But now, men and brethren, think of Christmas-tide, and all it tells and brings to us, and what a change is there! On this appalling picture, on this “day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains,”[148a]“the Sun of righteousness hath arisen with healing in His wings;”[148b]“the day-spring from on high hath visited us; to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”[148c]As we raise our eyes to the Christmas morning the light dawns not merely on our eyes but on our hearts. Here we find the “seed of the woman” who reverses our curse, and the curse upon the earth, by “bruising the serpent’s head.” He comes, He comes, the Saviour of the world, bringing “life and immortality to light through the Gospel,”[148d]because He is God and Man. “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: the government is upon His shoulder: His Name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”[148e]What can more declare His Godhead? But nevertheless He is “not ashamed to call us brethren;”[148f]nay, we are told, it even “behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren,” and this, that “He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.”[148g]Yes, and although He is such“a great High Priest, the Son of God passed into the heavens,” yet is He not one “which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”[149a]What can more declare His Manhood? Like unto us in all points, sin only excepted. Like unto us, with perfect manhood, human body and soul taken into the Godhead, so to be unto us “both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life.” As the new federal Head of the human race; as the one, and only one, of the descendants of Adam in whom sin found no place, and whose obedience was perfect, “He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God by Him.” Thus is God Incarnate our great High Priest and only Saviour. “To this end was He born, and for this cause came He into the world,”[149b]and such is the mercy which we this day commemorate. By this, the Incarnation of the Eternal Son, is the cloud of thick darkness rolled aside; by this, as the first manifested step (so to say) in our redemption, is the veil lifted; by this, is hope revived; by this, joy spread; by this, is Satan defied; by this, and by the consequences to which it led and leads, is he conquered; by this, is the sting taken from death, and victory wrested from the grave; this, is peace made for man with God, and peace brought to man within himself; by this, is he enabled to please God, for by the death of the Son made Man was the purchase and gift of theSpirit, whereby alone he can be sanctified. By Him, then, (“the great God and our Saviour,” as St. Paul terms Him,) are “we reconciled, and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;” by Him, “being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him:” and so truly “we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we have now received the Atonement.”[150]He is the great High Priest, with power in Himself as none other has, or can have, to offer up the sacrifice and “make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” He is the immaculate Victim, the one only meritorious Sacrifice, “once offered to bear the sins of many,” Whose “Blood speaketh better things than that of Abel.” He is the true Paschal Lamb, “without blemish and without spot;” “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;” the Lamb “slain,” (in God’s design, and His own ever-merciful intention,) “from the foundation of the world,” but manifested for this purpose “in the fulness of the time.” He is the great Physician, causing joy wherever He goeth, because He can heal all diseases; He is the great Lawgiver, proclaiming His will; He is the great Prophet, ordaining and promulgating His method of salvation; He is the great King, setting up His kingdom, marking out its boundaries, and ruling His subjects; He is the great Captain, ordering His armies, displaying His banners, giving out His weapons, going forth “conquering and toconquer;” He is the one Mediator, He is the availing Intercessor; He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; He is the Sun and Centre of the whole mediatorial kingdom; He is the Lord of this world and of the world to come!—And all this, because He is (as He is and ever hath been) “God the Son: God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; of one substance with the Father;” and because, in mercy to us, He became also the Son of Man, “conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary.”
