferring it. Indeed the very thought of God coming down from heaven, and becoming a little child for our sakes, is of itself so touching and overwhelming, that it cannot fail to awaken in the minds of all, even the most simple amongst us, feelings of awe and thankfulness. With the deepest gratitude and devotion to Him who was thus man for us, we may also mingle some thought of reverence, reverence

kept within due bounds, for her of whom mention is made in the Creed, and who, as the chosen instrument of bringing Him into the world, was called "highly favoured," and "blessed among women." Neither should we leave the sacred scene until we have learned to " follow the example of His great humility." To children especially the infancy and childhood of the blessed Jesus, should be a subject of special contemplation. To them it will be a continual pattern in innocence, purity, meekness and submission. To us all it should teach a lesson of self-abasement and humility, for if He, who "being in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God," "made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men," surely "this mind should be in us which was also in Christ Jesus;" we should "do nothing through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, each esteem other better than themselves." (Philip. ii. 3—8.)

And so also, in following the blessed steps of our Lord's most holy life. He vouchsafed to take our whole nature upon Him, and to become perfect man" of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting," in order that we might make

« AnteriorContinuar »