Surely, then, this is a day “to be much observed unto the Lord,” a day in which we do well indeed “to make merry and be glad;” so only that our mirth be with sobriety, and our gladness with godliness. If, indeed, He had not come, if we had no Christmastide, and Christmas memories, and Christmas teaching, and Christmas faith, where should we place our hope? Truly, we should be “of all men most miserable.” Whether God could have forgiven man in any other way, without Himself becoming Flesh, and doing all which Christ has done, we know not. But it seems to be unlikely, according to His attributes and will, inasmuch as St. Paul plainly says, “without shedding of blood is no remission,” and (as we know,) “the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin;” whilst again it is declared, that God set forth His Son “to be a propitiation through faith in His Blood, that He might be just, and the justifier of him whichbelieveth in Jesus:”[152]from which it would seem that God’s attribute of justice could not be satisfied unless by the payment, by some one able to pay it, of the penalty due to man’s transgression. But whether it could have been otherwise or not, otherwise it is not. This is God’s way, and undeniably it tells us more of God’s love, Who gave His only-begotten Son; and of Christ’s tender compassion, Who shrunk not back from all which He undertook, than if we had been saved by a forgiveness, without an atoning sacrifice at all. Therefore this mode, God’s mode of pardon, as it supplies us with greater proofs of His love, so it gives us higher motives for our own love and gratitude than any other mode which we can conceive. Therefore this day calls upon us all the more for praise, adoration, thanksgiving, joy, and obedience. Whatever else we do, or learn, or think, we can never think aright, unless—in praising and thanking God for all His mercies, and for the birth of Christ in human nature, as the source, if we may so term it, of the Gospel scheme of Redemption,—unless, I say, we attribute all we are in sanctification, and all we have in hope, and all we feel in peace, to God and Christ. Whatever be His way to bring us pardon, whatever laws He has set up in His Kingdom, whatever means He has appointed,—whether His Holy Word, or His Church, or His ministry of instruction or reconciliation,—allthese are but His instruments, and He Himself is the only efficient cause of our salvation. “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto His Name give the praise.” No; even the fruits of the Spirit, wrought in us by Him, “albeit, indeed, they are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, though they are acceptable and pleasing to God in Christ, yet can they not put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s judgment.”[153a]Nay, not faith itself can do this; for though, as the means and instrument to lay hold on eternal life, faith may be said to save us, yet, as the efficient cause of our salvation it would be heresy to say so. For it is plain, we are not saved by anything of ours, even when wrought in us by God’s Spirit. As one of our Articles says, they are in grievous error “who say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law and the light of nature,” for that “Jesus Christ is the only Name whereby men must be saved;”[153b]so, truly, no one may affirm that we are saved, except instrumentally or conditionally, either by good works, (even if they were good, in the sense of being blameless, which none of ours are,) or by knowledge, or by the priesthood, or by sacraments, or by the Church, or by the Bible, or by prayer, or even by faith itself, for it is manifest that we are saved by Christ only, and by none else, either thing or person. He may have set forth, as He has done,certain conditions of salvation; He may have appointed, as He has done, certain means of applying to Him for mercy, and of obtaining mercy from Him; He may have ordained, as He has done, certain channels of help by which His grace flows to us, and enables us to receive His favour, and the reconciliation with God, which He has purchased for us; but it isHe, and He only, Who is the sole meritorious cause of all we have, and all we are, and all we hope for. So, truly, again we may repeat in the words of the Apostle, that it is “Christ Jesus, Who, of God, is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption;” not as if He could be this to us (God forbid the thought!) if we persist in sin, or in neglect of His way of life; but, as if (which is the truth), even if we had done all, we should be but unprofitable servants; as if (which is the truth) we are very far from having done all; as if (which is the truth) anything we have done to please God has been only of Him and through the purchased gift of His Spirit, and the communication to us of Himself. So that, indeed, we owe all to Him, and without Him are and must be lost indeed.
Brethren, as we think of these things, and of all we owe to Him in and for His abasement and humiliation in His Incarnation, should not “our hearts burn within us?” Oh, let them do so, with a reverent, loving, grateful, joyful sense of His goodness; Who, “though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor;” Who has gladdenedand cheered this otherwise dark and gloomy World by His presence in it in human form and nature; Who, since He came to it thus, has (though absent so far as the eye of sense discerns) yet never left it to be as it was before, but, by the very means of His Incarnation, dwelleth in it still,—dwelleth, aye, in us, and we in Him, if we be His by the Spirit. And all this, though He be so wonderful, high, and mighty—nay, because He is so,—the very and eternal God, born as on this day in the stable at Bethlehem! In Whom, lying there, in all appearance, a mere helpless, unknowing, human babe, in Whom were still “hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;” and “in Whom,” then as always, “dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
Oh, my brethren, believe that He sees and knows every one of us; and how we think of Him this day, and how we love and honour Him. He loves and longs for every one of us. He wills us to rejoice (and “again I say rejoice”) at the “good tidings of great joy which should be to all people” from that day at Bethlehem. Let our joy be, then, such as He sanctions, such as leads us nearer and nearer to Him, both in the exercise of dear and holy home affections, and in love to Him Himself; and then we may hope we shall indeed bless Him, not only now but for ever, that He has again brought us to this great and happy day.
When we gather, then, our families around usand see the aged, whom we love, still permitted to be with us, (though, it may be, now infirm and feeble,) let us rejoice in that hope, and the object of their faith, which gilds and cheers their old age. When we meet our fellows and companions of our own time of life, knit with us in the tenderest bonds of human affection, and enjoy with them some of that good which God’s bounty allows us, let us rejoice in the thought that they and we have a mutual share in things better than all which this world has to give, and are heirs together of the same common salvation. When we gather round us our little ones, and thank God for the blessing He has given us in them, and look forward not without anxious expectation to the future of their life, yet let us not forget to bless and praise His name that, by the Incarnation of His Son, He has permitted us to make our children His children, and has made sure to them all the privileges of their adoption and the promises of His covenant. So may we, whichever way we look and whatever meets our eyes, ever overflow with thankful joy that unto us “is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”[156]
Printed by James Parker and Co., Crown-yard, Oxford.
[1]2 St. Matt. xii. 29.
[2a]2 Tim. ii. 20.
[2b]Gen. ii. 7.
[3a]2 Cor. iii. 5, 6–9.
[3b]2 Cor. iv. 1.
[4a]2 Cor. iv. 2.
[4b]Ibid., 3, 4.
[4c]Ibid., 5, 6.
[4d]Ibid., 7.
[6]2 Cor. iv. 7.
[10a]Isaiah liii. 2.
[10b]Ibid. lii. 14.
[12]St. John xx. 22, 23.
[13a]St. John xxi. 3.
[13b]Acts xviii. 3.
[14]Cor. ix. 4, 5.
[17a]Acts xv. 36, 39.
[17b]Gal. ii. 11–14.
[19a]St. Matt. xiii. 55.
[19b]2 Cor. x. 10.
[21a]St. John xvii. 21.
[21b]St. Matt x. 25.
[21c]1 Pet. iv. 12.
[22a]Heb. xiii. 13.
[22b]1 Cor. iv. 12, 13.
[22c]Acts xx. 24.
[23]Job i. 8.
[24]Job i. 5.
[26a]1 Chron. i. 43, 44.
[26b]Numbers xxxi. 8.
[27a]1 John iii. 12.
[27b]Heb. xi. 4.
[28]Gen. iv. 2–4.
[30a]Gen. iii. 15.
[30b]Heb. ix. 22.
[33a]Gen. viii. 20, xii. 8, xiii. 4, xiv. 18, xxii. 13, xxvi. 25, xxxiii. 20.
[34]Heb. ix. 22.
[36]Calmet, under the head ‘Sacrifice.’
[40a]St. John viii. 56.
[40b]Gen. iii. 15.
[43]Deut. xiii. 14.
[45]Heb. xi. 4.
[48a]Rom. iv. 3.
[48b]St. Matt. v. 23, 24.
[49]St. Matt. v. 32, 37, 43, 44.
[50]Heb. ix. 9.
[51a]Heb. xiii. 10.
[51b]Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2, 3.
[53]Heb. xiii. 10–15.
[54]1 Cor. x. 18.
[55]1 Cor. x. 19–21.
[58]1 Cor. x. 13–17.
[66a]Heb. v. 4.
[66b]Carter on the Priesthood, p. 71.
[66c]Ibid.
[68]See Carter’s “Doctrine of the Priesthood,” p. 6.
[70]Vitringa de Synagogâ vetere.Prolegomena, cap. 2, quoted Carter, pp. 54, 55
[71]Palmer’sOrigines Liturgicæ. See Carter, p. 58.
[72a]Palmer’sOrigines Liturgicæ. See Carter, p. 59.
[72b]Carter, p. 60.
[74a]St. John vi. 52.
[74b]St. Luke xviii. 8.
[75a]St. Matt. x. 25.
[75b]Heb. x. 36.
[75c]St. Luke xxi. 19.
[75d]St. Matt x.
[75e]1 Tim. iv. 1.
[75f]2 Tim. iv. 3.
[75g]1 John i. 1.
[75h]Ibid. ver. 3.
[76]Jer. vi. 16.
[77]Gal. i. 10.
[80]Heb. vii. 1–3.
[81a]Coloss. ii. 8.
[81b]Job xxxviii. 2.
[85a]Ordering of Deacons in the Church of England.
[85b]Ordering of Priests.
[85c]Ibid.
[85d]Ibid.
[86]St. John xx. 21.
[87]St. John xx. 21–23.
[89]Second Exhortation in Communion Office.
[90]Office for Visitation of Sick.
[95a]1 Tim. iii. 15.
[95b]St. Matt. xvi. 18.
[95c]Ibid. xxviii. 20.
[95d]Ps. cxxii. 6.
[97]Sermon III.
[101]Carter on the Priesthood, p. 61.
[102]Some attempts have been lately made to throw doubt upon the authenticity of the copies of the ancient liturgies which have come down to us, as not certainly uninterpolated in places in later times. But whether there may be any ground at all for such suspicion or not, it is evident that the inferences drawn from the liturgies, both in this passage and in a former sermon, will not be affected. For the argument, as used in these sermons, is not dependent upon a phrase or a sentence here or there, which, it may be alleged, is open to question, but is based upon doctrine interwoven with their whole system, and pervading their whole structure, and is what moreover is borne witness to, as thus pervading them, by the whole mass of contemporary Christian writing. The liturgies, therefore, must not merely have been interpolated in places, but almost entirely re-written in another sense, and the great bulk of the writings of the Fathers forged to agree with this change, if the argument above is to be shaken by the question raised concerning them.
I find a passage in Hickes’s Treatise, “The Christian Priesthood Asserted,” which, though written more than a hundred and sixty years before Mr. Carter’s book, seems almost as if it were a comment upon the passage just cited, and the application which I have made of it. He says, “I believe no man in the world that was of any religion where sacrifice was used, and that by chance should see the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist administered among Christians, as it was administered in the primitive times, or as it is administered according to the order and usage of the Church of England, but would take the bread and wine for an offering or sacrifice, and the whole action for a sacrificial ministration; and the eating and drinking of the holy elements for a sacrificial entertainment of the congregation at the table of their God. To see bread and wine . . . so solemnly brought to the table, and then . . . brought by the deacon, in manner of an offering to the liturg or minister, which he also taking in his hands as an offering, sets them with all reverence on the table; and then, after solemn prayers of oblation and consecration, to see him take up the bread, and say, in a most solemn manner, ‘This is My Body,’ &c., and then the cup, saying as solemnly, ‘This is My Blood,’ &c., and then to hear him with all the powers of his soul offer up praises, and glory, and thanksgiving, and prayers to God the Father of all things, through the Name of His Son, and Holy Spirit, which they beseech Him to send down upon that bread and cup, and the people with the greatest harmony and acclamation saying aloud, ‘Amen:’ after which also, to see the liturg, first eat of the bread and drink of the cup, and then the deacon to carry about the blessed bread and wine to be eaten and drunk by the people, as in a sacrificial feast; and, lastly, to see and hear all concluded with psalms and hymns of praise, and prayers of intercession to God with the highest pomp-like celebrity of words; I say, to see and hear all this would make an uninitiated heathen conclude that the bread and wine were an offering, the whole Eucharistic action a sacrificial mystery, the eating and drinking the sanctified elements a sacrificial banquet, and the liturg who administered a priest.”—Hickes’s“Priesthood Asserted,”Library of Anglo.-Cath. Theol.,Oxford, vol. ii. p. 105–7.
[103]The scantiness of statements in the Articles, as to the inspiration of Holy Scripture, may illustrate this. Had it been possible to foresee the boldness of unbelief which these days have brought to light on this subject, or had our Reformers been now drawing up the Articles, we may feel very certain they would not have been content to leave that matter as it there stands. But they were engaged with practical errors of their own day, and not in stating all dogmatic truth upon other points. Many things were so fully assumed to be true as to need no assertion of their truth.
[104]1 Cor. xi. 26.
[106]Heb. vii. 25.
[107]Mede’s “Christian Sacrifice,” lib. ii. cap. 4, quoted in Carter, p. 65.
[108]Cardwell’s “Documentary Annals,” chap. vii, prop. 2.
[109]Carter, p. 25, note 1.
[110]Hickes’s Treatises, vol. ii. pp. 183, 184.
[111a]Bramhall’s “Protestant Ordination Vindicated.” Discourse vii. 3.
[111b]St. Jerome, adv. Lucif. c. 8. Carter, pp. 22, 23.
[111c]James i. 17.
[111d]Ps. xliv. 3.
[111e]Ps. cxv. 1.
[114]Acts iii. 12.
[118]Carter, p. 28.
[123a]Hickes’ “Christian Priesthood Asserted,” pp. 184, 185.
[123b]Rom. xi. 20.
[125a]1 Sam. ix. 11–13.
[125b]1 Kings viii. 62–66.
[125c]2 Kings xxiii. 22.
[125d]“But the man that is clean, and is not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep the passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.” (Numb. ix. 13.)
[129]St. John vi. 53.
[131a]Heb. viii. 1.
[131b]Mal. i. 11.
[132]Zech. xiv. 7.
[133]Ps. lxxx. 19.
[135]The following sermon, although perhaps in strictness hardly one of this course, was preached almost immediately after the others, and, in some measure, as a sequel to them. It is evidently not unconnected with their subject, inasmuch as the whole Doctrine of the Priesthood,—Christ our High Priest, through His Manhood “able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” and the sacerdotal powers derived from Him to “the ministers and stewards of His mysteries,”—is intimately related to, and dependent upon, the doctrine of the Incarnation.
[136]Col. ii. 9.
[137a]Acts xx. 28.
[137b]Ephes. i. 7.
[137c]Heb. ix. 12.
[138]2 St. Peter ii. 1.
[139a]St. John xvii. 2.
[139b]1 Cor. ii. 8.
[139c]Acts xx. 28.
[139d]“Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” by E. Harold, Lord Bishop of Ely, Art. II. p. 69.
[140]Owen’s “Introduction to the Study of Dogmatic Theology,” pp. 265, 266. See also, “Pearson on the Creed,” Art. iii. § 3.
[141]Philip, ii. 7, 8.
[142a]St. Luke ii. 52.
[142b]St. Mark xiii. 32; St. Matt. xxiv. 36.
[144a]Rom. ix. 5.
[144b]It may be observed that the above explanation does not in any way impair the argument in our Lord’s reply to His disciples. It furnishes quite a sufficient reason why such mysteries as “when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?” should be unrevealed to flesh and blood, that they are unknown to be angels of heaven, and even to the Son of Man, if His humanity be contemplated apart from His Divinity.
[147]Ps. xlix. 7, 8.
[148a]Joel ii. 2.
[148b]Mal. iv. 2.
[148c]St. Luke i. 78, 79.
[148d]2 Tim. i. 10.
[148e]Isa. ix. 6.
[148f]Heb. ii. 11.
[148g]Ibid. 17.
[149a]Heb. iv. 14, 15.
[149b]St. John xviii. 37.
[150]Rom. v. 9, 11.
[152]Rom. iii. 25, 26.
[153a]Art. XII.
[153b]Art. XVIII.
[156]St. Luke ii. 11.